SOIL* 



203 



The native grasses of our woods, in the western 

 counties, feed immense droves of cattle, which are 

 annually brought down to the thickly settled parts, 

 and sold to the farm.ers, who graze them for the Phi- 

 ladelphia market, whence they are also annually 

 sent in droves to the cities of New York and Balti- 

 more. 



Great care is paid to the formation of meadows, 

 the soil of which, being alluvial or composed of the 

 deposition from the waters is very deep, yield 

 abundant crops of grass, without any other manure 

 than that which drops from the cattle grazing on 

 them. The meadows, especially on the rivers De- 

 laware and Schuylkill, south and south-west of Phi^ 

 ladelphia, are not surpassed by any in the world, for 

 a luxuriancy of the most nourishing grass, a native 

 of the United States, the seeds of which are never 

 sown. 



The valley of Shenandoah extends from Winches- 

 ter in Virginia, to Carlisle and Shippensburg in Penn« 

 sylvania. A stratum of slate runs through all this val- 

 ley in Pennsylvania, and is found also on one side of 

 the Opeckan creek in Virginia, and Conegocbeague 

 creek in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the Cone- 

 clogwinnett creek in the last mentioned state, but the 

 soil is much inferior to the limestone soil. 



About Sunbury and Northumberland, the soil is ^ 

 sandy loam, several feet deep, near the river. 



