FARMING- IN MAINE* 
211 
Cupy a space in your journal. The town of Au¬ 
gusta lies on both sides the Kennebec river; its 
surface is uneven and hilly. The soil is of a 
sandy loam in some places- near the banks of the 
river ; in other places, and especially as you recede 
from the river, the soil is. of strong fertile loam. 
The land is very much encumbered after getting 
a short distance from the river, with rock, princi¬ 
pally a very good quality of granite, which furnishes 
substantial materials for fencing and building, and 
a valuable article for export. The crops are pota¬ 
toes, corn, spring wheat, oats, peas, and hay; all 
of which are reasonably' good. There is a large 
quantity of hay pressed for market at different 
landings on this river. 
From Augusta we pass'ed through the town of 
Readfield, which is one of the best agricultural 
towns in the county. Although it has a hilly and 
rock-bound surface, its soil is a strong productive 
loam, well adapted to grazing, and improves rap¬ 
idly by cultivation. This town is celebrated for 
its fine oxen, of which I saw 160 yoke in one team 
at their cattle show last October. I doubt wheth¬ 
er there is a town in New England that can pro¬ 
duce finer and better-trained oxen than the town 
of Readfield, .Kennebec county, Maine. I well 
recollect the performance of the pair of oxen that 
walked off with the premium last fall. They 
were attached to a cart loaded with about three 
tons, of stone, the road over which the trial took 
placediad about as much ascent as State street, 
Albany, from the Ei&hange to the Statehouse. 
The team was started from the top of the hill 
with, the loaded cart, and driven down to the plain 
below, holding'their load with the utmost ease. 
They were then ordered to wheel, and started to 
make the ascent, which was no trick at all for 
them. When they got to the steepest part of the 
hill, they made a halt at the word of command, 
and after holding the load a moment, they re¬ 
sponded as readily to the order to march, and 
walked up the balance of the hill. They were 
then driven down the hill again, and as many 
men got on the cart loaded with stone as there 
was room, making the load from four and a half 
to five tons net, and they walked off with the 
whole as easy apparently as before; stopping 
again on the hill and starting in its. steepest part 
when commanded. In driving them there was 
no noise or hallooing ; the low words of the team¬ 
ster and the motion of the goad-stick were all that 
were necessary to make them perform their duty 
in a masterly manner. I believe the team belong¬ 
ed to a Mr. Haine, of that town. What I have 
said of the crops above, is applicable to all the 
towns through which I passed. The fall feed i-s 
remarkably good, and consequently the stock will 
go into winter quarters in good condition. 
We next passed through Mount Vernon and 
Vienna, both of these towns are hilly and very 
rocky; they have much more rock than can be 
converted to any useful purposes. There are some 
fine farms in these towns, which are under a good 
state of cultivation; other portions of the towns 
are new, and require a great deal of patient toil to 
subdue and bring the land to a suitable .condition 
for profitable cultivation. We now enter the town 
of Chesterville, in Franklin county, and find the 
same remarks made in reference to the two last 
towns applicable to this, except on the branches 
of the Sandy river, where the soil is sandy on a 
sandy loam free from rock, and easier cultivated. 
We then passed through Wilton, a very good 
town; some, parts hilly and rocky, others alluvial 
on the branches of Sandy river. In this town 
there is a flourishing woollen factory, which is 
manufacturing all such goods as the farmer wishes 
to consume in the woollen line, and furnishes a 
home market for the surplus produce of the neigh¬ 
borhood. We next came to Farmington, which 
ranks A No, 1 as a. farming town. It has the 
Sandy river passing through the whole length of 
the town, with its broad rich bottom. Here is 
where the cattle show of Franklin was held last 
year with its superb.“ pic nic” dinner, which was 
served up in the Town Hall, by its spirited mem¬ 
bers* and made free to all. Farmington is a fine 
growing village'; I see more building going on 
here than I have "seen this season, excepting at 
Boston. We now pome to the town of Industry, 
which I think must take its name from the habits 
of its population ; for without industry I am sure 
they could never make' those rock-bound hills 
yield such fine crops, and feed such fine herds of 
cattle as we saw there. We stayed over night in 
this town with Mr. Shaw, who is one of the best 
farmers of the county, and 1 a man withal, who can 
not content himself to be housed up during the 
long winters of 44-^° of north latitude. To pass 
away the time, he takes his teams to the woods 
and gets a few logs to the banks of the river, to be 
run in the spring to supply the mills of the lumber¬ 
men below. Last winter he had about 40 yoke 
of oxen in the woods hauling logs, making a pretty 
good home market for the produce of his farm. 
He sold his logs a few days ago for $37,000! a 
pretty gqod winter's work for one farmer. I do 
not wonder that they call the town Industry. 
We next come to Anson, in Somerset county, ly¬ 
ing on the west bank of the Kennebec river. This 
is a fine town, with a rich sandy loam on the river, 
and a fine range of hill-lands back. We here 
crossed the Kennebec to the town of Madison, 
which is also a fine agricultural town, lying on the 
east side of the river. 
We now returned to Augusta through the towns 
of Skowhegan, Bloomfield, Fairfield, in Somerset 
county, and Wateryille and Sidney in Kennebec 
county, all of which are river towns of the first 
character; in fact there are few states that can 
boast a finer farming country than the valley of 
the Kennebec, as far as I have traversed it, which 
is about 100 miles up and down the river. The 
Kennebec river affords an immense, water-power, 
which at no distant day will hum with the busy- 
spindle, giving profitable employment to the capi¬ 
tal and laborer of the country, and a ready and 
profitable market for the produce of its rich valley. 
The river is navigable for schooners to Augusta, 
and there is a dam and lock at Augusta that make 
slack-water navigation for flat-boats, and a small 
steamboat to Waterville, 18 miles above Augusta. 
At a reasonable expense the slack-water naviga¬ 
tion might be expended much farther up the river. 
