PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 119 



Livingston county, flowing from immense and exhaustless sources ; while 

 others of less note and importance are to be found in almost every locality. 



Add to these natural compounds for forming and sustaining a superior 

 and enduring soil, the more than probability that the whole is underlayed 

 by the coal and oil bearing geological formation, which, in view of recent 

 investigations and discoveries, may be supposed to bear within its bosom 

 unmeasured reservoirs of rock oil, that some adventurous auger may soon 

 penetrate and develop to art and commerce, on the south side of lake On- 

 tario, as has already been accomplished on the north or Canadian side, and 

 which by its carbonaceous and oleaginous permeation of the earth has ever 

 been exerting, and must continue to exert, a powerful influence in supply- 

 ing to the soil valuable elements of vegetable production. 



This idea of the permeation of the soil by continual exhalation and capil- 

 lary attraction towards the surface, is strongly sustained from recent 

 explorations by scientific minds among the oil regions of Pennsylvania and 

 West Virginia. That this region is underlaid in many localities with coal 

 or oil is indicated by the emission of carburetted hydrogen gas from inu- 

 merable sources, scattered throughout its whole area, as well as by the 

 long established fact that similar geological strata are found cropping out 

 along its northern and northeastern border and probably forms the basin of 

 lake Ontario, and holds the deposits so successfully tapped in Canada ; 

 while on the southern border and within twenty or thirty miles south of the 

 dividing ridge the Blossburgh bituminous coal mines are furnishing annu- 

 ally their thousands of tons for the consumption of the country. 



To this peculiar region then, as a favorable fruit-growing section, we 

 may sum up the following advantages : Its superstructure is of the best 

 geological character known for agricultural purposes, being rich in mine- 

 ral deposits, and in their diflfusioti generally free from a porous substratum 

 that continually swallows up all added stimulants like much of the primi- 

 tive formations. 



It is surrounded by a water border upon its outer rim at both its lowest 

 and greatest elevations, calculated at once by the extent of surface to 

 temper its climate and furnish moisture from evaporation to protect against 

 the severity of droughts experienced in many other localities. 



By its elevations and depressions it furnishes every variety of soil and 

 altitude desirable, while its physical structure (the drainage being from 

 south to north), secures sheltered hillsides and valley adapted to every 

 production applicable to the latitude within which it is found, viz., between 

 forty-two and forty-three and a half degrees north. 



That it is peculiarly adapted to the most successful growing of the 

 apple, pear, plum, cherry, and all of the commoner small fruits, with the 

 peach in the most favored localities, has long been established by the 

 extensive orchards throughout its area, and the thousands of acres appro- 

 priated to nursery purposes, stretching from Syracuse to Rochester, suffi- 

 ciently attest, and that it is destined to be the great grape-growing and 

 wine-producing region. When its extensive natural advantages are duly 

 appreciated within the State or the limits of its latitude, the successes at- 

 tending recent trials at the head of the Canandaigua, at Naples, where an 

 hundred acres or more are already set and much of it in bearing ; at the 



