14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



anywhere in this country. It is true, that in the valleys of the 

 first rivers named, you cannot find so large an amount of such land 

 tog-ether as may be found in some other places, but you find farms 

 and neighborhoods, scattered all around over this territory, of the 

 very best land, where you have the most successful kind of farm- 

 ing ; and upon the uplands in many portions of the State, we find 

 farms, and very many of them, too, that are producing large pro- 

 fits to their owners. 



In Aroostook county, a county that has not been very much 

 developed, and of which we know comparatively little, we have 

 a large amount of land still uncultivated, still untouched by the 

 axe, that that is equal to any that can be found in this part of the 

 country, producing crops in many instances almost marvellous. I 

 noticed just now a bunch of clover that was sent all the way from 

 Aroostook county down here, showing what can be raised on that 

 land.* lam informed by persons who have been farming there 

 for some time, and who have been engaged in clearing the land, 

 that the better way, after the land is cleared, is to raise three crops 

 of wheat in succession, before seeding down. You cannot do that 

 in other portions of the State. They say they get good crops of 

 wheat for three years, and better grass if laid down the third year 

 than if laid down after raising only one crop. You can see from 

 this fact that the land is very rich. In a little colony which has 

 been established there, called New Sweden, where some foreign- 

 ers have collected together, crops were raised last year which to 

 me were really marvellous. They went in there only a year ago 

 last autumn, and began to fell their first trees, and the latter part 

 of last September or first of October, when I visited them, I found 

 they had raised crops of wheat that perfectly astonished me. The 

 snow lay on the ground very late last spring, and some of you 

 may recollect that a freeze came on very early in the fall. You 

 are aware that in small openings, such as those men made there, 

 of ten to fifteen acres in a place, it takes longer for crops to 

 mature than in larger fields. The freeze came upon that wheat 

 before it was fully grained, but the kernels were sufficiently formed 



* The clover referred to was a bunch forwarded to the Secretary of the Board by 

 Daniel Stickney, Esq., of Presque Isle, grown by Mr. Henry Bragdon of Perham, con- 

 sisting of 80 stalks, apparently grown from one seed, about four feet in length and 

 weighing three pounds and six ounces. A single stalk had twenty heads, and one head 

 taken at random counted out forty seeds. It was grown on land which had been cleared 

 and cultivated four years. [s. l. g.] 



