93

the State of Virginia, eastwardly it is bounded by Prince
George's county, and westwardly by Frederick county. It
contains about two hundred and eighty two thousand acres
of land, which comprise all of the varieties heretofore men-
tioned as formed from the disintegration of the volcanic rocks,
such as red and wl ite isinglass soils, hornblende soils, some-
times called rotten rock, mica slate, with the addition of a
distinct variety known as the red lands, a valuable variety of
soil formed from the disintegration of red sand-stone.

The soils of this county have in them all of the elements of
fertility , some in the largest proportions, and can be improved
to a degree equal to the best Pennsylvania and New York lands.
The progress of its agriculture within comparatively a brief
space, has shown this by noted examples of great improve-
ment in apparently completely worn-out and impoverished
soils. These with skill and care have been made as produc-
tive as many of the best lands in the State, and at a cost less
than is required to put in cultivation the wild lands of the
west and northwest, to which immigration, especially from
foreign countries, has been directed.

The productions of the county are very similar to those
in the county last mentioned, with a larger portion devoted
more especially to market-gardening, to supply the great de-
mands of Washington, Georgetown and the district popula-
tion. In the western portion are the red lands, on which
large crops of the finest tobacco are produced, besides wheat,
corn, &c.

It is well watered by the Patuxent, Seneca and Potomac
"rivers and their tributaries, which afford an almost infinite
extent of water-power , the great Falls on the Potomac in the
southern part of the county having alone a sufficiency for al-
most the wants of the whole county. Much of the water pow-
er in the sounty has been improved to a considerable extent,
by numerous manufactories, and much more remains for fu-
ture profitable development.

Its lands are cheap at from ten to one hundred and fifty
dollars per acre, the latter being on the suburbs of Washing-
ton and Georgetown. Good farming land can be purchased
here at from twenty to forty dollars per acre, with convenient
facilities for transportaion to a choice of good markets, and
only a few miles distant from them. The climate is well
adapted to cheap stock raising, and all the varieties of the
best blooded stock are raised here to great excellence. The
products of the dairy, too, afford high profits to those who
pay attention to them.

It has fine building stone, comprising several of the best
varieties of granite, and a very substantial and elegant va-
riety of sand-stone, known as the "Seneca Sand-stone,"
from which the Smithsonian Institute at Washington and