28 BULLETIN 140, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
are to be seen, the milk in excess of the local demand being shipped 
to Boston. Both Williamstown and North Adams are good local 
markets for considerable amounts of milk, cream, some butter, and 
much garden produce. There are few orchards, though good orchard 
soils occur on some of the local elevations. 
The Upper Hoosac Valley towards Cheshire is narrow, being in 
places little more than a defile between Mount Graylock and the 
Hoosic Kange. This is a general farming district. The valley 
closes in on the south with the low hills forming the divide between it 
and the Housatonic Valley. At Lanesboro the latter broadens and oc- 
cupies nearly the whole of Pittsfield Town. It then divides, one 
arm extending south through the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge 
and the other arm southward through the town of Richmond to 
West Stockbridge. From the latter town to Housatonic village, 
mountains nearly close the valley, the spaces between them being 
occupied by narrow stream beds. 
A few miles south of Great Barrington the valley is again nearly 
5 miles broad, and thence it extends south to the Connecticut line, 
including a large part of the towns of Egremont and Sheffield in 
Massachusetts and of North Canaan, Eastern Salisbury, and Western 
Sharon, in Connecticut. The valley floor near the Connecticut line 
is about 700 feet, and at Pittsfield, Mass., about 1,000 feet above sea 
level. The Berkshire Valley is underlain by limestone and although 
the surface soils are glacial deposits, sufficient limestone debris has 
entered into their composition to render them somewhat more pro- 
ductive than they would otherwise be. They constitute the Dover 
series, and vary greatly. Areas of well-drained loams and some 
light clay loams are interspersed with more sandy soils. Some of the 
latter are susceptible to drought and general crops are not considered 
very safe, but the heavier soils are sufficiently retentive of moisture 
to constitute excellent grass lands. In some cases, to an extent, the 
soils are cold owing to inadequate drainage, and the crop yields are 
correspondingly low. Artificial drainage would pay on some of 
these fields and will undoubtedly be installed in due time. 
The valley walls are generally steep, though herd and there 
smoother areas open back into the adjoining hills. The hill region 
east of the valley includes many good farming localities, but gener- 
ally speaking it is capable of much higher development. From Pitts- 
field south the valley is walled in on the west by abrupt hills which 
occupy the northwestern part of the town of Salisbury, Conn., and 
the towns of Hancock and Mount Washington in the southwest cor- 
ner of Massachusetts, but farther north they pass out of Massachu- 
setts and for some distance extend along the New York boundary, 
leaving room for a considerable area of good agricultural land in 
the town of Egremont. A representative sample of these good soils 
