WEST VIRGINIA. 71 



product natural to tlie temperate zone, while, in certain grades and mountain 

 heights, buckwheat, oats, potatoes, and grass are the main reliance; yet through- 

 out almost the entire area the soil is well adapted to corn, wheat, oats, buck- 

 wheat, potatoes, roots, hemp, flax, tobacco, sugar-cane, fruits, and grasses. 



Monongalia county lies upon the Pennsylvania line. Laurel ridge rises on its 

 eastern border, and the Monongahela and Cheat rivers intersect it. The county 

 seat is JMorgantown. Among its exports are cattle, lumber, flour, and iron, 

 which are transported both by railroad and steamboat. It is an enterprising, 

 productive, and improving section of the State. 



Marion, the next county south, is also drained by the Monongahela, formed 

 here by the confluence of Tygart's Valley and West Fork rivers. It is a small 

 county, rich in coal and iron, with abundant waier-power, magnificent forests, 

 and fine pasturage. Fairmont, a pleasant village on both railroad and river, 

 is its capital. 



Taylor is a very small county, embracing an area less than that of four 

 townships of government surveys, and formed from Harrison, Barbour, and 

 Marion. It is prominent as the point at which the Baltimore and Ohio railroad 

 bifurcates to "Wheeling and Parkersburg. To the traveller its surroundings 

 are picturesque, but very forbidding in the eye of the prairie farmer wandering 

 eastward. It has a population of only 7,463, yet its railway facilities have 

 given to land valuation something like its intrinsic worth, the average of farms 

 being already $16 01 per acre. Among these mountains grow yearly 78,001 

 bushels of corn, 80,357 pounds of butter are produced, and 3,160 tons of hay 

 are made, and animals are slaughtered to the value of S22,383. 



Barbour county lies further up Tygart's Valley river, and is also drained by 

 Buchanan river and Elk creek. Philippa, famed as the opening scene of the 

 war of the rebellion in the State of Virginia, is the county seat. Its assessed 

 valuation averages scarcely half as much as that of Taylor, simply because it 

 is less favored in facilities for transportation. The fertility of its soil is well 

 attested by 197,450 bushels of corn, and $377,693 value of live stock, $53,452 

 value of slaughtered animals, and large figures generally for farm products, 

 considered with reference to its population of only 8,958. 



Taking the west fork of the Monongahela, the reader Avill come to Harrison 

 county, of which Clarksburg is the principal town, situated upon the north- 

 western Virginia railroad, a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio. It possesses a 

 limestone soil, fertile and durable. It is perhaps the most improved of the 

 inland counties, and has a farm valuation of $4,642,794, exceeded only by that 

 of Greenbrier and Jefterson. The value of its live stock is $644,325, exceeded 

 only by Hampshu-e and Greenbrier. With such figures, the value of slaugh- 

 tered animals, $75,883, will not be deemed extraordinary. In corn, of which 

 the product is 320,946 bushels, it is exceeded only by Hampshire and Jackson. 

 Clarksburg is the seat of a fine trade in coal. 



Lewis is immediately south of Harrison, higher up on the same stream ; pro- 

 duces 4,416 tons of hay, considerable quantities of grain, possesses excellent 

 pasturage, and many good and productive farms. 



Doddridge is another railroad county west of Harrison. Its staples are also 

 corn and grass. Cattle thrive for six months of the year with no other pastur- 

 age than the range of the forests. Nutritious grasses spring naturally wherever 

 the surface is denuded of timber. Its proportion of improved to unimproved 

 land is 25,114 acres to 217.543; its average valuation, by the census of 1860, 

 $4 14. 



Ritchie county, next east of Jackson, upon the railroad, has a variety of 

 surface, which is broken into very abrupt ridges in places, exhibiting in dislo- 

 cated strata the effects of violent upheaval ; the soil, too, is variable, but gener- 

 ally productive. It was named in honor of Thomas Ritchie, editor of the 

 Richmond Enquirer. It is drained by the Hughes river. But a small portion 



