The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1897-09-25
FERTILE LANCASTER.

ThA BaAner County ef the United oAaess
In the Value of lts Farm Products.
There has been much rivalry among
counties in various states over the claim
of superior fertility and productive
ness. Thesiargcst agricultural coun-
ty in each state concerned makes claim
to supremacy in this regard, cleim
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. ss is sns
The farms Of that famed and beauti-
ful county of southern Pennsylvania,
on the Susquehanna river border line,
yielded, in the year recorded. produce
to the amount of So, ,000, 900. Nextin. the
value of agricultural products is st.
Lawrence county, N. Y, with total of
$6,0O0,O00, 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 $32 900, 900, while those OF
Lancaster are valued at $4,000, 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-
BILE record for chickens and dairy prod
uce. 1t adjoins Lancaster county to
the east, being nearer Philadelphia. It
is smaller by about rs per cent. than
Lancaster, and yielded last year IS, ,80O,-
600 in agricultural products.
Still further to the east in Pennsyl-
vania, but beyond the Philadelphia line,
is Bucks county, noted for it's market
gardening, and producing in year S.
100000 of agricultural products. Bucks
county is 610 square miles in land area,
but it very nearly equals in the yield of
it's 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
is literally in the middle of MassachN-
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
Island boundary on the south. 1t is an.
important agricultural county-the
most important in New Ergland-but
is larger, as has been seen, than any Of
the fertile Pennsylvania counties with
which it 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 ST, 300, 600
Of agricultural produce. Colusa county
is in the northern part of the state, and
it is not supposed by any patriotic Cal.
ifornian that the time is or can be very
far distant when it will rank at the head
of all the counties Of the United States.
even though now it is the last of those
which have passed the S., ,O00, 900 mark
in the products of their farms in n
single year. When the reports from the
Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska wheat
farms are in this year claim for o
place somewhere near the top may be
made, but the fact is that corn n-growing
or wheat growing couhties stand rela-
lively low upon the list when compared
with those whose products are much
diversihed.-N. Y. Sun. @
+"