334 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



three-quarters ; but we were enabled to take advantage of a slug- 

 gisli and very crooked brook, which afforded our canoes good water 

 for more than half the way. The brook creeps through a dense 

 growth of low trees, which gave, in the mist of the cold day, an 

 unnatural darkness to the water of the stream. Emerging from 

 this black pathway we found the commencement of the carry to lie 

 in a forest of mixed growth, where a small spot had been cleared 

 for lumber operations. At a point ten or twelve rods from the 

 brook, a road crosses the carry, running in a north-westerly direc- 

 tion. It is much wider than the portage path, having been origi- 

 nally intended for a military road. It was cut, by contract, in 

 1842, and commonly goes by the name of General Wool's Military 

 road. Of course twenty years of disuse have permitted the growth 

 of many quite large trees in the very roadway. The portage is 

 half a mile in length, and terminates at Seboomook-meadows pond. 

 This pond, in early spring, is one hundred and twenty rods in di- 

 ameter, its size principally depending upon back-water from the 

 Penobscot Late in summer it is barely a quarter of a mile in 

 circumference. The blue-joint grass around the borders of this 

 pond is said to be very good, and lias afforded, in a single season, 

 eighty tons of meadow hay of fine quality. The brook which 

 forms the outlet of this pond was quite deep at the time wo vis- 

 ited it, and enabled us to have an easy journey to the waters of 

 the west branch. At the union of this brook with the main river, 

 we first noticed particularly the fertility of the soil. In many re- 

 spects the vegetation of this district reminds one of the luxuriance 

 of the plants of Aroostook. 



Wf'Si Branch of the Penobscot. 



The river, at this point, is the finest we have yet seen in the 

 State. It is full, swift and strong. The banks are covered with 

 hardwood, elms and maples, with here and there some fair pines 

 and spruces. But the immediate vicinity of the river has been 

 well cleared of available timber, and there is now little left of 

 what is called " good sapling pine." The land, even at this very 

 early season, had such a flourishin.u' growth of spring plants, Di- 

 centra, Atragene, Viola and Claytonia, that we could easily im- 

 agine ourselves in the maple woods of York or Kennebec county, 

 and many times we looked around for some clearing and farm 

 house on the shore. But although the banks have such a homelike 



