SOILS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT. 27 
and the upper Westfield River Basin is much less deeply dissected 
than the section traversed by the latter river, though withal it is 
hilly. The soils include a much larger percentage of sandy types 
than the Coleraine-Cummington region, but there are many good 
farming areas. Between Cummington and Northampton the loamy 
soils of the former town extend approximately to Swift River, east 
of which the soils are more sandy nearly to Williamsburg, and farm- 
ing is less developed. A mile or two west of Williamsburg begins 
another strip of loamy and more productive soils, which extend to 
west Whately, southeastern Conway, and on to Patterson Four 
Corners. The road from WTiately village north to Whately Glen 
indicates the eastern limits of this area. 
In the Western Highlands of Connecticut, especially west of the 
gorge of the Naugatuck River, where dissection and erosion have 
been more kind than farther east, there are many good farming 
towns, especially in Litchfield County. Not all localities were ex- 
amined in detail, hence various good towns were doubtless missed, 
but among those seen may be mentioned Canaan, Cornwall, Litch- 
field, Washington, Woodbury, Western Watertown, and Southbury 
in New Haven County, and Newtown, Redding, and Ridgefield in 
Fairfield County. 
Passing northward to the foot of the Hoosic Range in northwestern 
Massachusetts, the soils up the eastern slope are much more sandy 
than those of the lower highlands. Going through the tunnel of 
the Boston & Maine Railway, in Hoosic Mountain, one approaches 
North Adams, which is located near the center of the Hoosac Valley. 
There the North Branch, flowing from Vermont, joins the Hoosac 
River as it comes from Berkshire County and flowing westward 
through the defile between the southern end of the Green Mountains 
on the north and Graylock on the south, passes out of the north- 
west corner of the State. The valley of the Hoosac is flanked on the 
south in the town of Williamstown by a secondary rolling valley, in 
which are many good farms. 
The greater part of the Hoosac Valley is occupied mainly by old 
glacial terraces, of which the soils include many areas of loam, but 
there are also many sandy and gravelly knolls and ridges. In the 
North Branch Valley in the town of Clarksburg the soils are very 
stony or even rocky, and their nearness to the good markets of North 
Adams accounts for the relatively high price of land — said to be 
$50 to $100 an acre, where within a radius of 4 to 5 miles from the 
town. 
The soils of the Williamstown Valley average somewhat heavier. 
There are many areas of loam and clay loam, though sandy and 
gravelly knolls and low hills frequently occur. Good dairy farms 
