STOCK AND SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 155 



know the stiiclents worked, and it cost us three dollars and 

 sixty cents per ton, as I stated before. 



Mr. Leland. Might not some of that be accounted for by 

 the fact that you are on a worn-out farm instead of in Aroos- 

 took county? 



Gen. Brown of Portland. I think the publication of these 

 facts would be of much interest to farmers in the western part 

 of the State. I had about eighty acres of hay to get last 

 summer, and I had to employ a man at about five dollars per 

 ton to get that. I could get no one who would do it for less. 

 Therefore, I say the publication of these facts would be bene- 

 ficial to the county, and might induce mapy to come here. 



Mr. Parker. I think perhaps the best way would be to 

 state what all our crops cost us. I will say, at the outside, 

 our hay does not cost us over three dollars per ton to put it 

 in our barn ; our oats about twenty-five cents per bushel. 

 We can raise big crops of wheat at twenty-five cents per 

 bushel, barley at thirty-five cents per bushel ; potatoes for 

 about a shillino:. I have raised them for thirteen cents. 



Mr. TowNSEND of Fort Fairfield, I planted five acres of 

 potatoes, and reckoning labor and everything, I estimated 

 that they cost me only twelve and a half cents per bushel. 



Mr. Parker. In regard to cutting hay, I did not realize 

 we w'cre talking with men who came from the State College, 

 where they do not probably cut over fifteen hundred to the 

 acre. You who come from the western portion of the State 

 must recollect you are not coming to land like the land in 

 older counties, but new, strong soil. 



Mr. Burleigh. It seems to me if we can grow beef down 

 in our western counties, where our hay costs us from five to 

 eight dollars per ton, that it must be profitable to make beef 

 up here. I should think this view of the question would 

 practically settle the query as to whether beef raising in 

 Aroostook is profitable. 



Mr. Stickney of Presque Isle. I spent my life until I was 

 forty years of age in Kennebec county, and I know about 

 what is raised there, and I have been for the last eighteen 



