88 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



The primitive forest consisted of maple, basswood, hemlock 

 and scattering pines on the most elevated parts, and of ash, oak 

 and elm on the intervales. The timber on the highest lands was 

 large and tall, and took deep root in the earth, so that windfalls 

 made a deep excavation. On the intervales the timber was less 

 in size and the roots spread out, so that whenever the trees were 

 blown down the excavation was broad but not deep. 



These marked characteristics afforded a good suggestion for 

 Investigation with a view to the improvement of the soil. The 

 highest lands, on examination, were found to be silicious, loamy and 

 gravelly, mixed with small cobble stones, and covered with vegeta- 

 ble mold to the depth of three or four inches. The soil and subsoil 

 were loose and porous, and presented no obstruction to the pene- 

 tration of the roots of vegetables. 



The intervales had a deeper coating of vegetable mold, from six 

 to ten inches in depth, caused by the decomposition of the earth and 

 the admixture of decaying vegetables. Under this soil there lay a 

 stratum of hard, close, compact earth, nearly if not quite impervious 

 to water, which operated unfavorably upon crops in both wet and 

 dry seasons. In wet seasons the water accumulated and soured 

 in the soil. In dry periods it checked the ascent of moisture 

 from below, in accordance with the universal law of equilibrium 

 of watery as w^ell as aerial fluids. This compact stratum, which 

 may be called hard j^an, seems to have been formed by the partial 

 decomposition and infiltration of the more soluble parts of the 

 earth among the more insoluble, by the action of water, and con- 

 stitutes a body nearly impervious to the roots of vegetables; and 

 was of a thickness of four to eight inches. In the lowest places, 

 where the water accumulated most and continued longest, there 

 the hard crust was deepest and gradually diminished in thickness 

 till it wholly disappeared on elevated grounds, w^here the water 

 passed off more rapidly. After passing through this crust, the 

 earth is loose marl, sand and gravel, to the depth of fifteen feet, 

 when there is a mixture of blue clay and rubble stones. 



The farm consists of sixty acres : five acres in the highways 

 and occupied by buildings and yards, twenty acres of wood and 

 micultivated, ten of pasture, six in hops, ten in meadow, and 

 eight in grain lands. 



