SOMERSET COUNTY. 



Somerset, the southernmost county of Maryland, lies at the lower 

 part of the Eastern Shore peninsula, and directly on Chesapeake Bay, 

 with several tidal rivers — among them the Manokin, Annemessex and 

 Marumsco — cutting deeply into it, and the "Wicomico and Pocomoke 

 Eivers touching its northerii and southern ends, respectively. There 

 is little variety of topography, and the entire county is very charac- 

 teristic of the Coastal Plain Division, of which it forms a part. In the 

 northeast section, which has the highest elevations of any portion of 

 the coimty, the soil is light and sandy ; in the southern and western 

 sections there are large marshy areas along the tidal bays and streams. 

 In general, the central and eastern parts of the county contain the 

 best farm soils, which are usually of a loam type. In the southwest a 

 large proportion of the lands are too wet to admit of cultivation with- 

 out first clearing them of forest, an operation nearly always difficult 

 because of the low elevations which prevail. One-third of the county 

 is less than 10 feet above sea level, and the percentage of marsh land 

 is increasing steadily. Somerset, it may be added, has the highest 

 percentage of waste farm land of any county in the State, and next 

 to the highest in salt marsh. 



The Forests. 



With the exception of the marshes, the entire county was originally 

 in forest, and it is supposed that this first stand consisted principally 

 of hardwoods. The gradual effect of settlement has been to reduce 

 materially the wooded acreage. As the original areas were cut down, 

 the population at the same time increased, and caused an even greater 

 drain upon the forests which were left. Many of the larger areas have 

 of course been completely deforested, and at the present time only 25 

 per cent remains in woodland. Present forests are pretty commonly 

 confined to fresh-water swamp lands and poorly drained soils in gen- 

 eral, in such situations often occurring in large bodies two to three 

 thousand acres in extent. Such forests as remain are rather evenly 

 divided in their distribution, mixtures of softwoods and hard occur- 

 ring in all parts of the county, as well as pure stands of pine and of 

 mixed hardwoods, although in the extreme northeastern section thfr 

 sandy soils have caused a corresponding preponderance of pine. 



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