SOILS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT. 71 
There is a wide range of soils in Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
which vary greatly in productivity. Poor soils occur, but there is a 
large total acreage of good soils which are in part well farmed and in 
part so poorly managed that they bear the reputation of being low in 
productive quality, or even worn out. The latter soils need first to 
be located and classified, and then to have their farming possibilities 
demonstrated by experimental crop growing. 
A general soil classification follows: 
The Gloucester series is by far the most extensive. It includes the 
yellow and brown upland soils. The gray and blue-gray upland soils 
constitute the Bernardston series. The Wethersfield series includes 
the glaciated upland areas of Triassic red standstone and shale, the 
surface soils of the sandy types being gray or pinkish gray, and the 
heavier types red or salmon in color. The subsoils are red or salmon. 
The Middlefield series includes the glaciated upland areas of Triassic 
yellow and gray sandstone and shale, the surface soils being yellow, 
brown or gray, and their subsoils brown to yellow. The glacial out- 
wash soils found along the lower courses of streams as they issue from 
the uplands into the major valleys constitute the Merrimac series. 
The Dover series consists of glaciated limestone soils in the Berkshire 
Valley. The Whitman series occurs in depressed or basin-shaped 
areas, and also bordering streams. The surface soils range from 
brownish gray to almost black, while the subsoils are lighter gray, or 
mottled gray and yellow. The Essex series consists of dark-brown 
glacial soil underlain by a light-brown to yellow subsoil usually 
lighter in texture than the surface soil. 
The agricultural methods pursued in the market gardening sec- 
tions, and in other districts of special crop development, are inten- 
sive, but in the general farming districts extensive methods prevail. 
Even in this long settled region there is need for improvement in 
the agricultural and horticultural practice. Growers of special 
crops — onions, tobacco, market-garden produce, apples, peaches, 
cranberries, etc. — are generally prosperous. Other farmers who 
prosper are those who retail the milk produced on their own farms, 
poultrymen who have placed their business on a firm footing not- 
withstanding frequent individual failures, and dairymen who have 
produced some money crop or product, such as apples, potatoes, 
garden produce, poultry, etc. Few farmers prosper, on the other 
hand, unless an income is secured from some special money crop or 
product. 
In the hilly districts some farms have properly been abandoned 
because they did not furnish, under current agricultural conditions, 
a sustaining basis for a prosperous family. Other farms that have 
always possessed the possibility of a good livelihood if efficiently 
