14 



a soil resulting- from the decomposition of granite ? You have it 

 in Wiliiamsburg, in Wliately, in Belchertown, in Amherst and 

 Leverett. — Do you need soils derived from the other primary 

 rocks ? You have them in nearly all the more elevated parts of 

 the three counties. Do you wish for a soil whose base consists of 

 disintegrated red sand stone ? You have it in Gill, in Greenfield, 

 in Deeriield, and in many other places. Does your experiment 

 require what European writers denominate a basaltic soil? The 

 eastern slope of the ridge, constituting Hoiyoke and Tom, furnish- 

 es an example nearly identical with this. Do you wish to compare 

 the produce of land in the vicinity of the coal mines of Europe, 

 with that of our own coal formation 1 Then you have only to 

 perform your experiment in Granby, or South Hadley, in the 

 eastern part of Longmeadow, or the western part of West 

 Springfield. And as to soils of the tertiary and alluvial classes, 

 you have a wide extent of the former in the plain extending from 

 South Hadley through Springfield to Enfield ; and in the plain 

 between Northampton and Southwick : and what finer examples 

 of the alluvial could you wish, than the rich meadows of North- 

 field, Deerfield, Hatfield, Northampton, Springfield and Long- 

 meadow ? 



But more than all this. Not only does the whole extent of 

 these counties present so many varieties of soil, but in some in- 

 stances a single township contains them nearly all. Northampton, 

 for instance, has its fine alluvion on the east, and on the north and 

 south, its tertiary. On the west we find granite and a granitic soil. 

 Along the western foot of Mount Tom, is the old red sandstone 

 with its peculiar soil : the mountain itself presents the basaltic 

 variety; and along its eastern base, is the soil peculiar to the coal 

 formation. A variety almost equally great, exists in Hatfield, 

 Deerfield, Northfield, Montague, Westfield, Amherst and Bel- 

 chertown. 



I am aware, indeed, that there is one variety of soil, and that 

 not an unimportant one, which can hardly be said to have an exist- 

 ence along the Connecticut. I refer to what is called a calce- 

 ous soil ; or one proceeding from lime stone. Yet as a sort of 

 substitute for this deficiency, I trust I shall be pardoned for allud- 



