6 



Relations of Geology to Agriculture 



surface. But in the present case the reader will perceive that 

 the geological structure determines more. In such a climate, and 

 with a soil so naturally arid, abundant water is indispensable ; 

 but this can only be obtained by deep boring performed at a 

 great expense. The geological conditions, therefore, confine the 

 possibility of cultivation to men of large means, and, in present 

 circumstances at least, necessarily exclude all petty farming and 

 the subdivision of the land into small holdings. They determine, 

 in other words, the social condition of the people. This single 

 illustration is enough of itself to satisfy any impartial person of 

 the close general relation which exists between the geological 

 character and the agricultural capability of a country, and of the 

 broad general deductions in regard to its possible future pros- 

 perity — in a rural sense — which may be drawn from a knowledge 

 of its geology. I believe it is partly under the influence of this 

 conviction that the Senate and Congress of the United States 

 have so often and so cordially voted large sums of money for the 

 purpose of investigating and mapping the main geological fea- 

 tures of the new States and territories which from time to time 

 have been admitted into the Union. 



IL Relations of Geological structure to Agj^icultural capability in 

 Western Neio York. — I take my second illustration from Western 

 New York, partly because this has long been celebrated as a rich 

 wheat-growing district ; partly because the relations we are stu- 

 dying are here really very interesting; and partly because this 

 locality will give me the opportunity of showing, by a more de- 

 tailed example, the intimate connexion which subsists between 

 the economical value of a region in the agricultural, and the 

 composition of its rocks in a geological, sense. 



The section of the country along the Atlantic border, which 

 formed the subject of the preceding illustration, terminated 

 inland with the primary rocks of which the first slopes of the 

 Alleghanies consist, and which, by their crumbling, form red 

 friable soils, clothed with mixed, chiefly broad-leaved, trees. 



The primary stratified rocks are there generally tilted up, 

 squeezed together, as it were, and standing on edge. They thus 

 occupy but little space, so that a mixed soil of a common cha- 

 racter, derived from their intermingled fragments, overspreads 

 them all. 



But Western New York presents us with a most favourable 

 opportunity of studying the special agricultural influence, in 

 detail, of each individual member of whole groups of rocks. That 

 subdivision of the primary rocks, distinguished among European 

 geologists by the name of Silurian, is there flattened and spread 

 out over a large extent of country ; and the several beds of this 



