254 THE PLANT LIFE OF MARYLAND 



in the Bine Ridge region. There are, however, places where the sur- 

 face of the ground affords a basin in which water has accumulated 

 for a long period and now presents the condition of a Leucothoe- 

 Andromeda pond, with little or no Sphagnum about the margins ; 

 in these bogs there is no such development of the typical flora as 

 has been found in the other places, there is more standing water and 

 much less of the saturated layer of peat and humus that is character- 

 istic of the pockets in the Catoctin and Blue Ridge regions. 



The cultivated land of the Hagerstown Valley extends to the base 

 of the flanking ridges of North Mountain, and ends with abrupt 

 transition into the forested slopes. There is lacking the intermediate 

 condition of cut-over woodlands between the standing forest and the 

 tilled or pastured farm lands, so that the farm ends suddenly against 

 the dense tree-covered slopes of the hills. In many cases there are 

 cleared fields higher up on the sides of the mountain, but such are 

 usually separated from the wide valley land by intermediate woods, 

 so that the general effect is not lost by these advance farms. The 

 woodland soils are usually rich, and have a high content of humus, 

 though this is subject to local conditions according to the care with 

 which the owners of the several areas exclude forest fires from their 

 woodlands. The top of the mountain is as before, of massive sand- 

 stone, breaking up into large boulders. 



Fairview. — The south shoulder of North Mountain is known as 

 Fairview, and is farmed nearer to the top than at many other places. 

 The National Pike passes the farm house, and the outlook at this 

 point gives one the characteristics of the two sections of the state. 

 To the east and southeast, the cleared lands extend throiighout the 

 breadth of the Great Valley, as far as the west side of the Blue 

 Ridge which is hidden in the blue haze, nearly twenty miles away. 

 The valley is under almost complete cultivation, the scattered wood- 

 lots which are irregularly distributed over the area being almost the 

 only uncultivated areas, and these are not natural in their composi- 

 tion, because of the selective cutting which has been done by the 

 owners, as has already been stated. To the west an outlook of strik- 

 ing difference is afforded ; for the land surface is in the form of 

 closely succeeding ridges, covered by forest to their tops, with a 

 clearing here and there where a farm is dropped as it were into the 



