SOILS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT. 9 



Lowland district. In Massachusetts, however, in southeastern Wor- 

 cester, southwestern Middlesex, and western Norfolk Counties, good 

 results have been secured. In the northern two-thirds of the Western 

 Highlands the climate is generally considered too severe for com- 

 mercial peach orcharding, though scattering orchards are more or 

 less successful. Isotherms of the weather maps indicate within rough 

 limits the peach-growing sections and the nonpeach-growing sections 

 as already outlined. But if weather conditions had been the only 

 determining factor in the location of the peach industry, the orchards 

 of the State would not have been distributed as they now are. In 

 general the slopes along the west side of the Central basin have 

 much fewer peach orchards than the slopes along the eastern side, 

 and although there are very few orchards in the latter position be- 

 tween Hartford, Conn., and the Massachusetts line, an important 

 development occurs just north of the State boundary in the Wil- 

 braham district. 



The development of peach orcharding has already proved that 

 climatic conditions favoring the business obtain in considerable 

 areas of the State, and that only a small percentage of such areas 

 have been developed. It is true, of course, that only a small part of 

 the soils of such climatic areas are the most desirable, but such tracts 

 readily may be selected, and they include many undeveloped local 

 areas of good peach soils. 



Barring low-lying areas the climatic conditions of the whole State 

 are well suited to apple growing, though the character of the fruit 

 varies with the kind of soil and not improbably to some extent 

 with the range in climate — i. e., a Baldwin grown on a certain soil 

 1,000 feet above sea level in the northwest part of the State matures a 

 little later- and it seems reasonable to suppose that it may possess a 

 little better keeping qualities than one grown 40 miles farther south 

 on the same character of soil at an elevation of 500 feet; and while 

 this point is generally conceded by growers, it would be of greater 

 value if supported by experimental data to measure as nearly as may 

 be the amount of this difference. 



SOILS OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 



The soil materials of southern New England, the rocks from which 

 they have been derived, and the glacial processes by which they were 

 accumulated in their present positions have been described. These 

 are factors of great importance in determining the character of 

 the soil, but they are not the exclusive ones. The most important 

 additional factors are drainage, chemical change, and the accumula- 

 tion of vegetable matter. These latter are equally as important in 

 determining the productive power of the soil as are the former. 



