No. 112.] 361 



turn for your repeated favors, and, if possible, to add a mite to 

 the history of our agriculture. lean not answer your inquiry, 

 " What is the chief production of your county," by a single word. 

 The surface of the county is very much diversified, and the soil, 

 embraces a great variety of sorts and quantities, and therefore 

 its natural and cultivated productions are equally various. 



Almost all kinds of grains, fruits and vegetables, which are 

 suitable to this latitude, are produced with reasonable ceitaintj 

 and cheapness, and in remunerating abundance. 



Our county is traversed by the Susquehanna and Chenango 

 rivers, and their tributaries, the Tioughnioga and Ot.-elic, and by 

 numerous creeks, along whose vallies is excellent corn land, and 

 the hilly ridges between them are all tilable, and productive of 

 wheat and other cereals, especially on the oak and chestnut soils, 

 which greatly prevail ; and all of. our land yields abundant pas- 

 turage. Those portions which were originally clothed with 

 beech, m.aple and hemlock timber, are generally esteemed the 

 best grazing farms. 



The surface of our county is, as I have remarked, quite hilly, 

 but not as momitainous as might be supposed, by a hasty travel- 

 ler on our great thoroughfare, the New- York and Erie railroad. 

 The hills nearest the river, where the road passes, are generally 

 the highest, but seldom rise higher than from 200 to 400 feet 

 above the rivers, and their slopes are gradual, and their summits 

 smoothly rounded off, and often llattened into large tables, all 

 being tilled or tilable land. In no part of this county, with the 

 exception of a very few localities in two towns, is there any rock 

 on the surface, or the landscape disfigured or embellished by a 

 ledge or cliff, or an unsightly acre of land. There is, moreover, 

 but a trifle of marshy or swampy land. 



In view of these tacts, it must be obvious, that the county of 

 Broome, under good cultiu'c, must support as largo a p ipulation 

 as almost any in the State, in proportion to its acres, and a great 

 deal larger than many of the old counties, nov; standing as the 

 best and richest. 



The same may be predicted of four ormoreof the counties next 

 west of us, in the southern tier. 



