THE POTATO IN AROOSTOOK. 105 



no means of knowing the sum of mone}' which is required, between 

 the month of August in one year to July of the next, to handle this 

 crop. 



A few statements of the present situation in Houlton will illus- 

 trate the point. There are eight large frost-proof receiving houses 

 at the railwa3\ These are open the first of September, and continue 

 so till well into June following. In all of them one man is kept con- 

 stantly' emploj'ed, sometimes two. Thus it has come about that every 

 man in a circuit of fort}' miles, in all directions, knows that any da}^, 

 and any hour in the da}', he can sell his potatoes in an open market, 

 where buyers are competing with each other, for a check on the 

 bank. The importance of this condition of things, locally, to the 

 town of Houlton, is above estimation. 



Potato raising is well adapted to our localit}" for three reasons in 

 the main : — the comparative newness of the soil overlying our calca- 

 reous ledges ; the general absence of surface stone in these towns, 

 thus allowing large, smooth fields where all machiner}' can be worked 

 to advantage ; and the present fashion in the trade which calls for 

 Ai'oostook potatoes, and pays more money for them than an}' others. 



"We do not undertake to say why a new soil, so called, is better for 

 the potato than another, nor whether this limestone slate has a large 

 part in helping to make up the quality of the tuber, but the fact 

 seems to be that, in averages of successive years, the new land and 

 calcareous slate potatoes are ranked above others. So long as they 

 steadily bring the most money, argument pro or con is superfluous. 



The smooth fields are undoubtedlv an incentive to extensive cul- 

 ture. The growth of the starch interest illustrates this. We do not 

 have the permanent pasture, so called. All our land is fit for the 

 plow, but up to 1872 there had been no inducements to call ^or great 

 fields under the plow. 



Farm after farm could be found where the woods had been felled 

 and burned. The clearing up was but partially completed, for the 

 land had been seeded down and turned out to pasture. These pas- 

 tures were full of the old mortgages and log piles, and the bushes 

 were sprouting up all around them. The land itself was just as good 

 as the rest that had come under the plow, but they had plowed all 

 they cared to and the rest was waste. 



With the market opened at the starch factory, the men one and 

 all invaded these waste tracts, and, behold, in a year or two, the 



