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I can sure tell you about our glacial till, since we had to dig holes to "perk" before we could install septic system
long-time pastures and lawns with lots of fertilizer applied, do get mole tunnels ... I just get MOSS ....
Some day go out to the Mima Mounds to get an idea of what the native prairie looked like: not a whole lot of soil development, lots of moss and lichen, more like tundra than Great Plains style sod. Which distinction did not sink in to the first farmer's perceptions until it was too late. One of the epigrams I heard from the old'uns (who said Yellum instead of Yelm and used Chinook jargon without thinking): When Hudson Bay planted wheat here the first year they got a bumper crop like they'd never seen, the second year they got a normal crop, the third a very poor one and the fourth the sprouts died of starvation. There's some productive soils around the southern end of Puget Sound now but most of it is a result of a century or more of carefully building organic layers, and the best of it is paved over north of Auburn. or in subdivisions in the Evergreen Valley.
I learned my gardening on Yelm Prairie, so I don't complain too much about how picky I have to be about watering and fertilizing here!
since I used to be a member out at Evergreen Gun Club, and even won the women's division at Rendezvous several times; oh yes I know the Mima Mounds ... also remember the shortest way to I-5 south from here, is via Rainier, Tenino, and diagonally towards Grand Mound ... lots of not-yet-bulldozed MOUNDED farmland on that route, grazed by alpacas, buffalo, longhorns, and other interesting fauna
