STATE FARM AT MONSOX. 267 



DESCRIPTION, MANAGEMENT, STOCK, CROPS, PRODUCTS, EX- 

 PENSES AND PROFITS OF THE FARM OF THE STATE PRI- 

 MARY SCHOOL FOR THE YEAR ENDING OCTOBER 1st, 1873. 



DESCRIPTION. 



The farm of the State Primary School is situated in the 

 northerly part of the town of Monson and in the easterly 

 part of the county of Hampden. It contains two hundred 

 and thirty acres of land, which is drained by the Quaboag 

 and its tributaries. This river unites with the Ware and 

 Swift rivers at Three Rivers Village, in the town of Palmer, 

 and forms the Chicopee River. The north-east part of the 

 farm extends to the Quaboag^iver, but the main part is situ- 

 ated in the valley extending southerly from the depot in Pal- 

 mer to the village in Monson. This valley is flanked with 

 hills on either side, east' and west, to the height of from two 

 to three hundred feet. The highest point of this valley is 

 about equidistant from Palmer and Mcnson, whence the land 

 falls to the south and to the north. The land of this farm 

 lies on the northerl}^ slope. A brook, large enough in the 

 spring to carry a saw-mill, runs through the centre of the 

 farm in a northerly direction, while a smaller one comes 

 tumbling down from the hills on the west at right angles with 

 the larger one, affording the farm a bountiful supply of pure 

 water. The rock formation underlying the farm is granitic, 

 which crops out on the surface on the southerly slope of this 

 valley, and is worked extensively by Wm. N. Flynt & Co., 

 specimens of which may be seen in the Agawam Bank build- 

 ing and the building for the offices of the Boston and Albany 

 Railroad Corporation in Springfield. When in a state of* 

 nature it was covered with a bountiful crop of huge.bowlders. 

 The soil is a dark mould about ten inches deep, with a sub- 

 soil of lightish clayey loam of about twenty inches in depth, 

 when it comes to a blue fine sand as a hard-pan that bids de- 

 fiance to leaching in all its forms. The soil on the opposite 

 sides of the hills flanking this valley is much lighter than on 

 the sides descending into this valley. There is a marked 

 difference between this valley and any land in this immediate 

 region. It is full of springs, uneven in surface, hard to sub- 



