34 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Erie canal, it was denounced as the ' big ditch ' that would engulf the for- 

 tunes of the State, and men high in public estimation pronounced the scheme 

 to be ' visionary and chimerical, and at least one hundred years in advance of 

 the age.' The result has shown how much this portion of the community haa 

 been mistaken, and T can entertain no doubt that a judicious system of public 

 works on the part of the State, having reference to the settlement and culti- 

 vation of tiie public lands, would, in the end, be as signally successful as have 

 been the public works in other states." 



In looking back over the eighteen years since the above was penned, 

 ■who can possibly doubt, to-day, that had the above suggestion of a 

 railroad* from the Aroostook to the Penobscot met with public favor, 

 and been carried out at an early day, that, whatever might have been 

 its success merely in the light of a pecuniary investment, the public 

 domain would have greatly increased in A'alue, and the whole State 

 would have gained in population, wealth and power, with a persist- 

 ance and rapidity to which we are now utter strangers. 



Develoi'MEXt — Past and Prospective. At the time of the 

 separation of Maine from Massachusetts, a large portion of our ter- 

 ritory was an unexplored wilderness. Nearly a quarter part was a 

 public domain, and held by compact, in joint ownership, by both 

 States. At this time, very little importance was attached to timber 

 lands, as such, and the chief value of the territory was supposed to 

 consist in the inducements it held out for agricultural purposes. 

 But a short time elapsed, however, before it was discovered to con- 

 tain great wealth of forest, with streams sufficient to render the same 

 available at an early day. An impression somehow rapidly obtained 

 in the public mind, that timber, and not agriculture, was the great 

 interest here involved. Large tracts speedily passed into the hands 

 of speculators, whose only object was to realize therefrom the 

 greatest amount of money, by stripping them of timber, and not to 

 have them settled by an industrious and enterprising population. 

 The evil influence of a proprietary system upon the interests of agri- 

 culture, is both too great and too glaring, to require discussion here. 



* Perhaps for no desirable road in New England is there a favorable route more 

 distinctly marked by nature, than for this, viz : by the east bank of the Penobscot 

 from Bangor to Mattawamkeag Point, thence toward the Forks of the Mattawam- 

 keag, near where the Baskaheagan comes in, thence by a natural valley to near the 

 origin of Presque Isle river, and following its valley to near its junction with the 

 Aroostook, 



