From today’s Wall Street Journal: The New Jersey state Assembly has passed a bill designating a sandy loam called “Downer soil” as the official state dirt of the Garden State. Dirt often gets a bad rap. But according to David Friedman, who runs the Ocean County soil-conservation district, “It connects plants and animals and water and everything.”
While New Jersey gets front-page articles in the Wall Street Journal about its state dirt, Virginia lawmakers stand by and twiddle their thumbs. To my knowledge, Virginia’s General Assembly hasn’t even thought of designating a state dirt, much less come up with a candidate … much less hold hearings or start building a statewide consensus. Heck, we still can’t even agree on a state song.
The Old Dominion does have a state bird (the cardinal), a state dog (the American fox hound), a state insect (the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly), a state fish (the brook trout), a state shell (the oyster), a state flower (the American Dogwood), and a state flower (also the American Dogwood). We have a state dance (the square dance), a state boat (the Chesapeake Bay deadrise), a state beverage (milk), and even a state fossil — Chesapecten jeffersonius, a shell named for Thomas Jefferson and Chesapeake Bay.
If we can have a state fossil, I say it’s high time that we, too, have a state soil. I’m just not sure what to name it. I’m thinking…. red clay… or maybe… sand. Whatever we choose, we’d better get moving, or you can be darn sure that North Carolina and Maryland will beat us to the better ones. Do Bacon’s Rebellion readers have any other candidates?
