380 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



loams, and clay of Cambrian limestone origin, a luxuriant straw 

 growth is made, tlie grain developed later and ripended during the 

 latter part of June and early July and an inferior milling quality 

 wheat produced by soil types that will yield a superior quality of 

 corn, an illustration of soil and climatic adaptation for different 

 cereals. 



Bradford, Tioga, Susquehanna and Wayne counties have similar 

 climatic conditions as those prevailing on the elevated areas of 

 Somerset county with a smaller amount of rainfall which makes 

 conditions here more favorable for raising the cool weather cereals, 

 such as wheat, than Somerset county, a crop which formerly was 

 grown in these counties and which with the right agricultural me- 

 thods could at this time be successfully raised and it seems should 

 be raised because of its value as human food. But oats is without 

 question the best adapted cereal for these northern and higher 

 elevated areas especially where the rainfall exceeds 40 inches and 

 where this cereal can, with right agricultural methods, be made to 

 yield from 50 to 70 bushels per acre it should occupy the leading or 

 advantageous position in the rotation because such a yield can 

 likely be made to produce a larger amount of human food by con- 

 verting it into milk and butter than the average wheat crop would. 



The areas between the northern and these higher elevations on 

 the Allegheny plateau and north and west of the southeastern sec- 

 tion, including the following counties: Franklin, Cumberland, Ful- 

 ton, Bedford, Perry, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, Snyder, Union, 

 Montour, Northumberland, Columbia, Lycoming, Clinton, Center and 

 Blair. Wherever the soils are derived from the limestone, the shaly 

 limestone, the shaly Hudson River exposures, the limy Clinton 

 shales, the Salina limy shale, the lower Helderberg limestone, the 

 limy Marcellus, with a few areas of the Chemiings, are agriculturally 

 among the best combined corn and wheat growing soils anywhere in 

 the State. The agricultural soils derived from the sandy strata 

 of the Hudson River, the Clinton, the Chemung and the Catskill for- 

 mations are among the late fall or warm early spring farming soils, 

 many of which can be plowed wet without injury and prepared early 

 and planted with crops which will ripen during the early summer 

 so that here late fall sown, early summer ripening crops can be raised, 

 followed with a dry weather soil improving crop to be followed again 

 in the fall with an early summer ripening crop so that in these poorer 

 soils rotations can be arranged that soil improving crops can be 

 made to follow or be raised with soil exhausting crops. 



If, therefore, in these poorer soils a combination of soil improv- 

 ing and soil exhausting crops such as have previously been enum- 

 erated and adapted to dry and wet soils, hot, warm and cool climatic 

 conditions can be put into rotations so that it will accomplish what 

 all rotations should, namely, produce the largest quantity of human 

 food while at the same time the productive capacity of the soil is 

 increased, then certainly in the more fertile areas in all sections of 

 the State these soil improving and soil exhausting crops can be com- 

 bined that so far as crops can improve soils, which according to my 

 opinion are the greatest factors in soil improvement, a great step 

 will have been taken toward a permanent agriculture in Pennsyl- 

 vania. 



