The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1896-09-03
THE WORLD AT LARGE
Miscellaneous Bits of Information,
Gossip and Fancy.
FERTILE LANCASTER

fEHttLe lRNCaS EH
The banner County of the United stsss
10 the Value Of Its Farm Products.
There has been much rivalry among
counties in various states over the claim
of superior fertility and productive.
ness. The largest agricultural coun.
ty in each state concerned makes claim
to supremacy in this regard. a claim
sustained in the case of many western
counties by much valuable oratory. Re-
Gently an authentic statement of the
agricultural products of the several
states made its appearance, and it
shows that the banner county of the
United States, so far as agricultural
products are concerned, is Lancaster
county. Pa.
The farms of that famed and beauti-
full county of southern Pennsylvania,
on the Susquehanna river border line,
yielded, in the year recorded, produce
to the amount of 81, 10000 Next in the
value Of agricultural products is St.
Lawrence county. N. Y, with total Of
s6,000,000, though the comparison In
hardly fair one, because the area of
st. Lawrence is three times as large as
the area of Lancaster. The value col
lectively of the farms of ST. Lawrence
county is $4,000. 900, while those of
Lancaster are valued at $70,000, 600.
Lancaster has much better railroad con-
nections than st. Lawrence, and, more
over, is closer to desirable market for
agricultural products. Third on the
list of fertile American counties
is Chester, Pa, which has an envia-
bic record for chickens and dairy prod
uce. 1t adjoins Lancaster county to
the east, being nearer Philadelphia II
is smaller by about rs per cent. than
Lancaster, and yielded last year S. $780,
600 in agricultural products.
Still further 10 the east In pennsyf-
.vania, but beyond the Philadelphia line,
is Bucks county, noted for its market
gardening, and producing in year S.
100000 of agricultural products. Bucks
county is 6i0 square miles in land area,
but it very nsarly equals in the yield of
its farms the most fertile and pro-
ductive of the New England counties,
Worcester. Mass. the products of which.
according TO the table at hand. were
$500, 900 a year ago. Worcester county
il literally in the middle of Massachu-
sets. for it extends clear through the
state. In the most central part, from the
New Hampshire boundary line on the
north and the Connecticut and Rhode
Isiand boundary ON the south. 1t Is an
important agricultural county-the
most important in New Ergland--but
Is larger. IS has been seen, than any of
the fertile Pennsylvania counties with
which IL ranks in value of products.
The sixth of the very productive farm
ing counties of the United States is
Colusa county, Cal. In area it is larger
than the three Pennsylvania counties
together. and has record of s., 800 900
Of agricultural produce Colusa counts
Is in the northern part of the state, and
IL 10 not supposed by any patriotic Cal
iforEian that the time is or can be very
far distant when il will rank at the head
Of all the counties of the United States.
even though now 1t in the last of those
which have passed the 5000 600 mark
in the products of their farms in a
single year. When the reports from the
Missouri. Kansas and Nebraska wheat
farms are in this year a claim for a
place somewhere near the top may be
made, but the fact il that corn-growing
or wheat-growing counties stand rela-
lively low upon the list when compared
with those whose products are much
diFersificd.-N. Y. Sun.