SOILS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT. 71 



There is a wide range of soils in Massachusetts and Connecticut, 

 which vary greatly in productivity. Poor soils occur, but there is a 

 large total acreage of good soils which are in part well farmed and in 

 part so poorly managed that they bear the reputation of being low in 

 productive quality, or even worn out. The latter soils need first to 

 be located and classified, and then to have their farming possibilities 

 demonstrated by experimental crop growing. 



A general soil classification follows: t 



The Gloucester series is by far the most extensive. It includes the 

 yellow and brown upland soils. The gray and blue-gray upland soils 

 constitute the Bernardston series. The Wethersfield series includes 

 the glaciated upland areas of Triassic red standstone and shale, the 

 surface soils of the sandy types being gray or pinkish gray, and the 

 heavier types red or salmon in color. The subsoils are red or salmon. 

 The Middlefield series includes the glaciated upland areas of Triassic 

 yellow and gray sandstone and shale, the surface soils being yellow, 

 brown or gray, and their subsoils brown to yellow. The glacial out- 

 wash soils found along the lower courses of streams as they issue from 

 the uplands into the major valleys constitute the Merrimac series. 

 The Dover series consists of glaciated limestone soils in the Berkshire 

 Valley. The Whitman series occurs in depressed or basin-shaped 

 areas, and also bordering streams. The surface soils range from 

 brownish gray to almost black, while the subsoils are lighter gray, or 

 mottled gray and yellow. The Essex series consists of dark-brown 

 glacial soil underlain by a light-brown to yellow subsoil usually 

 lighter in texture than the surface soil. 



The agricultural methods pursued in the market gardening sec- 

 tions, and in other districts of special crop development, are inten- 

 sive, but in the general farming districts extensive methods prevail. 



Even in this long settled region there is need for improvement in 

 the agricultural and horticultural practice. Growers of special 

 crops — onions, tobacco, market-garden produce, apples, peaches, 

 cranberries, etc. — are generally prosperous. Other farmers who 

 prosper are those who retail the milk produced on their own farms, 

 poultrymen who have placed their business on a firm footing not- 

 withstanding frequent individual failures, and dairymen who have 

 produced some money crop or product, such as apples, potatoes, 

 garden produce, poultry, etc. Few farmers prosper, on the other 

 hand, unless an income is secured from some special money crop or 

 product. 



In the hilly districts some farms have properly been abandoned 

 because they did not furnish, under current agricultural conditions, 

 a' sustaining basis for a prosperous family. Other farms that have 

 always possessed the possibility of a good livelihood if efficiently 



