Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-11-10

are well patronized and turn out very good
cheese, for which there Is home market at
Bangor, Portland, and the other large towns
in the state at prices which net the farmers
this year from nine and half to eleven
cents pound. The returns per COW Gin
Guiding butter made at home) were stated
at about $50. Butter-making in Aroostook
is in its infancy, and buyers are paying only
about eighteen cents. Yet every condition
for first-class butter-making exists without
drawback, and knowledge of the art is all
that is required to make Aroostook butter
stand equal to the best made in the country.
Aroostook stands high also as grain
producing region. Dat crops ranging from
eighty TO one hundred twenty bushels per
acre are frequent, and the oats are heavy.
A wheat crop running below twenty-four
bushels to the acre is called poor one, and
as yet there is home market among the
lumbermen in the logging-camps for all the
grain that is grown. The French in the
Madawaska settlements at the extreme
northern part of the county (who are not
"Canucks" but descendants of the old AGA
dams celebrated by Longfellow in his
Evangeline," and driven by the British be-
fore our revolution northward from Nova
Scotia) grow large quantities of buckwheat
or India wheat Corn of the early varieties
does well in many places, but is naturally
not so generally grown as elsewhere to the
southwark.
Nearly the whole population of this large
territory Numbering some 100000 is con-
centrated along the main road which runs
north through the center of the first tier of
townships west from the New Brunswick
line and on side roads running out from
this generally less than ten miles. On this
main road it has the appearance of an old
settled country, it being mostly cleared, the
stumps out, and good buildings erected.
There were eight or nine villages along this
road. OFF from it, especially to the west,
one soon plunges into an almost unbroken
wilderness. The land on both sides is
equally good, aud only awaits settlement to
make the whole country the garden of New
England Until the building of the rail-
roads within the past few years, however,
it has been almost inaccessible. Most of
the hundred miles between lower Aroostook
and Bangor is wretched rocky, swampy,
almost impossible territory, only fit to hold
the world together. Consequently Aroos-
took has been almost out of the world, but
it is so no longer. STILL it has been little
advertised, and is little known compared
with vastly inferior sections of the north
west which the Immigrant railroans have
advertised in all possible ways and in the
most exaggerated terms. In our opinion
any Vermonter who goes to Dakota or even
Minnesota or Wisconsin before seeing Aroos-
took, makes bad mistake. We say, with
soberness and no desire to make anything
like an overstatement, that Aroostook, for
every purpose except fruit-growng, is equal
to the Mohawk and Genesee valleys of New
York. 1t is colder, but not otherwise in
ferior.
This article is already longer than we in
tended, but few additional notes upon the
crops and the prices of land are necessary to
complete it. We had time to visit but a
single farm, that of Mr.. Freeman Hayden
of Presque Isle. Mr.. Hayden was the sec
ond settler in that township thirty-fve years
ago. He entered the county with his axe
on his shoulder more than S400 worse off
than nothing" He told US that he had paid
| $4,000 in interest money since, but is now
out of debt. His home farm is about two
hundred and fifty acres, fifty in wood and
the rest all in one square lot, on which
terrier pup could not hide himself. His
crop this year is big barn full of the best
hay, between five and six thousand bushels
of potatoes, four hundred bushels of wheat
and twelve hundred bushels of oats. The
| potatoes sold at the starch factory netted
him over 81 900, clear of the cost of growing
and marketing. Besides his home place he
has about as much again land in timber lots,
all paid for. His barns are as good as any
in Vermont, and he is preparing to build a
fine house the coming season. The instances
of similar succession found on every side.
In the Bangor Wing and Courier, copy of
which we bought in passing through that
city, we found the following;
Young man, read this I have neighbor past
the middle age a hard working mechanic, a man
| OF observation and worthy citizen. In the ex-
| curson season having little leisure, he took a
| trip to Aroostook, and u need not say to those
| who have been there) he came home delighted.
| M m ed wa nv w q w hat IN
afraid shall lose him as neighbor. The thriv-
ing villages and neat comfortable dwellings OF
the farmers-so unlike the shanties and novels OF
| the western settlers, were marvel to him. He
drfted into the township of Limestone. Such soil
he had not conceiyed-deep, rich-miles and
miles without stone to be seen. There he found
| Mr,-- upon splendid farm with neat, COM
| Portable dwelling and outbudngs, and In the en-
joyment OF the fact that he had harvested ten
thousand bushels Of potatoes the past year and
other large crops His experience had been this
Several years ago he went west with one or two
| thousand dollars in his pocket and the intention
OF making home and a fortune there. He came
back to this state without his home, without hi.
fortune, without the money he took with him and
without his health. That was the result OF his
experiment west. Having recovered his health
he concluded to go east He took horse and
wagon his wife and child and twenty-five dollars
in money-all he had-and went to Aroostook
In looking for place to establish himself, he
found site in Limestone with which he was
pleased, and he settled upon it. This was twelve
years ago He Is now worth S25 900 and has his
health and happy family
Wild land in Aroostook sells on an aver.
age for about two dollars an acre. Improved
farms with good buildings are for sale fol
about ten dollars an acre. Wild land is sc
plenty that many farmers who are in deb
: will sell their improved farms at this low
figure and plunge right into the wilderness
again to open new ones. Experienced par
ties told us that the first crop on newly
cleared land would pay for the land anc
clearing, and the second crop on 100-acr
lot would put up good set Of buildings
The first crop is usually small grain or pots
toes, and seeding to grass is always don
I, with wheat. From one and half to tw
tons of hay per acre is common crop. Tn
best Of cedar in any quantity is found o.
h nearly every farm, and spruce timber
5 abundant. The pine has been mostly Gu
q out by lumbermen, years ago. II the reade
y desires further information, Mr.. j. d. Gov
!, of Linneus, Mr.. c. p. Allen of Presque ISL
y or SmalPs Aroostook Valley Real Estat