These establishments include several golf courses, trailer parks, schools, specialty-crop farms needing irrigation, plus a fish farm. Water Use in Putnam County, Ohio. 3 Source is the Blanchard River. Land Resources Associated with the importance of water resources is the importance of the county's land resources. Putnam County is approximately 310,000 acres in size and its fertile lake bed soils easily permit agriculture to be the leading industry.
Water is essential to allow the fertile soils to be productive.
However, an excess of water is often a problem in the northwest part of the county because it has heavy, poorly drained, clay soils. Despite surface and subsurface drainage improvements, the clay soils readily retain water and often delay the normal planting or harvesting dates, causing economic losses to farmers. Land-use categories shown in Figure 3 include acres and percent of total land area. Urban land is defined as land used for residential, industrial, commercial and institutional sites, etc. Agricultural land in the county includes cropland, pasture land and forest land.