farming in the Uplands: the till of streamlined hills in the Uplands is much stonier than the glacial drift in the Central Valley. The metamorphic and granitic rocks of the Uplands were much harder for the ice sheet to chew than the Central Valley's soft brownstone. As a result, the Uplands till is chock full of boulders lying in wait, just under the surface, to blunt a plowshare. The highlands farmer plowed up boulders from the till with such depressing frequency that the common practice was to pile them up at the nearest convenient place - usually into walls along the edges of fields. Because the slopes that were plowed and planted were often steep, erosion constantly stripped away the loosened topsoil and exposed more boulders. Other boulders worked their way to the surface with the frost heaves of winter. In the heat of a hard working day, more than one farmer no doubt paused to curse these "New England potatoes.' Meanwhile, the walls grew higher and higher. Today, these walls run throughout the region, an integral characteristic of the Uplands landscape.

Much has been said and written about the rockiness of most Uplands soils. Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University during the late 18th century, used to enjoy quoting his father's little rhyme about the family acreage in Cornwall, Connecticut.

Nature out of her boundless store
Threw rocks together, and did no more."¹⁰

However, the detrimental aspects of the stones and boulders frequently have been exaggerated. Despite the rocks, the Uplands till soils are actually quite fertile, and the little colonial farms were very productive. During the American Revolution, Connecticut's farms produced enough surplus to make the state a major supplier of the Continental Army, and practically the only supplier of the French forces in America. The bounty of the farmland (and some shrewd merchants) earned Connecticut its revolutionary war nickname, the "Provisions State" Stones in a field do not lessen the fertility of the soil - fertility comes from the nutrients in the dirt that surrounds the stones. And in the Uplands, that dirt is loaded with nutrients. In addition, the walls we see today were the work

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