The USDA Soil texture classes are sand, loamy sands, sandy loams, loam, silt loam, silt, sandy clay loam, clay loam, silty clay loam, sandy clay, silty clay, and clay. Subclasses of sand are subdivided into coarse sand, sand, fine sand, and very fine sand. Subclasses of loamy sands and sandy loams that are based on sand size are named similarly. Soil classes in BOLD are commonly found in the northeast.
The soil textural triangle is used when lab data is available.
The term “Loam” is often confused with topsoil material sold as farm loom. Loam is a USDA soil textural class that has fairly equal amounts of sand silt in clay. Loam textures are not very prevalent in New England (due to the low clay content of our soils).
