262. Agriculture.—It is interesting to see the differences between the. Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. In the sandy soil of thb plain most of the forests are of pine trees. In the rich, clay soil of the Piedmont there are oaks, hickories, poplars, walnuts, and other broad-leaved trees. In the fields of the Coastal Plain small fruits and truck are raised, such as strawberries, blackberries, melons, cabbage, and peas. In the Pied mont fields are corn, wheat, clover, and grass for pasture. Many horses and cows are to be seen eating the grass or standing under the leafy shade trees. Since the products of the Coastal Plain are sold immediately, the farmer there needs only a small barn in which to keep his team and tools. As the products of the Piedmont are mainly stock and grain, the farmers need big barns to provide shelter for the animals and to keep feed for winter.
:263. Diversified farming.—(1) The farm ers in this region nearly all follow diversi fied farming. They grow wheat, corn, and hay. They have pasture fields, orchards, gar dens, chickens, horses, pigs, and some kind of cattle. But these farmers often have one special crop that is their main dependence.
(2) Since the large city markets north of the Potomac River require much milk, many Piedmont farmers keep herds of dairy cows, which in summertime pasture on some of the fields, and drink at clear little streams running from the hillside springs. In winter, the cows eat the hay and corn that was grown on the farms and stored in the barns.
(3) In northern Virginia, the Piedmont farmers raise fine horses especially suited for cavalry use. It takes two or three years for a horse to grow up, and the large, rolling, well-grassed fields of the Pied mont make a very good place for them to pasture. The Uni ted StatesArmy has officers there nearly all the time buying horses.
(4) In the central part of the Virginia Piedmont many apples are grown, especially on the hillsides and in the coves at the foot of the Blue Ridge.
About the year 1840, a citizen of Virginia who repre sented our govern ment as Minister to England gave Queen Victoria some Albemarle Pippin apples. The Queen liked the ap ples so much that thereafter she always used that kind. Since then some of these apples have regularly been exported to England.
(5) In the Piedmont of northern North Carolina and of southern Virginia, the far mers, not having city markets near, to which they can send milk and butter, raise tobacco instead. It is a crop which keeps well, and can therefore be sent to distant markets.
Tobacco takes so much plant food from the soil that the crops have to be planted in new places, or heavily fertilized. This tobacco district has many abandoned fields and gul lied hillsides. This part of the Piedmont does not have the herds of cattle or the big red barns that are seen in the Maryland, Penn sylvania, and New Jersey part of the region.
264. Cities.—The Piedmont has two classes of cities: port cities and inland cities. Because boats can sail on the larger Coastal Plain streams, people in the port cities can receive raw materials and ship freight more cheaply than can be done in the inland cities. For this reason the port cities are much larger than the interior cities, which, being distant from the sea, must depend upon railroads and highways for transport.
The fall line cities have more people than live in all the rest of the Piedmont, most of whom make their living by working in fac tories whose smokestacks may be seen thickly dotting the cities of this region.
Trenton, Philadelphia, Chester, and Wil mington have much the same advantages for manufacturing. (1) They have coal and iron, because they are near the coal fields and the iron furnaces of Pennsylvania (Secs. 277, 287). (2) They are all situated beside the navigable Delaware. (3) They are all on the main lines of the railroads running to the south and west. (4) They all have an abundant food supply furnished by the dairy farms of the hilly, clayey Piedmont, and by the truck farms of the sandy, level Coastal Plain. Fruits, vegetables, and other foods are brought in boats, wagons, and trains to the city markets. All of these cities manu facture much machinery, and all of them except Trenton have important shipyards.
265. Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, is famous for its manufacture of dishes and other articles of pottery. This industry first developed in Trenton because there were deposits of clay near by, and because coal with which to burn the clay could be brought in canal boats down the Delaware and Lehigh rivers from the Pennsylvania coal mines. Formerly the Delaware River and the canal from Trenton to New York were important waterways, and it was by these routes that the products of Trenton found their way to market. But now the Pennsylvania and the Reading railroads have main lines running from New York past Trenton to the south and to the west, thus permitting products to be shipped at almost any hour of the day to any part of the United States.