66 BULLETIN" 140, 17. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



soils in the areas where development has chiefly taken place are dis- 

 tributed among four main series, the Wether sfield, the Middlefield, 

 the Gloucester, and the Talcott, named in the order of their im- 

 portance. There are various types of soil in each of these series as 

 determined by texture, and a wide range in what may be termed 

 general soil or field conditions. The Wethersfield and the Middle- 

 field series are underlain by shale or sandstone at varying distances 

 from the surface, and under equivalent treatments are not quite so 

 strong for general farm crops as the Gloucester soils. 



The fact that peach growing has not been developed more ex- 

 tensively in the highlands is doubtless due primarily to climatic con- 

 ditions, as the opinion prevails, founded in part at least on experi- 

 ence, that the crop is a little less certain there than within the iso- 

 thermal line mentioned. Aside from the prolongation of the iso- 

 therms northward in the Central Lowland their usual direction is 

 northeast and southwest, and if the three southern New England 

 States be considered as a unit the isothermal lines roughly parallel 

 the seashore. The close relationship existing between the tempera- 

 ture lines covering the southern Berkshire hills in the Seymour dis- 

 trict, the Woodstock district, in the northeast part of the State, and 

 that locality in southeast Worcester and western Norfolk Counties, 

 Massachusetts, where peach growing is commercial, is very striking. 

 As successful orchards are maintained on the Gloucester soils in all 

 these districts, it would seem that the somewhat prevailing opinion 

 that the Wethersfield soils are superior to the Gloucester soils for 

 peach production is based on the average texture of the series, and 

 that the real difference is largely one of soil type rather than of 

 soil series. 



It is doubtless true, however, that under good treatment a given 

 type — as the loam — of the Gloucester series is a little stronger than 

 the loam of the Wethersfield or the Middlefield series, and hence 

 a given variety of peach as grown on it tends to ripen a little later 

 than on the corresponding soil type of either of the two latter series. 

 For this reason these different series as represented by the different 

 soil types require different treatments to maintain a normal balance 

 between the vegetative and the fruiting habits of the tree. This is a 

 matter requiring skill in observation, and knowledge as acquired 

 through experience of the way the soils respond to different treat- 

 ments; and the subject merits further study. It may be said, how- 

 ever, that certain soil conditions seem fundamental. For example, 

 soils should be so deep and friable that any excess of free moisture 

 not only disappears readily below the root zone of the trees but re- 

 turns to that zone as capillary soil solution for the trees' use as 

 occasion may make desirable. Anything interfering with such free 

 movement of the soil moisture, which by the absorption of soluble 



