)s\ 
A HISTORICAL, TOPOGRAPHICAL & AGRICULTURAL SURVEY 
OF THE COUNTY OF WASHINGTON. 
Taken under the direction of the New-York State Agricultural Society, 
BY ASA FITCH, M. D. 
,^ rs * P°rii°n of this work, on being put into type, has been found to occupy so much more 
space thou the wriier hud supposed it would do that he has been led to depart from his original design 
of pursuing the several topics in consecutive order, that he might first complete those branches to which 
this Survey mainly has reference. As the several topics to be reported upon are measurably distinct 
and independent of each other, the succession in which they are pre«ented becomes n matter of minor 
consequence. To fully report upon every subject is obviously impracticable. It has therefore been 
deemed specially important that in those industrial branches to which attention is most prominently 
directed m this county, and in which it occupies a leading rank, a full account should be rendered: 
whilst in those branches in which other counties of the Stale are in advance of this, a cursory notice 
only, from this county, will be required. And overburdened with matter as the present volume of 
Transactions is, the following articles only are now submitted; the sections being numbered onwards 
from last year’s volume, for the purpose of more convenient reference in a final index ] 
PART SECOND. 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY. 
106. Adaptedness of this county to fine wooled sheep. —No section of 
our country can be better adapted for the convenient and profitable keep¬ 
ing of fine wooled sheep than the eastern half of Washington county. 
From the Bald mountain range of hills on the west to the state line on 
the east, almost every farm contains a portion of interval or permanent 
meadow from which hay for winter consumption is gathered ; and the 
remainder consists of hilly upland, yielding a short, sweet nutritious 
grass for summer pasturage. To the west of this tract, the level lands 
towards the Hudson river furnish no such pasturage ; and to the east of 
it, in Vermont, the lands become more broken and mountainous, with 
no intervening valleys supplying the requisite amount of meadow lands. 
Most of our hills it is true are susceptible of cultivation to their sum¬ 
mits, and at the present period, would be more profitable if given up to 
tillage. But although the prices of wool render its production little lu¬ 
crative, it can here be grown to such advantage, that these hills now 
are covered with flocks, and it is probable they will so continue in all 
coming time. 
107. Wool statistics of this and other counties. —Eminently adapted 
as this county is for the keeping of sheep and the growth of wool, this 
has been during the past twenty years the leading and prominent busi¬ 
ness of the county. And the quantity and quality of this staple here 
produced, is probably unrivalled in any other section of our land. 
Of thirty-six million pounds of wool grown in the United States, ac¬ 
cording to the returns of the last national census, 9,845,295 were pro¬ 
duced in the state of New-York, and next to us stands Vermont, yield¬ 
ing 3,699,235 pounds. 
[Assembly, No. 175.] 48 
