g BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



But a word in regard to this 3'oung and growing County of 

 Aroostook, which is ever}' j-ear increasing in interest and attracting 

 more and more the attention of the outside world. Notwithstanding 

 the man}' articles that have been written about this county b}"^ mem- 

 bers of the editorial fraternity and others who have visited it from 

 time to time, it is still but little known to the citizens of the older 

 portions of the State, and ottentimes our friends from the other 

 counties who have the courage to visit us are surprised to find that 

 we are not living in log houses in a trackless wilderness, and that 

 the bear and wolf and other wild denizens of the forest do not 

 appear at our doors b}' day or prowl around our dwellings bv night. 

 Aroostook county, originalh' a pai*t of Penobscot and Washington 

 counties, was first incorporated on the 16th of March, 1839. It 

 ihen contained but little more than 9,000 inhabitants. On the 21st 

 of March, 1843, it was enlarged by additions from Penobscot and 

 on March 12th, 1844, it was further enlarged by additions from Pis- 

 cataquis and Somerset, giving it its present vast area of 6,800 

 square miles or considerably more than one-fifth of the whole area 

 of the State of Maine. But few even of those who have visited this 

 county have any idea of its vast extent. It is trulj- a county of 

 magnificent distances. It is equal in area to the States of Con- 

 necticut and Delaware combined, hardly one-seventh less than the 

 old State of Massachusetts, while the State of Rhode Island could 

 be hidden in the depths of its northern forests and perhaps remain 

 for years undiscovered. 



The population of the county has increased from little more than 

 9,000 at the date of incorporation in 1839, to 29,609 in 1870, and 

 41,700 in 1880, being a gain of nearly forty per cent, in ten years. 

 And reckoning the same relative ratio of increase we must have 

 to-day a population of very nearlv 45,000 or five times as many as 

 when the county was first formed. 



In 1860, the valuation of the county was $1,105,796. In 1870 it 

 had increased to $4,995,685, having more than quadrupled in those 

 ten years. In 1880, the total valuation was $7,564,932, which 

 would give us to-day safely $8,000,000 as the valuation of the 

 estates of Aroostook county. This liberal increase, seven-fold in 

 twenty 3'ears, will give some idea of the possibilities of this fertile 

 region when its resources shall have been fully developed. 



It is hardly necessary for me to speak at this time of the advan- 

 tages of Aroostook for agricultural purposes. These have been 



