10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



miles, with all the variations of soil found in New England, 

 except salt-marsh. 



The alluvial soil of the valleys of the Connecticut and 

 Deerfield Rivers is unsurpassed in fertility. The Deerfield 

 meadows embrace about three thousand acres, most of which 

 is overflowed in the spring. The soil of the eastern half of 

 the county, off from the river, is of a harsher quality, largely 

 underlaid by granitic or sienitic formation, and it is not in 

 general so well adapted for good grasses or grains as that on 

 the western side, where, between the hills and ridges, are fer- 

 tile valleys of a rich, unctuous soil; and the spurs of the 

 Green Mountains, of argillaceous and micaceous slate, afford 

 the earliest and sweetest pasturage, from which in by-gone 

 years went the heaviest cattle and fattest lambs that graced 

 our Brighton market. 



There are in the county 3,956 farms, the average acreage 

 of which is 88. We have about 80,000 acres of cultivated 

 land, and we have 20,517 of unimprovable land, — more than 

 any other county in the State ; but our agricultural products 

 are fully up to our proportion of the cultivated land. 



The population of the towns composing what is now the 

 county was in 1776, 10,291 ; in 1811, when organized into a 

 county, 27,421 ; and is now only about 85,000. 



An examination of the census-returns for the last fifty 

 years shows curious facts, and gives opportunity for specula- 

 tions which neither time nor this occasion allows us to follow 

 out. 



The changes of population, and the depopulation of the 

 hill towns of our State, are subjects of curiosity, and indeed 

 almost of anxiety. Attention was called to this in the excel- 

 lent message of Gov. Talbot last January; and I think it 

 would be very pertinent matter for this Board to examine, to 

 collect facts, and show effects, even if the causes cannot be 

 very satisfactorily explained, and even if no remedy can be 

 found to arrest this fleeing from the hill country. 



It may not be uninteresting to mention some of the eccen- 

 tricities of population in this county. There are twenty-six 

 towns. During the past fifty years, seventeen have lost 5,119, 

 and nine have gained 9,246 ; the county as a whole having 

 increased 4,127. Of these seventeen, all but three are " hill- 

 towns." Gill, Northfield, and Whately, though on the Con- 



