SECRETARY'S REPORT. 57 



are guilty, prevails among the farmers here. Scarcely any one 

 of them can tell the precise amount of ground cultivated, quan- 

 tity of seed sown or bushels harvested. Their answers to 

 questions upon the subject amount to general estimates. The 

 provision in the late law, granting a bounty on wheat and corn, 

 and requiring the applicants to make oath to the amount of seed 

 sown, acres cultivated and bushels havestcd, will remedy this 

 trouble in regard to these crops, but as the wheat was not throslied 

 when I was there, 1 must refer you to such returns as may be made 

 to the Legislature. The appearancp. of the fields during the sum- 

 mer, and the good quality of the grain harvested in the fall, would 

 convince the most faithless that this is naturally a great wheat 

 country. I have been informed tliat Mr. Lewis cultivated in 

 No. 1, on the Aroostook road, eighty acres of wheat, and gath- 

 ered sixteen hundred bushels. I cannot vouch for the truth of 

 this, as I did not see Mr. Lewis, he not being at home when I 

 was there. Tiiis, however, is but one instance of the many that 

 can be cited, of the success attending the cultivation of this 

 golden crop. Li 1837, Fish & Wiggins raised in township No. 

 4, on the Aroostook road, twelve hundred and fifty bushels of 

 wheat on fifty acres of burnt land, averaging, as yon will see, 

 twenty-five bushels to the acre. In 183.8 they raised in the 

 same township seven hundred and fifty bushels. Mr. Lewis, 

 who that year resided in the same township, raised seven hun- 

 dred and fifty bushels. Li 1837 there were raised in this town-' 

 ship six thousand bushels of first-rate wheat, w^iich made an 

 average of nearly three hundred bushels to a family. The spring 

 was very favorable for getting good burns, and the summer was 

 favorable for the wheat crop. In 1838 they raised but about 

 three thousand bushels, owing to the extremely wet spring, which 

 prevented their getting burns soon enough to enable them to 

 sow sufQciently early." "The first tree was cut in this settle- 

 ment in 1834." 



I have no data from which to state the production there since 

 this period, but no doubt is entertained that it has been large, 

 and no reason is known why it may not prove the granary of 

 the state. 



The hindrances to its more general cultivation throughout the 

 state are variously stated. Of the number of towns from which 



