208 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



even that might be cut into boards, plank and timber on the ground, 

 and sent by cars to market, which would double the amount that 

 can never be otherwise reached ; but this is far from being all. 

 There are millions and millions of most beautiful pine lumber left 

 on the ground, after the mere body of the tree has been cut out as 

 a mill log, most suitable for various kinds of shorter dimension 

 stuff, clapboards, shingles, &c., &c., that must lie and rot on the 

 earth where it now is, unless some mode of conveyance can be pro- 

 vided, which will make it an object to go into those mutilated for- 

 ests and erect machinery for cutting it into shape and preparing it 

 for transportation. A rail road will settle up that whole country, 

 establish mills in all directions, and bring out untold millions ot 

 dollars worth of most useful pine lumber, that must otherwise 

 perish and be lost. We believe there is at this moment, waste 

 lumber enough in the pine forests that have been operated upon by 

 lumbermen who take thence nothing but the first cut, the straight, 

 clear body of the tree, to pay for the building of a road from 

 Skowhegan to the Forks." 



VIII. — Concluding Remarks. 



Having given an outline of the geography of Somerset county, 

 with some notice of its geological characteristics, and remarks 

 upon its staple products, fences, &c., I will conclude the present 

 survey with a few hints touching obvious defects in the general 

 management of the farmers, with one or two suggestions for im- 

 provement. 



I. It is an evident fact that one of the principal defective features 

 of the husbandry of the county, is, that farmers, as a general thing, 

 have too much land under wliat is termed cultivation ; and tliis is 

 a fault clearly shown, not only in this county, but throughout the 

 State, The practice, acquired by farmers in the first settlement of 

 the county, of clearing land and cropping it as long as it would 

 produce any thing at all, then abandoning it for that newly cleared, 

 has led to serious results. When land did not produce a large 

 crop, no effort was made to keep up its fertility by manuring, for 

 new soil which could be had for the clearing was considered far 

 better, and the plan of so doing preferable to the other practice. 

 At present, upon many of our farms there is beginning to be a 



