GARRETT COUNTY. 



Garrett, the westernmost County of Maryland, is in shape a 

 right-angled triangle, with the angle at the northwest corner, which 

 touches Pennsylvania, while the remainder of the County is bordered 

 on the west and south by West Virginia and the Potomac River. Four 

 prominent mountain ridges occur, all showing a northeasterly and 

 southwesterly trend, the most important of the group being Back- 

 bone Mountain, the highest point in Maryland, with its continuation 

 as Big Savage, the two separated by the gorge of the Savage River. 

 This ridge attains an elevation of about 3,400 feet in the southwestern 

 end of the County, with an average height maintained of close to 

 3,000 feet throughout, where for about half way it separates the drain- 

 age of the Potomac and Youghiogheny systems, the latter a tributary 

 of the Monongaliela. The County possesses no navigable watercourse, 

 but an abundance of good-sized streams, hitherto undeveloped, which 

 offer good future possibilities as power sites. 



With the exception of the ' ' glades, ' ' which make up a considerable 

 portion of poorly drained lands in the valleys, all of this County's 

 soils will support good growths of timber. That along the crests of the 

 mountains is of course somewhat thin and less productive, but on the 

 lower slopes and in the valleys there is almost invariably a sandy 

 loam of considerable depth, with the best agricultural situations in the 

 valleys between Backbone Mountain on one side and Hoop Pole Ridge 

 and Meadow Mountain on the other, and farther west, between Wind- 

 ing Ridge and Negro Mountain. 



The Forests. 



The woodlands of the County comprise 63 per cent of its total 

 area, the highest percentage of woodland of any County in the State. 

 Forests cover practically all of the prominent mountain ridges, with 

 woodlots of varying sizes well distributed over the farms in the val- 

 leys. It is quite certain that the entire County, with the exception of 

 the glades, was once well wooded, but the high quality of the land 

 early attracted the settler, and the constant influx of immigration 

 from that time on soon cleared of forest the most suitable farm lands. 

 The forests receded from the valleys, and are now principally re- 



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