SECRETARY'S REPORT. 9 



I was informed, however, that beds of clay are occasionally found 

 by digging at a moderate depth in various localities, and that it 

 probably exists in sufficient quantity for building purposes. At 

 number eleven, fifth range, bricks have been made in some quantity. 

 Lime also has been burned in the same vicinity. 



There is more or less of interval bordering the streams, and a 

 still larger extent of such as is doubtless of alluvial origin, but more 

 elevated than what usually passes among us for interval land. That 

 which predominates chiefly is what is ordinarily called " strong hard 

 wood soil," and good for all crops. Other parts known as cedar 

 swales, which at a casual glance might be deemed too wet for profit- 

 able tillage, are found to prove otherwise, and when cleared to yield 

 good crops ; for some purposes they are objectionable on account of 

 being more liable to frosts than the higher lands, but they give fine 

 crops of grass and grain. In several instances where turnpiked 

 roads had recently been made through these lands, I had a favorable 

 opportunity to examine the soil, (with a little help from the spade,) 

 to a depth of two or three feet. The upper ten or twelve inches 

 consisted mainly of vegetable matter, somewhat resembling muck, 

 but of better consistence ; below this, a loam .if not clayey, yet more 

 nearly resembling it than was noticed elsewhere, and beneath this a 

 gravelly loam, the whole sufficiently porous to allow superfluous 

 water to pass away with ease — so that seeing it directly after a 

 heavy rain, no standing water could be found. These roads, I was 

 told, were made at an expense of less than two dollars per rod, it 

 costing from seventy-five cents to one dollar to fell the trees and grub 

 out stumps, and as much more thoroughly to turnpike the track. 



In the vicinity of Houlton, the soil varies in character, some 

 being lighter and some more tenacious, and here I found the aver- 

 age depth of plowing to be less than in other sections, being from 

 three to six inches onlv. Some of the most successful firmers there, 

 allege that plowing deeper than four or five inches turns up an 

 inert or injurious subsoil. Hon. S. Gary, who showed me crops 

 rarely surpassed, as for instance, oats promising eighty bushels to 

 the acre, and wheat twenty five to thirty, if not injured by the 

 midge, plows usually, four inches; a lot of nine acres which had 

 previously yielded eight hundred and sixty-seven bushels of oats, by 

 measure, was plowed to this depth, and was, when I saw it, bearing 



