26 BULLETIN 140, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
courses as above mentioned and also scattering sharp hills and ridges, 
from which slow, yet long-continued, erosion has removed consider- 
able parts of the soil mantle. Most areas of this sort are stony, 
while some of them are very much so, and ledges often protrude. 
Along the latter the depth of the soil is far from uniform, as the tilt 
of the ledge plain varies all the way from nearly horizontal to 
perpendicular. 
As "Apple Valley," in the towns of Aslifield and Buckland, has 
earned a somewhat noted and well-deserved reputation for its 
orchards, the character of its soils are of special interest. The soils 
range from light loams to heavy loams and clay loams, the textures 
of the subsoils being similar in range. The soils are all derived from 
deep glacial till. Some fields are comparatively free from stones 
and others are very stony, but most of the valley is moderately stony. 
The soils are productive, but the men of the section must be given 
credit for having used them skillfully. Soils as good for orcharding 
and farming occur in various places in the hill towns of western 
Franklin and western Hampshire counties that should be equally 
developed. 
Orchard and farm lands can be bought in the Western Highland 
section of Massachusetts for $10 to $30 an acre, and on tracts of 100 
acres or more very good farm buildings are often included at the 
latter price. Farms of 100 to 150 acres with good buildings are to 
be had for $5,000. These prices can be duplicated in western Con- 
necticut, except where the purchase of farms by outside residents 
has led to a marked increase in prices. This applies more especially 
to the southwestern part of the State. 
In the southeastern part of the Western Highlands in Massachusetts 
and in the northeastern part in Connecticut dissection has been very 
deep, especially in the towns of Eussell, Blandford, Montgomery, 
Chester, and Huntington, where the slopes above the channel of the 
Westfield Eiver are exceedingly steep, broken, and rocky, and in 
those towns of Connecticut along the break in the highlands toward 
the Connecticut and Farmington Valleys. Local areas are some- 
times too rough even for feasible forestry planting, yet here and 
there are smooth, rounded hills or moderate slopes of sufficient area to 
afford good sites for orchards and other crops. The soils of one 
large tract examined in western Hampden County included loams — 
heavy, medium, and light — the subsoils rarely being as heavy as clay 
loams. Traces of hardpan sometimes occur, but suitable areas free 
from this difficulty are readily found. Spouty and seepy slopes, 
which are sometimes encompassed in desirable fields, it is practicable 
to drain artificially. 
That part of Hampshire County between the Connecticut Valley 
