66 BULLETIN 140, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
soils in the areas where development has chiefly taken place are dis- 
tributed among- four main series, the Wethersfield, the Middlefield, 
the Gloucester, and the Talcott, named in the order of their im- 
portance. There are various types of soil in each of these series as 
determined by texture, and a wide range in what may be termed 
general soil or field conditions. The Wethersfield and the Middle- 
field series are underlain by shale or sandstone at varying distances 
from the surface, and under equivalent treatments are not quite so 
strong for general farm crops as the Gloucester soils. 
The fact that peach growing has not been developed more ex- 
tensively in the highlands is doubtless due primarily to climatic con- 
ditions, as the opinion prevails, founded in part at least on experi- 
ence, that the crop is a little less certain there than within the iso- 
thermal line mentioned. Aside from the prolongation of the iso- 
therms northward in the Central Lowland their usual direction is 
northeast and southwest, and if the three southern New England 
States be considered as a unit the isothermal lines roughly parallel 
the seashore. The close relationship existing between the tempera- 
ture lines covering the southern Berkshire hills in the Seymour dis- 
trict, the "Woodstock district, in the northeast part of the State, and 
that locality in southeast Worcester and western Norfolk Counties, 
Massachusetts, where peach growing is commercial, is very striking. 
As successful orchards are maintained on the Gloucester soils in all 
these districts, it would seem that the somewhat prevailing opinion 
that the Wethersfield soils are superior to the Gloucester soils for 
peach production is based on the average texture of the series, and 
that the real difference is largely one of soil type rather than of 
soil series. 
It is doubtless true, however, that under good treatment a given 
type — as the loam — of the Gloucester series is a little stronger than 
the loam of the Wethersfield or the Middlefield series, and hence 
a given variety of peach as grown on it tends to ripen a little later 
than on the corresponding soil type of either of the two latter series. 
For this reason these different series as represented by the different 
soil types require different treatments to maintain a normal balance 
between the vegetative and the fruiting habits of the tree. This is a 
matter requiring skill in observation, and knowledge as acquired 
through experience of the way the soils respond to different treat- 
ments; and the subject merits further study. It may be said, how- 
ever, that certain soil conditions seem fundamental. For example, 
soils should be so deep and friable that any excess of free moisture 
not only disappears readily below the root zone of the trees but re- 
turns to that zone as capillary soil solution for the trees' use as 
occasion may make desirable. Anything interfering with such free 
movement of the soil moisture, which by the absorption of soluble 
