210 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



have succeeded. Formerly, we were thirty-six hours from tide 

 water, at a cost of from seven to eight dollars per ton ; we are 

 now but three and a half hours, at a cost of from three to four 

 dollars per ton. So great a balance in our favor in time and ex- 

 pense we confidently argue must work out great results. And 

 this brings me directly to the question of the railroad ; with which 

 my friend who is to follow me and myself have had a good deal to 

 do in one capacity or another since its inception. 



A year ago last June, we struck midway at Lagrange, a line of 

 railroad forty miles in length, extending from this point to Old- 

 town. In less than seventeen months afterward the iron horse 

 stood upon the track at Dover and Foxcroft. The work was 

 accomplished with greater speed than any similar one on any rail- 

 road of the same length in New England. Behind this track, as 

 feeders, are all the great resources I have named, waiting only the 

 hand of labor and the profitable investment of capital ; waiting 

 not long — both these elements are sure to appear — for the simple 

 commercial reason that they will pay '^ and then our hitherto land- 

 locked and undeveloped county will take a new departure on the 

 highwa}^ to wealth and population. 



The question may occur to you, why we take a circuitous in- 

 stead of a direct route to tide water at Bangor ? It is often 

 asked ; and at the risk of trespassing upon your time, I will 

 endeavor to give an explanation. The direct line to Bangor as a 

 road would perhaps be forty miles in length ; our line by way of 

 Oldtown to the same point, is about fifty-two miles. Railroad 

 men understand that all things being equal, railroads should be 

 •built as the laden bee flies, homeward bound. 



It was said that the Emperor Nicholas, not long since, abruptly 

 terminated a consultation with his engineers en the feasibility of a 

 certain route, by drawing a pencil mark on the map of the way, 

 and emphatically uttering the word "there." On examining the 

 mark the dismayed oflicers discovered that it indicated a straight 

 line on the face of a country beset with great, and in their judg- 

 ment, insurmountable natural obstacles ; but the imperial mandate 

 had issued, and nothing but obedience remained. Railroad corpo- 

 rations in this State are not j'et imperial ; and many considera- 

 tions come in to influence and determine the line they shall pursue 

 in constructing a road. The shorter from given points, the more 

 convenient, of course, for travellers ; but in a border county of 

 a border State, passenger transportation forms, under the most 



