No. 63.] 175 



ous and intelligent population, mostly derived from New-England, 

 and its great mineral stores of salt and gypsum, have doubtless es- 

 sentially contributed. The third county in population in the state, 

 its social, political, and agricultural influence is widely felt; but it is 

 to a brief sketch of her resources in regard to agriculture, that this 

 paper must be confined. 



Onondaga county contains, according to its assessment rolls, 454,700 

 acres of land; of which 270,330 acres, according to the state census 

 of 1835, was improved, and the quantity cultivated does not at 

 the present time differ materially from that amount. The gain of 

 improved land since the census, has been in the northern towns of 

 the county. As there is but little land in the county incapable of 

 improvement, the quantity of cultivated land may be estimated at the 

 present time at 300,000 acres; leaving about 150,000 acres as wood- 

 land, or such as is not fit for culture. A small part of this is covered 

 by the lakes of the county, and another part, principally in the north- 

 ern towns, by swamps which are as yet undrained. 



The agricultural character of Onondaga county cannot be clearly 

 understood without some knowledge of its geological position, and 

 the several causes that have been brought to bear upon and modify 

 the qualities of the soil in its various parts. In the New-York sys- 

 tem of rocks, extending from the primitive to the coal, as divided 

 and classified in the elaborate and final reports of the Geological Sur- 

 veyors of the state, Onondaga occupies a position extending from the 

 Clinton group (the lower member of the Protean group of the early 

 reports,) upwards, embracing the Niagara group, the Onondaga Salt 

 group, the Water lime group, the Oriskany sandstone, the Onondaga 

 limestone, the Corniferous and Seneca limestones, the Marcellus 

 shales, the Hamilton group, the Tully limestones, the Genesee slate, 

 and on the highest hills in the southern towns of the county, some 

 of the Portage group. 



The Clijiton group barely appears at Fort Brewerton, and along 

 the outlet of the Oneida. Its influence on the soils is limited. The 

 Jfiagara group shows itself in the towns of Cicero, Clay, and Ly- 

 sander, and the limestones and shales composing it, have a decided 

 influence on the soils overlying them. The mass of limestone which 

 here has a thickness of only from five to ten feet, at Niagara has 

 increased to eighty, and at Galena and Dubuque on the Mississippi, 

 to more than four hundred feet. The Onondaga Salt group contains, 

 1st, the red shale. This mass occupies in connection with No. 2 of 

 the same group, from which it does not widely differ, all the south 

 part of Cicero and Clay, the whole of Salina and Van Biiren, the 

 south part of Lysander, and the north part of Camillus and Elbridge. 

 Above this is No. 3 of the salt group, containing the plaster beds, and 

 the hopper shaped cavities, proving the former existence of rock salt. 

 This is narrow, and crosses Manlius, Onondaga, Camillus and El- 

 bridge. No. 4 of this group, is a limestone of limited thickness, 

 abounding in cavities formed by sulphate of magnesia. The salt 

 group, in its several divisions, covers a larger part of the county than 

 any other of its rock masses, and exercises a more than proportionate 



