76

good shell marl—most cheap and efficient manures for the
improvement of land.

This county is almost entirely surrounded by the Chesa-
peake Bay, and bold, deep rivers, navigable in their whole
extent for first-class steamers and sailing vessels. The Chop-
tank gives speedy communication with Baltimore and all
sections, to its western parts, whilst the Nanticoke, with
numerous branches of the Bay afford direct communication
with every portion of the country to all of its remaining por-
tions.

A Railroad is projected from near Seaford, in Delaware to
Cambridge, whose speedy completion is placed beyond doubt,
which will give direct communication to Philadelphia and
the North. The transportation facilities for this county
will then be most thorough and complete.

The most abundant quantities of oysters and other shell
fish, with all the varieties of the fish and wild fowl found in
the Chesapeake waters are found in this county and its adja-
cent waters.

The County town is Cambride, near the centre of the north-
ern border of this county on the Choptank River, a well-built
and thriving place, distinguished for the social elegance and
fine horticultural skill of its population, scarcely ri-
valed in other portions of the country.

SOMERSET COUNTY.

This is the most western of the two most southern counties
of the Eastern Shore. It is bounded on the north by the
Delaware Line, on the south by Pocomoke Sound, an expan-
sion of the Chesapeake Bay, on the east by the Pocomoke Riv-
er, which separates it for a long distance from Worcester
county, and on the west by the Nanticoke River, which sep-
arates it from Dorchester.

Its area is about three hundred and ten thousand acres.

The face of the country is gently rolling in the northern-
part on the table lands which separates its streams, but as we
proceed to its southern border in the more immediate neigh-
borhood of the Sound, the surface is level and flat, but still
affording sufficient fall for all necessary drainage.

The soils in the upper part of the county are mostly a san-
dy loam, except in the neighborhood of tide water, where it
assumes the character of the white oak soil. In the middle
and southern portions it alternates with fine white oak soils,
occasionally with a sub-soil of red or yellow clay. There
is also in several parts of the county considerable portions of
the soil known as the Black Gum swamp soils, of excellent
quality, and producing good yield of such crops as may be
suited to its texture.