174 Mineral and Agricultural Resources of JYew York. [Oct., 



above results; for though something must be attributed to the 

 ravages of the wheat ily, still it is not at all probable that it is 

 all due to this one cause. Something undoubtedly must be found 

 in the soil which raises the average yield to nearly twenty bush- 

 els in one case, and depresses it to five or six in others. This 

 difference in the ability to raise wheat has been attributed by 

 some to the limestones, but the fallacy of this assigned cause is 

 evident when we compare Dutchess and Westchester counties 

 with Onondao;a; there beino; about as much limestone in the for- 

 mer as in the latter county, and beside the analysis of the limestone 

 soil, or the soil upon the Onondaga limestone, gives no greater 

 amount of lime than in many localities where limestone is absent. 

 When we compare however the soils of Clinton and Onondaga 

 and Monroe, we shall find that in each of these counties there is 

 an excellent clay soil, which seems to be the debris of shales con- 

 taining in addition to lime, magnesia also, as well as the phos- 

 phates of the earths, and of the peroxide of iron. This clay soil 

 in Clinton county is newer than in the river counties, where the 

 yield is quite small at present, but formerly and for many years, 

 probably half a century, the same soil of the river counties has 

 been cultivated for wheat, and has yielded its famous crops, and 

 now it is not at all strange that characteristics of exhaustion have 

 appeared.* 



The quantity of corn raised in New York in 1845 amounted to 

 14,722,114 bushels, on 595,134 acres. This gives an average 

 of nearly 25 bushels to the acre. In this average as in the wheat 

 crop, we must regard as before the capabilities of the soil and the 

 soil and climate. One hundred and fourteen bushels of corn have 

 been raised on an acre in a section of the state not remarkably 

 well adapted to the crop, and fifty and sixty bushels are very fre- 



* It is probable that in St. Lawrence, and perhaps in Clinton county, the 

 favorable yield may have been owing to the cultivation of new lands. New 

 lands over the whole state yield good crops of wheat; while it is only in the 

 western and central counties that the crop is kept up without a diminution 

 in the product; even some of those counties often better after twenty-five 

 years' cultivation — which shows most clearly their adaptation to the crop. 



