It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine.

August 3. Monday. 

This was the midst of the raspberry season. We found them abundant on every carry on the East Branch and below, and children were carrying them from all sides into Bangor. I observed that they were the prominent dish on the tables, once a low scarlet mountain, garnishing the head of the table in a dish two feet across. 

Earlier the strawberries are equally abundant, and we even found a few still deep in the grass. Neither of these abound about Boston, and we saw that they were due to the peculiar air of this higher latitude. 

Though for six weeks before leaving home we had been scarcely able to lie under more than a single sheet, we experienced no hot weather in Maine. The air was uniformly fresh and bracing like that of a mountain to us, and, though the inhabitants like to make it out that it is as warm there as in Massachusetts, we were not to be cheated. It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine. 

It was P. who commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time on this excursion, sometimes by turning the prow to the shore. He once made an indirect but lengthy apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but one who worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , August 3, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We started early before breakfast, the Indian being considerably better, and soon glided by Lincoln, and after another long and handsome lake-like reach, we stopped to breakfast on the west shore, two or three miles below this town. . . The small river emptying in at Lincoln is the Matanuncook. . .. So we paddled and floated along, looking into the mouths of rivers. . . .At Piscataquis Falls, just above the river of that name, we walked over the wooden railroad on the eastern shore, about one and a half miles long, while the Indian glided down the rapids. . . .We were not obliged to get out of the canoe after this on account of falls or rapids, nor, indeed, was it quite necessary here. We took less notice of the scenery to-day, because we were in quite a settled country. the river became broad and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron winging its way slowly down the stream before us. . . .The Olamon River comes in from the east in Greenbush a few miles below the Passadumkeag. . . .The Sunkhaze, another short dead stream, comes in from the east two miles above Oldtown.. . .Opposite the Sunkhaze is the main boom of the Penobscot, where the logs from far up the river are collected and assorted. . . . We landed opposite his door at about four in the afternoon, having come some forty miles this day. . . P. wanted to sell us his canoe. Said it would last seven or eight years, or, with care, perhaps ten; but we were not ready to buy it. . . ..This was the last that I saw of Joe Polis. We took the last train, and reached Bangor that night.")