THE POTATO IN AROOSTOOK. 99 



Croix. This latter is confined to the extreme southeastern corner 

 of the count}', in the towns of Amity, Orient and Weston. Still 

 the S3'stems so interlock, and so closely, that in Amity the waters 

 flow with the whole three channels, and in Orient and Weston the 

 Schoodic and Penobscot fountains are almost side by side. While 

 teachino; school in the town of Amitv I boarded at a farm house 

 which was about'two miles due west of the initial post of the treaty 

 line of 1842, while between that point and the house was a copious 

 spring, whose waters coursed off to the north to the St. John, and 

 the rain which fell on the western part of the same farm flowed off 

 and down by Bangor and the town where we now are. 



The peculiarly fertile lands of the county are onh' found in the 

 valley of the St. John River, and then onl}' from south line of the 

 town of Hodgdon east to the main river and north to the Grand 

 Falls. An examination of the Geological Map of Northern Maine, 

 by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, in Mr. Goodale's Report of 1861, reveals 

 one cause, at least, of this fertility and its necessary limitations. 

 The geological formation from the St. John River westward across 

 the boundary line through the 2d Range of Townships, that 

 known as calcareous slates. This formation extends northward, 

 covering the two ranges, till we get into the upper part of Caribou, 

 where the rock changes to what is known as cla}' slate, and this, with 

 the talcose schist, is the characteristic formation of all the headwaters 

 of the great river. 



In the first range the calcareous formation continues on to the town 

 of Van Buren, where the clay slate shows itself, while in the Province 

 the limestone continues to the Grand Falls and some few miles above. 

 The botanist of the surveying corps of 1862 found this distinction 

 of rock carried out in the distinction of the flora of this higher valley, 

 and the lower portion which we are to consider in particular. 



In the second annual report upon the natural history and geology 

 of the State of Maine for 1862, on page 125, we find these words: 

 ''The country lying along the river St. John, from Boundar}' Branch 

 to Grand Falls, is marked by the very frequent occurrence of certain 

 northwestern plants. 



And the district comprised b}' the curved northern limit of Maine 

 and a line drawn from Grand Falls to a point between Baker Lake 

 and Boundary Branch will be found to be nearly the range of these 

 plants in our vState. This district is so entirely distinct, botanically, 

 from any other portion of Maine, that its limits can be said with 

 confidence to be clearly defined. 



