150 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



rate notice, are nevertheless worthy of some consideration. These 

 often flow through portions of towns where the land is low and 

 boggy, giving no employment to machinery ; in others they are 

 wild and spirited,- dashing between hills and down mountain sides, 

 the land upon their banks being broken and unfit for any purpose 

 but pasturage. In the former case I have found such lauds to be 

 of great value in producing grasses for hay, and hesitate not in 

 saying that they are among the most important soils of the county. 

 By ditching, their value may be largely increased, or by simply 

 clearing them of the bushes and mowing them, the quality of the 

 grass will become finer and better each year. 



Somerset county abounds in ponds, many of them of a large 

 size, and all stocked with every variety of fresh water fish. In 

 the thirty towns of the county there are twenty ponds of consid- 

 erable extent, the largest being Moose pond, which lies chiefly in 

 Hartland, being five miles long and about three wide. Embden 

 pond, situated in the central portion of the town of Embden, 

 contains 1,535 acres. 



The surface of the county is broken and uneven, and although 

 the northern portion is somewhat mountainous, and the central 

 part rough and hilly, the south part of the county is gently undu- 

 lating, with but very few hills of any height. The high ridges of 

 the middle and northern towns run northeast and southwest, and 

 the hard slate ledge with which it is underlaid approaches very 

 near, and in many instances forms ledges and boulders above the 

 surface. The growth upon these ridges consists of maple, beech, 

 birch, hemlock and elm, while the swamps and low land abound 

 with cedar, spruce, fir, ash and hackmetac. 



The thirty incorporated towns consist, upon an average, of 

 22,000 acres each, and by the census of 1850 there were reported 

 in the county 163,438 acres of improved land, and 235,754 of 

 unimproved. The county embraces over two thousand square miles 

 of territory. 



Most of the farms in the county comprise one hundred acres 

 each, although in some instances there are tAvo or three lots in one 

 farm. Upon some farms in many of tlie older towns, there is 

 beginning to be a scarcity of timber, and in some instances build- 

 ings are erected, the frames of which were sawed from trees cut 

 in the lumber regions of the northern part of the county, it being 

 cheaper than the same kind of lumber cut at any place in the old 

 towns. There are hilly pastures in these towns which are so rough 



