342 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



gree of cultivation. Chesuncook is a long, narrow, and exceed- 

 ingly beauliful lake. Its water flows into the west branch of the 

 Penobscot, meeting that from Chamberlain, which we have just left, 

 at the town of Medway or Nicatou. We now had reached the west 

 branch of the Penobscot again and commenced to ascend the river. 

 There are at Chesuncook several settlers, among whom may be 

 mentioned Messrs.. Walker, Anscll, Bridges, Smith and Folsom. 

 The land is good, and not very far from a market, being twenty 

 miles from Moosehead carry. 



The west branch for four miles above Chesuncook lake, is dead 

 water, and we saw much fine interval land and many islands. We 

 recognized the vegetation we had left at Seboomook meadows ; it 

 had now sprung into the full leaf. This is one characteristic of the 

 summer in the Aroostook belt, the ice once out of the river and 

 the frost out of the ground, all vegetation grows with extreme 

 rapidity. The river is quite strong and swift a good deal of the 

 way from the lake to the Carry fai^m. We reached the Carry farm 

 on the 5th of June, and were drawn across the railroad by the aid 

 of Mr. Young. The land between the west branch and Moose- 

 head lake is rather low and flat, the greatest elevation not exceed- 

 ing forty or fifty feet, and for most of the way the "height of land" 

 is not so great as this. This ridge divides" the waters of the Pe- 

 nobscot and Kennebec rivers. 



Moosehead Lake. 

 Having now reached Moosehead lake, it becomes my duty to 

 describe briefly its physical character and the vegetation of the 

 shores. The latter can be told in a single word or two, pines and 

 other cone-bearing trees. Where the few clearings have been made, 

 there are good farms and quite productive. Moosehead lake is an 

 expansion of Moose river. This stream comes from the west, 

 passing through a chain of many ponds and empties into this lake, 

 having drained a district of twenty-three townships. The lake is 

 very irregular in its shape, being twice as long as it is wide, and 

 having five unequal arms. The river drivers who have warped 

 logs across this water say they have found that a, greater length 

 of warping line was required in the vicinity of Kineo, a mountain 

 in the centre of the lake than upon any other lake in Maine. It 

 is the occurrence of such deep places as this which renders Moose- 

 head such an unfailing resort for fishermen. The lake trout and 

 togue of this lake are considered equal to any in New England. 



