Township Of North Franklin Extension Of Time Form: Fill & Download for Free

Ali never thought Sonny took a dive, and, there is absolutely no proof, of any kind, anywhere, that Ali thought Sonny took a dive, or that Sonny took a dive.Sonny Liston is the forgotten great fighter who dominated the later 1950’s and early 1960’s more than any other fighter in history dominated an era.CREDIT PICTURE TO NBC NEWSAttribution Note: Facts, quotes, about the Ali vs. Liston fights are drawn primarily and credited to: from Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig; Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob Mees; Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser; Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch by Rob Steen; Sonny Liston in a New Light: With 4 Excerpts from Sonny Liston by Paul Gallender; and The Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick ToschesIt has been 56 years since Ali fought Sonny, and in that time, no one has produced the tiniest bit of proof that Sonny took a dive in either fight, none, nada, zilch, zippo.Ali always believed that there was a certain amount of luck involved in his fights with Sonny LIston - injuries to the Big Man - but other than that, he simply was happy he won.While there has been speculation through the years about the Liston fights, there has never, ever, anywhere, been any indication AT ALL, not a tiny iota, let alone proof, that Ali thought Sonny took a diveThere is not a word, not a syllable in any book on Muhammad Ali or the fights with Sonny indicating in any way, shape, or form, that Muhammad Ali ever believed Sonny had taken a dive.In 56 years, there were three offiical investigations, Senate hearings, and 4 of the best investigative reporters in modern history searching for some evidence that the fight(s) were fixed. They all found nothing.The three books written which got the closest cooperation from Ali, or his friends, and his family, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas Hauser; Muhammad Ali: A Life, by Jonathan Eig, and Bob Mee's book "Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King" all write extensively about the Liston fight - NONE OF THEM in any way reflected any person’s rational belief that Ali thought Liston threw the fights.Ali wrote extensively about the Liston fights in The Greatest: My Own Story, and there is not a word, not a hint, not a syllable about any realization that Sonny took a dive.People have forgotten how great Sonny Liston really wasSonny was that rarest of creatures, a slugger with all time power who could actually box. Possessed with matchless strength and power, he was equally at home fighting inside or boxing from the outside or even on the bicycle.Sonny was a vastly underrated boxer, with excellent fundamentals, a pole-ax jab, and knockout power in either hand. During the late 50's, in his prime, he was avoided like the plague; ie. Henry Cooper said:“I don't even want to see him walking down the street, let alone in a gym!"Sonny Liston was a truly outstanding technical boxer. Despite his awesome strength and power, Angelo Dundee said:“He took his time to set his opponents up, to gauge their skills and reaction time, before finishing them,”According to Muhammad Ali, the second greatest heavyweight of all time, was Sonny Liston.Rocky Marciano said of Liston:“He isn't faking his toughness, and his strength is just something you got to see, and that jab, he can knock a man out with the jab!"Sonny’s close friend Joe Louis said no fighter in history was his equal.A good barometer of how good Sonny Liston was comes with his twice destroying a very good heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, in the first round each time - when he at least 6 years older than Patterson!Nor was it a freak accident when Liston wiped the floor up with Patterson - Boxing writer and historian Bobby Franklin said, while marvelling at Liston's skills at such an advanced age:“It is interesting to note that while the fights were blow outs, Liston did not come out swinging wildly. He took Floyd apart methodically, setting his man up with left jabs and solid body shots. Sonny showed fast hands, using an accurate left jab, along with hooks and uppercuts. He had a definite game plan and executed it perfectly. If they fought a hundred times during that period the result would have been the same."The fights which best exemplify Liston’s strengths are his two short contests with Cleveland Williams.Monte Cox said it best:“Liston used beautiful head movement and what may be the division’s greatest ever jab to avoid most of Williams’ punches and to keep him off balance. Williams does occasionally land with extraordinarily powerful shots, but Sonny shakes each one off. In their combined five rounds of boxing over the course of their two fights, Liston is only shaken briefly once, and never in danger of being dropped. The most astounding thing about his approach is that he is equally comfortable coming forward or retreating—which he does whenever he feels pressured. This runs entirely contrary to the perceived wisdom about Sonny Liston. Although he was a finisher of comparable stature to Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, and Frazier, he was the only member of this shark-like group who was a boxing conservative.”Credit Cox’s CornerBoxing historians consider Charles ("Sonny") Liston a great heavyweight. Indeed, Ring magazine ranks Liston as the seventh greatest heavyweight of all time, and boxing writer Herb Goldman ranked him second. Boxing writer Springs Toledo, in his book, The Gods of War, lays out a powerful case that Liston, when at his peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s, could be favored to beat just about every heavyweight champion in the modern era with the possible exception of a young and prime Muhammad Ali.Sonny ended his career 50-4, with 39 KO's, and all his defeats, except one, which he supposedly threw for the Mob, occurred when he was old! Indeed, his last defeat probably occurred when he was hit by a freak shot, and he was well over 40 years old! At his peak, boxing historians believe he would have been a match for any heavyweight ever, with again, the possible exception of Ali.Sonny was the most avoided fighter in history, and it has been forgotten how astonished people were in 1964 that Ali wanted to fight Sonny when no one else did:14 top 100 fighters refused to fight Sonny, no matter how much money was offered:#13 Joe Frazier (Joe accepted, his management said hell no, and vetoed it)#16 Ingemar Johannson (who said he would promote Liston’s fight but not fight him)#20 Bob Foster (ranked as light heavyweight but fought for heavyweight title twice)#36 Bob Baker#43 Henry Cooper#45 Ernie Terrell#48 Jimmy Ellis#51 Karl Mildenberger#68 Jerry Quarry (his father refused to make the fight)#95 Tommy Jackson#119 Doug Jones#120 Harold Carter#127 Joe Erskine#149 Bob ClerouxThat is 10 top 100 fighters, and 14 top 150 fighters, who refused to fight Sonny Liston.Sonny is the most avoided fighter in boxing history, and people in the boxing establishment, and the public, were astonished when Ali stepped forward to face him.But there were factors at work against Sonny Liston going in to the Ali fights:The first Liston vs. Ali fight: there is indisputable medical proof that Sonny was badly hurt before and during the first Ali fight, and that he was much older than on recordAge was not the only factor working against Sonny Liston during the Ali fights. But his age was in fact against him. Officially he was 31 but his arrest and DOC records suggest he was at least 36.Sonny did not realize how fast Ali was, and was simply not ready for a lightning fast fighter like Ali. Such was his power, Sonny had fought only 13 minutes and seven seconds in the previous 4 years and he expected Ali to wither like the others.Sonny, due to his never having been really challenged talent-wise, did not train properly, sparred intermittently and consumed hot dogs, popcorn and beer. He had nothing left.Worse than age, Sonny was suffering a severe shoulder injury in his left shoulder.When you figure in that Sonny, a left-hander fighting orthodox, depended on his jab to set up everything else he did, offensively and defensively, he was a shell of what he should have been.George Foreman would say in later years:“Sonny taught me how to use my left, how to jab. Everything he did was set up off his jab.”And medically, he could no more jab normally than fly to the moon.A great analysis of Sonny’s vastly underrated boxing skills, and how Sonny used his jab as the best of all time to set everything else up, is found on:Sonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingSonny, who was still hobbled by a knee injury that had required his last fight to be postponed, suffered a major shoulder injury in his training camp, and desperately appealled to the commission to sanction a postponment for him to heal or get surgery.Sonny had suffered a torn biceps muscle and tendon in his left shoulder, and a severe rotator cuff tear. But when his team petitioned the Florida commission for a postponement, it was denied. There was no publicity on the pre-fight injury, the postponement request, or its denial.The Commission refused, despite the medical evidence, and threatened to strip him of the title if he did not fight, injured or not.Between the 6th and 7th rounds, Sonny, unable to lift and use his left arm, retired on his stool.Then the commission ordered Sonny’s purse seized following the loss to Ali in the first fight, and the Boxing Commission did not officially release it until it had accepted medical verification of the injury.The Commission, confident it could steal Sonny’s purse, refused to accept his doctors, or even neutral doctor’s evaluation and verification of the seriousness of his injuries. No, they insisted on selecting their own doctors.And those commission Doctors determined that because of the injury, Liston was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round in the fight at Convention Hall.Those were commission doctors, hired to justify the seizure of Sonny’s purse - but the injuries were so severe they could not ignore the extent of them, and ruled he could not possibly have gone on.Dr. Alexander Robbins, chief physician for the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, diagnosed Liston’s injury as a torn tendon in his left shoulder.Only a very few writers covered any of this, one of them, Tex Maule, writing for Sports Illustrated said that Liston's shoulder injury was serious, citing first Liston's inability to lift his arm:“There is no doubt that Liston's arm was damaged. In the sixth round, he carried it at belt level so that it was of no help in warding off the right crosses with which Clay probed at the cut under his left eye."Maule also got access to medical records:“A team of eight doctors inspected Liston's arm at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach and agreed that it was too badly damaged for Liston to continue fighting. The torn tendon had bled down into the mass of the biceps, swelling and numbing the arm.”Did other major publications or media covered this story?Of course not - the establishment hated Sonny and preferred to slander him with false accusations he threw the fight.So instead, they published claims that Sonny quit because he was paid off, or was told to, despite their being no proof of either, and a records vault full of medical records showing he was badly injured, which worsened during the fight.Liston went to his Denver home after the fight, then went to Philadelphia for consultation with an orthopedic surgeon. The full extent of his incapacitation, and any treatment he received for it, will never be known.Dr. Richard C. Bennett of Detroit, who was been the personal physician of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, and who was a fight doctor of impecable reputation said that the injury, caused by a sudden overstrain, was akin to severe tennis elbow. Doctor Bennett said the pain alone would have been disabling.In addition to the injury, Liston was at least 36, and may have been as old as his 40’s by the Ali fights, and way past his prime.While Sonny retained his fearsome strength - 4 and a half years later, when sparring with George Foreman, he became the only man to ever force George backwards! Sonny when he fought Ali had lost much of his foot and hand speed. People who only saw Liston against Ali do not realize how quick he was in his earlier years.Sonny did not know when he was born, literally, but boxing historians later managed to ascertain that he probably was born far earlier than he had thought or listed on his commission licenses, with one historian figuring from family tales that Sonny might have been born as early as 1919, or even earlier.Even had he been healthy, Liston was probably too old, and his style all wrong, for the fastest heavyweight of all prime at his absolute physical peak.In general, people have forgotten how dominant Liston was in his prime. Ring magazine ranks Liston as the number seven greatest heavyweight of all time, while boxing writer Herb Goldman ranked him second. Boxing writer and historian Springs Toledo, in his book, The Gods of War," believes that Liston, when at his peak in the mid 1950s, would be favored to beat every heavyweight champion in the modern era with the exception of Muhammad Ali.Ali certainly thought so. He said Sonny Liston was the best heavyweight who ever lived, other than himself, and Sonny was the only man who ever scared him - though Ali was proud he never showed Sonny he was afraid.George Foreman, who sparred with Sonny when he was over 40, says Liston was the only man he ever set foot in a ring with who physically overpowered him and forced him backwards.The second Liston vs. Ali fight: in fifty years no one has produced any proof Sonny took a dive, and there is plenty of proof he got hit with a punch which would have knocked out any fighter in any eraMost historians agree that the second Liston vs Ali fight was a huge mess, and the officiating a disaster.That said, they also agree that Liston was down, unable to defend himself, and had the fight continued, Sonny would have taken a serious beating.You have to understand the background to the second fight, historically.The WBA, which had a rule against automatic rematches, stripped Ali for the second fight, put pressure on all fifty state boxing commissions not to license a rematch between the Ali and Liston, and it was extremely difficult to find a venue for the fight.Finally, Massachusetts agreed to hold the fight, which caused a suspension of the Massachusetts Boxing Commission by the WBA. The fight was set for November 16, 1964, at the Boston Garden. Liston was listed as a betting favorite by 13-5. Three days before the fight, Ali suffered an incarcerated inguinal hernia. He underwent immediate surgery at Boston City Hospital:“It was such a marvelously developed stomach, I hated to slice it up," said one of the attending physicians.The 6 month postponent meant Sonny, who was in what he called “the best shape of my life” had to undergo a second training camp within a year, and at his age, and recovering from knee and shoulder injuries, he simply could not.The fight was rescheduled, but Sonny’s alleged ties to organized crime forced the fight out of Boston. Governor John H. Reed of Maine offered to host the fight in Lewiston, Maine, a small town of about 41,000, 140 miles north of Boston.The venue selected was St. Dominic's Hall, a junior hockey rink. Lewiston was the smallest city to host a heavyweight title bout since Jack Dempsey fought Tommy Gibbons in Shelby, Montana (population 3,000) in 1923. It remains the only heavyweight title fight held in the state of Maine.The fight was a mess from the start, which has contributed to the conspiracy theories through the years.On May 25, 1965, the rematch took place. About halfway through the first round, Liston threw a left jab and as he moved forward Ali also moved forward and went over Sonny’s jab with a fast right counter, knocking Sonny down.Liston, on his back, rolled over, got to his right knee and then fell on his back again. Many watching did not see Ali deliver the punch. The fight turned into complete chaos. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, a former World Heavyweight Champion himself, had a hard time getting Ali to go to a neutral corner. Ali initially stood over his fallen opponent, gesturing and yelling at him:“Get up and fight, sucker!"Under the rules of the Maine Commission, the referee was authorized to stop his count if a boxer refused to go to the proper corner. He was not authorized to disqualify the fighter unless he struck the defenseless man while he was down, or starting up, with a blatant foul. Ali did neither.After Liston arose, Walcott, who had never resumed his count, wiped off his gloves. He then left the fighters to go over to the timekeeper and would explain later:“The timekeeper was waving both hands and saying, 'I counted him out and the fight is over, Nat Fleischer (editor of Ring) was seating beside the timekeeper and he was waving his hands, too, saying it was over."Walcott then rushed back to the fighters, who had resumed boxing, and stopped the fight and awarded Ali a first-round knockout victory. The official time of the stoppage was announced as 1:00 into the first round, which was wrong. Liston went down at 1:44, got up at 1:56, and Walcott stopped the fight at 2:12.The punch which put LIston down for the first time in his career was very realSonny himself said after the fight in his dressing room:“I didn't know he (Ali) could hit so hard."Liston also said:“It was a good right-hand punch, it made me groggy. I got to my knees but fell the second time because I was off balance..."Sonny also said, mournfully:“I walked into it."Anytime a man leans forward or steps forward into a punch it obviously magnifies the force.Sonny would tell Tex Maule later:“I was off balance [moving forward] and he caught me with a stiff right hand. It rattled me. My head really hurt. It was a good shot.”Dr. Carroll L. Witten, physician and former Kentucky State Boxing Commissioner, who had studied the reactions of knocked out fighters, was ringside at Lewiston and said:“The side-to-side movement of eyes is commonly associated with temporary unconsciousness and is one of the first things you look for. It is called nystagmus."Dr. Whitten was for the foremost fight and sports doctor of the time, with no aspirations ever made on either his honesty, or his expertise, and Dr. Whitten said in his professional opinion, Liston was badly hurt.World Light Heavyweight Champion Jose Torres said:“It was a perfect punch."Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote that:“It was "no phantom punch."Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated wrote:“The blow had so much force it lifted Liston's left foot, upon which most of his weight was resting, well off the canvas."Gil Clancy, a highly respected boxing trainer who hated Ali, said another of his fighters was knocked out with the same punch by Ali, and went out completely.Gil Clancy:“In the second [Liston] fight, Ali really hit him. One my fighters, Alex Miteff, fought Ali. Miteff was a tough, tough guy from Argentina. And he was really doing a pretty good job on Ali’s body. All of a sudden, Ali just hit him with a little right hand: down and out for ten. Ten! Just caught him right."World Light Heavyweight Champion Jose Torres, who was ringside, saw the exchange, and said:“It was a perfect punch."At ringside that day in Maine, was, former undisputed World Heavyweight Champion James J. Braddock, who said the suspect Ali right hand merely finished up what an earlier punch had begun:“I have a feeling that this guy (Ali) is a lot better than any of us gave him credit for, it isn't the knockout punch that sticks in my mind as much as a punch he let go (earlier)....It was a right to Liston's jaw and it shook him to his shoetops. For all we know, it could have been the one that set up the knockout."Former heavyweight champion, Rocky Marciano, watched film extensively of the knockout punch and said:“I didn't think it was a powerful punch when I saw the fight from ringside, now (after seeing video) I think Clay, seeing the opening, snapped the punch the last six inches."Asked later if Sonny threw the fight, Marciano just laughed:“Sonny would have died rather than thrown it, he really hated Clay, and wanted to win. No, he got caught with a perfect punch by the fastest guy I ever saw."There will always be conspiracy theories about the fight, as there are about any controversial event. 3 official investigations, the Senate hearings, the best researchers in the entire world, and at least 4 major writers, have spent 56 years trying to prove the fight was thrown, and have not unearthed one teeny weeny bit of evidence it was.What really occurred at Lewiston in Ali vs. Liston II? Joe Frazier put it best:“Sonny got old, and got his ass beat, it happens to all of us if we stick around too damn long."And that is also crucial: Dave Anderson of the New York Times said Liston:“Sonny looked awful in his last workout before the fight. Liston's handlers secretly paid sparring partner Amos Lincoln an extra $100 to take it easy on him. Lincoln himself said after the fight, he knew it would happen, that Sonny had just gotten old.Sonny's sparring partner Amos Lincoln said:“All of us, if we hang around long enough, get to this day. Sonny just got old."Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote that:“Liston's handlers knew he didn't have it anymore. Sonny’s age combined with fighting less than 50 minutes in five years had robbed him of his speed at the least.”The boxing establishment hated Sonny Liston before the Ali fightsLet me make this clear, the boxing and political establishment HATED Sonny Liston, HATED him. To the point that when he won the heavyweight title he became the only heavyweight champion in history to receive no recognition at all when he arrived back home, or thereafter.Cus D’Amato had succeeded in keeping Sonny from fighting for the title for over three years, because no one wanted Sonny as champion. The establishment feared Sonny as the ultimate “terrifying negro” as James Baldwin sadly wrote. When Floyd Patterson overruled Cus, and fought Sonny to prove he was not a coward, the vitriol really began.Upon winning the world heavyweight title, Liston had a speech memorized for the crowd that friends had assured him would meet him at the Philadelphia airport. Not able to read or write, Sonny told Writer Jack McKinney on the plane what he had carefully memorized and wanted to say:“I have reached my goal as Heavyweight Champion. When you reach your goal, you have to be proud and dignified. You represent something and you have a responsibility to live up to it.As Champion, I have the opportunity to do things that otherwise might not be possible otherwise. I will conduct myself as champion by trying to be like Joe Louis. Who I think was the greatest champion of all and my idol. He did everything I want to do. I intend to follow the example he set and would like to go down as a great champion, too.I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother, and a father who didn't care about any of us. I promise everyone that I will be a decent, respectable champion.I want to be a champion for all people, of all races, and I hope that young men, especially young Black men, who had made mistakes, will be able to see in my triumph that it is possible to overcome mistakes and a past.”But upon arrival in Philidelphia,, Liston was met by only a few reporters. Writer Jack McKinney said:“I watched Sonny. His eyes swept the whole scene. ... You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. ... He had been deliberately snubbed. Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him."Sonny’s wife would say in later years:“Sonny knew then nothing would ever be different. People wouldn’t let it be different.”During an era when white journalists still described black athletes in racially tinged and vicious labels, Liston had always been a target of racially charged attacks; he was called a "gorilla" and "a jungle beast" in print.To his shame in later years, Larry Merchant, then a writer with the Philadelphia Daily News wrote for the paper:“A celebration for Philadelphia's first heavyweight champ is now in order. ... Emily Post would probably recommend a ticker-tape parade. For confetti we can use torn-up arrest warrants." Merchant then wrote that Liston's win over Patterson proved that "in a fair fight between good and evil, evil must win."Liston moved to Denver, saying he would rather be a lamp post in Denver than the Mayor of Philadelphia.Sonny tried the rest of his life to get another title shot, to prove he was a worthy championSonny spent the rest of his life trying to get a third shot at Ali - who was perfectly willing to fight him, if someone put up the money.For over a year after the second loss, Sonny could not get a fight anywhere - no promoter would put him on a show. (Sonny’s license was not revoked - that is a never was fantasy)So Sonny rested for a year, which certainly helped his shoulder and knee, and then fought in Europe until US promoters would put him on American shows.After Ali’s first victory over Sonny, a Boxing Illustrated editorial remarked:“Nobody wants to be reminded of Sonny Liston. The idea is to forget him."And shamefully, forget him people did. And, in doing so, they downgraded the incredible accomplishments of Sonny prior to the Ali fights - like beating 8 of the top 10 contenders, (with the other two refusing to fight him - while trying to get Patterson to fight him, or his two incredible defeats of Patterson, a two time world champ.Fifty years on, Cassius Clay v Sonny Liston remains a pivotal moment | Sean IngleWhen the WBA stripped Ali for giving Sonny a rematch, the WBA, WBC, and Ring, refused to rank Sonny so he would not be able to fight for the title, despite Sonny being 36–3 and the clear number one contender.Meantime, Eddie Machen, who Sonny had beaten while Eddie ran for his life, losing by a huge margin, was allowed to fight for the WBA title against Ernie Terrell. I asked my father, a real fight fan, why Liston, who had handily defeated Machen, was not allowed to fight; my Dad looked me in the eye and said, “Sonny Liston will never be allowed to fight for the title again. It is not fair, but he is blackballed.”Make no mistake, Sonny was not officially suspended, he was just plain blackballed.When Sonny finally began fighting again, he won four fights by knockouts, and yet, mysteriously, was still unranked when Ali was stripped in 1967, and the “eight top contenders” were assembled to fight for the title. Included, incredibly, among the eight was Floyd Patterson, who Sonny had defeated twice in a total of 246 seconds.Ellis defeated Leotis Martin, Oscar Bonavena, and Jerry Quarry who had beaten Patterson), to win the vacant title.When asked if he would defend against Sonny Liston, Ellis said NO.Joe Frazier had declined to take part in the tournament, and was awarded the heavyweight title in New York. He held that interesting title until he beat Ellis and became undisputed champion.Joe’s camp also refused a fight with Sonny, who had remarked fighting Joe would be:“Like shooting fish in a barrel, it would be that easy.”Interestingly, Joe was willing to fight Sonny - but his management team, which had promotional control, refused anyway.Sonny then ran off 10 more wins, for 14 straight wins since Ali, 13 by knockout, until he fought Leotis Martin in December of 1969. Sonny, who was at least 37, and perhaps as much as 10 years old, was easily winning the fight. Liston had dropped Martin at 2:11 of the fourth round, but Martin recovered. In the 7th, he caught Sonny with a freak punch, for the only stoppage of Sonny’s career other than the Ali fights.Sonny would fight one last time before he died, against Chuck Wepner, on June 29, 1970.Appropriately, since this was Sonny Liston’s last fight, it was a slaughter, literally.Chuck Wepner, who fought great heavyweights like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, said no one ever hit him harder than Liston.Wepner said getting hit by Sonny was like getting hit with a baseball bat, literally. Chuck wasn’t exaggerating, as he walked out of that fight with a broken nose, a broken cheek bone and 72 stitches! Knocked down in the 5th, Wepner quipped afterwards he should have stayed down. Wepner said:“Sonny made George [Foreman] look like Mr. Friendly!"That was Sonny Liston’s last fight, and he won 15 of 16, 14 by stoppages, after he fought Ali five years earlier.Despite his deserving it, he never got another title shot. Sonny spent the rest of his life after the second Ali fight trying to prove he never took a dive, and earn another shot at the title - and was denied by hateful people who were determined to forget him.Sonny was a much different person than the media and establishment claimedDavid Pearl talked in The Devil and Sonny Liston about Sonny’s random acts of kindness to strangers:“I’m driving Sonny, and we're stuck in traffic and Liston orders me to stop the car. I protested, and Liston says it again and I had no choice but to obey. I stopped the car, and he runs out and there's a little woman sitting on a dolly selling pencils. He emptied out both pockets and gave it to her, just dropped it on her tray. And it was a white woman, so there was no racial thing."Pearl went on to say that:“Sonny did things like that all the time.”Liston, along with Max Schmeling, helped Joe Louis financially when they both lived in Las Vegas during the 1960’s. Every time Sonny would fight, he would find Joe and slip him part of his purse.A vital clue to who Sonny really was, as a man, was his reaction to the reporters attacking Floyd Patterson for being a coward. Liston was the one man who would have no part of the theory that Patterson was cowardly:“There's a big difference between having fear in you and being a coward, I can have fear in me, too, and that kind of fear is good. Then I'd go into the ring and because I had this fear I'd try to take the other guy out as quick as I could. Patterson had fear in him but he wasn't no coward."Sonny told the reporters Patterson had nothing to be ashamed of, and they should stop what they were saying:“He got in there with me, and he did his best."Johnny Tocco, who worked with Mike Tyson, Foreman and Liston, said the reputation of Sonny as a brute was a media creation, and Tocco said bitterly after Sonny died:“They made him a monster,”The Poet Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones) called Liston:“The big black Negro in every white man’s hallway, waiting to do him in, deal him under for all the hurts white men, through their arbitrary order, have been able to inflict on the world.”Rest in Peace, Champ…Sonny was the product of a harsh, unforgiving, life. Charles "Sonny" Liston was born into a sharecropping family who farmed the rocky, poor quality land of Morledge Plantation near Johnson Township, St. Francis County, Arkansas. Sonny said, confirmed by other family members, that his father inflicted beatings and whippings so severe on Sonny that the scars were still visible decades later.Liston would say sadly:“The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating,. We hardly had enough food to keep from starving, no shoes, only a few clothes, and nobody to help us escape from the horrible life we lived, We grew up like heathens."Sonny went on to say:“I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother and a father who didn't care about any of us. We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard."Indeed, many days in his youth, Sonny Liston went without food. Sonny told Boxing Illustrated in 1964:“On the good days I ate. On the bad ones I told my stomach to forget it."Sonny told his sister when he went to prison he thought things were better than he ever knew them - he had three square meals a day for the first time in his life.Beaten and abused as a child, he grew up to stay in trouble, and even in prison, other cons were terrified of making Sonny mad. He grew up in a world with no kindness and no forgiveness, and he gave none to anyone.Sonny was born into a family that couldn't afford for him to go to school, and when the family mule died, his sisters and mothers would say later that Sonny's father hitched his 9 year old son to the plow and made him the mule.Ironically, it was in prison that for the first time in Sonny’s life someone actually believed in him, and helped him. A Catholic priest recognized something special in Sonny, and taught him to box. Father Stevens believed that boxing would take Sonny out of a world of bars and beatings and to the places he deserved to go.For Sonny, a man denied the right to learn to read and write, a man who had his wife teach him in secret how to sign his name so he could give kids autographs - his wife would say after his death “one thing in life used to make Sonny happy, those kids cpming up and asking for his autograph” - for a man like that to be denied a chance to compete and fight for the title again is despicable.For a man like that to be born with so little, come so far, and be denied any chance to go further, is more than a tragedy, it is criminal.Perhaps a profile of the then world champion in the 1964 Boxing Yearbook captured the awesome power and tortured soul of Sonny Liston best by saying:“For Sonny Liston, it was easy being a superman. It was being a man that was often difficult."The tragedy of Sonny Liston began with his life on a miserable sharecropper's farm where he was literally starved and worked like a mule at 9 years old, and ended with his fading from memory after losing two fights to Ali as the establishment which hated him wrote him out of history.Sonny never threw a fight, and Ali never believed he did. Ali, who became friends with the man he called the Big Bear in the years after their fights, had this to say about Sonny LIston:“Sonny was the only completely honest man I ever knew.CREDIT PICTURE PAUL BESTONCREDIT TO:All rankings and statistics to BoxrecAli: A Life by Jonathan EigCox’s Corner and Monte CoxEarly Train to Broken JawFloyd Patterson: The Fighting Life of Boxing's Invisible Champion by W. K. StrattonGods of War by Springs ToledoListon and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob MeesMuhammad Ali: His Life and Times by Thomas HauserSonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingSonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch by Rob SteenSonny Liston in a New Light: With 4 Excerpts from Sonny Liston by Paul GallenderThe Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science: by Mike SilverThe Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick ToschesThe Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali

China has lot of agricultural land so they grow cereals there.We can see the vast agriculture and fishing activities as under:Agriculture in ChinaA farmer of the Hani minority, famous for their rice terraced mountains in Yuanyang County, YunnanWoman tractor driver in China depicted in a 1964 poster.Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers.China ranks first in worldwide farm output, primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, tomato, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed and soybeans.HistoryThe development of farming over the course of China's history has played a key role in supporting the growth of what is now the largest population in the world. Analysis of stone tools by Professor Liu Li and others has shown that the origins of Chinese agriculture is rooted in the pre-agricultural Paleolithic. During this time, hunter-gatherers harvested wild plants with the same tools that would later be used for millet and rice.[Remains of domesticated millet have been found in northern China at Xinglonggou, Yuezhang, Dadiwan, Cishan, and several Peiligang sites. These sites cover a period over 6250-5050 BCE.The amount of domesticated millet eaten at these sites was proportionally quite low compared to other plants. At Xinglonggou, millet made up only 15% of all plant remains around 6200-5400 BCE; a ratio that changed to 99% by 2050-1550 BCE.Experiments have shown that millet requires very little human intervention to grow, which means that obvious changes in the archaeological record that could demonstrate millet was being cultivated do not exist.Excavations at Kuahuqiao, the earliest known Neolithic site in eastern China, have documented rice cultivation 7,700 years ago.[Approximately half of the plant remains belonged to domesticated japonica species, whilst the other half were wild types of rice. It is possible that the people at Kuahuqiao also cultivated the wild type.Finds at sites of the Hemudu Culture (c.5500-3300 BCE) in Yuyaoand Banpo near Xi'an include millet and spade-like tools made of stone and bone. Evidence of settled rice agriculture has been found at the Hemudu site of Tianluoshan (5000-4500 BCE), with rice becoming the backbone of the agricultural economy by the Majiabang culture in southern China.There is also a long tradition involving agriculture in Chinese mythology. In his book Permanent Agriculture: Farmers of Forty Centuries (1911), Professor Franklin Hiram King described and extolled the values of the traditional farming practices of China.Farming method improvementsPloughing with a buffalo, HubeiDue to China's status as a developing countryand its severe shortage of arable land, farming in China has always been very labor-intensive. However, throughout its history, various methods have been developed or imported that enabled greater farming production and efficiency. They also utilized the seed drill to help improve on row farming.During the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), two revolutionary improvements in farming technology took place. One was the use of cast iron tools and beasts of burden to pull plows, and the other was the large-scale harnessing of rivers and development of water conservation projects. The engineer Sunshu Ao of the 6th century BC and Ximen Bao of the 5th century BC are two of the oldest hydraulic engineers from China, and their works were focused upon improving irrigation systems.These developments were widely spread during the ensuing Warring States period (403–221 BC), culminating in the enormous Du Jiang Yan Irrigation System engineered by Li Bing by 256 BC for the State of Qin in ancient Sichuan.Ploughing with a motor plough, Yuxi, YunnanFor agricultural purposes the Chinese had invented the hydraulic-powered trip hammerby the 1st century BC, during the ancient Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD).Although it found other purposes, its main function was to pound, decorticate, and polish grain that otherwise would have been done manually. The Chinese also innovated the square-pallet chain pump by the 1st century AD, powered by a waterwheel or oxen pulling on a system of mechanical wheels.Although the chain pump found use in public works of providing water for urban and palatial pipe systems,it was used largely to lift water from a lower to higher elevation in filling irrigation canals and channels for farmland.During the Eastern Jin (317–420) and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–589), the Silk Road and other international trade routes further spread farming technology throughout China. Political stability and a growing labor force led to economic growth, and people opened up large areas of wasteland and built irrigation works for expanded agricultural use. As land-use became more intensive and efficient, rice was grown twice a year and cattle began to be used for plowing and fertilization.By the Tang dynasty (618–907), China had become a unified feudal agricultural society. Improvements in farming machinery during this era included the moldboard plow and watermill. Later during the Yuan dynasty(1271–1368), cotton planting and weaving technology were extensively adopted and improved.While around 750, 75% of China's population lived north of the river Yangtze, by 1250, 75% of the population lived south of the river. Such large-scale internal migration was possible due to the introduction of quick-ripening strains of rice from Vietnam suitable for multi-cropping.The Qing, Ming and Yuan dynasties had seen the rise of collective help organizations between farmers.In 1909 US Professor of Agriculture Franklin Hiram King made an extensive tour of China (as well as Japan and briefly Korea) and he described contemporary agricultural practices. He favourably described the farming of China as 'permanent agriculture' and his book 'Farmers of Forty Centuries', published posthumously in 1911, has become an agricultural classic and has been a favoured reference source for organic farmingadvocates. The book has inspired many community-supported agriculture farmers in China to conduct ecological farming.People's Republic of ChinaMain article: History of agriculture in the People's Republic of ChinaA harvest in ChinaFollowing the Communist Party of China's victory in the Chinese Civil War, control of the farmlands was taken away from landlords and redistributed to the 300 million peasant farmers,including mass killings of landlords under Mao Zedong. In 1952, gradually consolidating its power following the civil war, the government began organizing the peasants into teams. Three years later, these teams were combined into producer cooperatives, enacting the socialistgoal of collective land ownership. In the following year, 1956, the government formally took control of the land, further structuring the farmland into large government-operated collective farms.In the 1958 "Great Leap Forward" campaign initiated by Mao Zedong, land use was placed under closer government control in an effort to improve agricultural output. In particular, the Great sparrow campaign had a direct negative impact on agriculture. Collectives were organized into communes, private food production was banned, and collective eating was required. Greater emphasis was also put on industrialization instead of agriculture. The farming inefficiencies created by this campaign led to The Great Chinese Famine, resulting in the deaths of somewhere between the government estimate of 14 million to scholarly estimates of 20 to 43 million.Although private plots of land were re-instated in 1962 due to this failure, communes remained the dominant rural unit of economic organization during the Cultural Revolution, with Mao championing the "Learn from Tachai" campaign. Tachai's semiliterate party secretary Chen Yonggui was among those outmaneuvered by Deng Xiaoping after the death of Mao: from 1982–1985, the Dazhai-style communes were gradually replaced by townships.Beginning in 1978, as part of the Four Modernizations campaign, the Family Production Responsibility System was created, dismantling communes and giving agricultural production responsibility back to individual households. Households are now given crop quotas that they were required to provide to their collective unit in return for tools, draft animals, seeds, and other essentials. Households, which now lease land from their collectives, are free to use their farmland however they see fit as long as they meet these quotas. This freedom has given more power to individual families to meet their individual needs. In addition to these structural changes, the Chinese government also engages in irrigation projects (such as the Three Gorges Dam), runs large state farms, and encourages mechanization and fertilizer use.By 1984, when about 99% of farm production teams had adopted the Family Production Responsibility System, the government began further economic reforms, aimed primarily at liberalizing agricultural pricing and marketing. In 1984, the government replaced mandatory procurement with voluntary contracts between farmers and the government. Later, in 1993, the government abolished the 40-year-old grain rationing system, leading to more than 90 percent of all annual agricultural produce to be sold at market-determined prices.Lotus seeds and roots are a major crop in Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, and Jiangxi provincesSince 1994, the government has instituted a number of policy changes aimed at limiting grain importation and increasing economic stability. Among these policy changes was the artificial increase of grain prices above market levels. This has led to increased grain production, while placing the heavy burden of maintaining these prices on the government. In 1995, the "Governor’s Grain Bag Responsibility System" was instituted, holding provincial governors responsible for balancing grain supply and demand and stabilizing grain prices in their provinces. Later, in 1997, the "Four Separations and One Perfection" program was implemented to relieve some of the monetary burdens placed on the government by its grain policy.As China continues to industrialize, vast swaths of agricultural land is being converted into industrial land. Farmers displaced by such urban expansion often become migrant labor for factories, but other farmers feel disenfranchised and cheated by the encroachment of industry and the growing disparity between urban and rural wealth and income.The most recent innovation in Chinese agriculture is a push into organic agriculture.This rapid embrace of organic farming simultaneously serves multiple purposes, including food safety, health benefits, export opportunities, and, by providing price premiums for the produce of rural communities, the adoption of organics can help stem the migration of rural workers to the cities.In the mid-1990s China became a net importer of grain, since its unsustainable practises of groundwater mining has effectively removed considerable land from productive agricultural production.Major agricultural productsCrop distributionAgricultural regions of Mainland Chinain 1986Although China's agricultural output is the largest in the world, only 12.6% of its total land area can be cultivated. China's arable land, which represents 10% of the total arable land in the world, supports over 20% of the world's population.Of this approximately 1.4 million square kilometers of arable land, only about 1.2% (116,580 square kilometers) permanently supports crops and 525,800 square kilometers are irrigated.The land is divided into approximately 200 million households, with an average land allocation of just 0.65 hectares (1.6 acres).China's limited space for farming has been a problem throughout its history, leading to chronic food shortage and famine. While the production efficiency of farmland has grown over time, efforts to expand to the west and the north have met with limited success, as such land is generally colder and drier than traditional farmlands to the east. Since the 1950s, farm space has also been pressured by the increasing land needs of industry and cities.Peri-urban agricultureBok choy-like greens grown in a square outside of Ezhou railway stationsSuch increases in the sizes of cities, such as the administrative district of Beijing's increase from 4,822 km2(1,862 sq mi) in 1956 to 16,808 km2(6,490 sq mi) in 1958, has led to the increased adoption of peri-urban agriculture. Such "suburban agriculture" led to more than 70% of non-staple food in Beijing, mainly consisting of vegetables and milk, to be produced by the city itself in the 1960s and 1970s. Recently, with relative food security in China, periurban agriculture has led to improvements in the quality of the food available, as opposed to quantity. One of the more recent experiments in urban agriculture is the Modern Agricultural Science Demonstration Park in Xiaotangshan.Food cropsAncient terraced rice fields in Yuanyang County, YunnanPeanut harvest in Jiangxia, HubeiAbout 75% of China's cultivated area is used for food crops. Rice is China's most important crop, raised on about 25% of the cultivated area. The majority of rice is grown south of the Huai River, in the Zhu Jiang delta, and in the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces.Wheat is the second most-prevalent grain crop, grown in most parts of the country but especially on the North China Plain, the Weiand Fen River valleys on the Loess plateau, and in Jiangsu, Hubei, and Sichuan provinces. Corn and millet are grown in north and northeast China, and oat is important in Inner Mongolia and Tibet.Other crops include sweet potatoes in the south, white potatoes in the north (China is the largest producer of potatoes in the world), and various other fruits and vegetables. Tropical fruits are grown on Hainan Island, apples and pears are grown in northern Liaoning and Shandong.Oil seeds are important in Chinese agriculture, supplying edible and industrial oils and forming a large share of agricultural exports. In North and Northeast China, Chinese soybeans are grown to be used in tofu and cooking oil. China is also a leading producer of peanuts, which are grown in Shandong and Hebei provinces. Other oilseed crops are sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, rapeseed, and the seeds of the tung tree.Citrus is a major cash crop in southern China, with production scattered along and south of the Yangtze River valley. Mandarins are the most popular citrus in China, with roughly double the output of oranges.Other important food crops for China include green and jasmine teas (popular among the Chinese population), black tea (as an export), sugarcane, and sugar beets.Tea plantations are located on the hillsides of the middle Yangtze Valley and in the southeast provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. Sugarcane is grown in Guangdong and Sichuan, while sugar beets are raised in Heilongjiang province and on irrigated land in Inner Mongolia. Lotus is widely cultivated throughout southern China.Arabica coffee is grown in the southwestern province of Yunnan.Much smaller plantations also exist in Hainan and Fujian.Fiber cropsCotton growing in Yangxin County, HubeiChina is the leading producer of cotton, which is grown throughout, but especially in the areas of the North China Plain, the Yangtze river delta, the middle Yangtze valley, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Other fiber crops include ramie, flax, jute, and hemp. Sericulture, the practice of silkworm raising, is also practiced in central and southern China.LivestockChina has a large livestock population, with pigs and fowls being the most common. China’s pig population and pork production mainly lie along the Yangtze River. In 2011, Sichuan province had 51 million pigs (11% of China’s total supply).In rural western China, sheep, goats, and camels are raised by nomadic herders.In Tibet, yaks are raised as a source of food, fuel, and shelter. Cattle, water buffalo, horses, mules, and donkeys are also raised in China, and dairy has recently been encouraged by the government, even though approximately 92.3% of the adult population is affected by some level of lactose intolerance.As demand for gourmet foods grows, production of more exotic meats increases as well. Based on survey data from 684 Chinese turtle farms (less than half of the all 1,499 officially registered turtle farms in the year of the survey, 2002), they sold over 92,000 tons of turtles (around 128 million animals) per year; this is thought to correspond to the industrial total of over 300 million turtles per year.Increased incomes and increased demand for meat, especially pork, has resulted in demand for improved breeds of livestock, breeding stock imported particularly from the United States. Some of these breeds are adapted to factory farming.FishingMain articles: Fishing industry in China and Aquaculture in ChinaChina accounts for about one-third of the total fish production of the world. Aquaculture, the breeding of fish in ponds and lakes, accounts for more than half of its output. The principal aquaculture-producing regions are close to urban markets in the middle and lower Yangtze valley and the Zhu Jiang delta.ProductionIn its first fifty years, the People's Republic of China greatly increased agricultural production through organizational and technological improvements.However, since 2000 the depletion of China's main aquifers has led to an overall decrease in grain production, turning China into a net importer. The trend of Chinese dependence on imported food is expected to accelerate as the water shortage worsens.Despite their potential, desalination plants find few customers because it is still cheaper to over-utilize rivers, lakes and aquifers, even as these are depleted.As of 2011, China was both the world's largestproducer and consumer of agricultural products.However, the researcher Lin Erda has stated a projected fall of possibly 14% to 23% by 2050 due to water shortages and other impacts by climate change; China has increased the budget for agriculture by 20% in 2009, and continues to support energy efficiency measures, renewable technology, and other efforts with investments, such as the over 30% green component of the $586bn fiscal stimulus package announced in November 2008.ChallengesStrawberry fields in Yuxi, YunnanInefficiencies in the agricultural marketDespite rapid growth in output, the Chinese agricultural sector still faces several challenges. Farmers in several provinces, such as Shandong, Zhejiang, Anhui, Liaoning, and Xinjiang often have a hard time selling their agricultural products to customers due to a lack of information about current conditions.Between the producing farmer in the countryside and the end-consumer in the cities there is a chain of intermediaries.Because a lack of information flows through them, farmers find it difficult to foresee the demand for different types of fruits and vegetables.In order to maximize their profits they, therefore, opt to produce those fruits and vegetables that created the highest revenues for farmers in the region in the previous year. If, however, most farmers do so, this causes the supply of fresh products to fluctuate substantially year on year. Relatively scarce products in one year are produced in excess the following year because like of expected higher profit margins.The resulting excess supply, however, forces farmers to reduce their prices and sell at a loss. The scarce, revenue creating products of one year become the over-abundant, loss-making products in the following, and vice versa.Efficiency is further impaired in the transportation of agricultural products from the farms to the actual markets. According to figures from the Commerce Department, up to 25% of fruits and vegetables rot before being sold, compared to around 5% in a typical developed country.As intermediaries cannot sell these rotten fruits they pay farmers less than they would if able to sell all or most of the fruits and vegetables.This reduces farmer’s revenues although the problem is caused by post-production inefficiencies, which they are not themselves aware of during price negotiations with intermediaries.These information and transportation problems highlight inefficiencies in the market mechanisms between farmers and end consumers, impeding farmers from taking advantage of the fast development of the rest of the Chinese economy.The resulting small profit margin does not allow them to invest in the necessary agricultural inputs (machinery, seeds, fertilizers, etc.) to raise productivity and improve their standards of living, from which the whole of the Chinese economy would benefit.This in turn increases the exodus of people from the countryside to the cities, which already face urbanization issues.International tradeTea leaves harvested in Muyu, Shennongjia Forest District, HubeiChina is the world's largest importer of soybeans and other food crops,and is expected to become the top importer of farm products within the next decade.In 2017, farmers in the providence of Donggaozhuang began selling yarn in an online marketplace owned by Alibaba Group. Many farmers later sold their farmland to focus on online sales as the access to global consumers yielded much more income then traditional farming.While most years China's agricultural production is sufficient to feed the country, in down years, China has to import grain.Due to the shortage of available farm land and an abundance of labor, it might make more sense to import land-extensive crops (such as wheat and rice) and to save China's scarce cropland for high-value export products, such as fruits, nuts, or vegetables.In order to maintain grain independence and ensure food security, however, the Chinese government has enforced policies that encourage grain production at the expense of more-profitable crops. Despite heavy restrictions on crop production, China's agricultural exports have greatly increased in recent years.So China feeds her citizens by growing crops and importing some rice after exporting industrial products.Thanksfor reading

Grindstone Falls, Grindstone is north of East Millinocket on Route 11 in Penobscot County, MaineRattlesnake Pool and Flume in Stow, MaineThe question is: Are there any waterfalls in Maine? The answer is : Yes. One of Maine’s best-kept secrets is its amazing array of waterfalls. With hundreds of waterfalls to choose from, the top 10 most scenic waterfalls are listed here alphabetically. To explore more of Maine’s fabulous waterfalls, the book New England Waterfalls contains excellent information and directions.Ratttlesnake Flume and Pool brings to mind why the name? The best American state for snake-o-phobes is Alaska. No snakes of any kind have been documented as permanent homesteaders. Hawaii has the poisonous Yellow-bellied sea snake. The Timber Rattlesnake has always been known as "The Maine Snake". Even states not known to have venomous snakes can have a straggler. They can hitchhike on the undercarriage of a vehicle. If it rattles its tail assume safety and keep your distance. In South Hope, Maine, in the 1960s, my father and Grandfather killed a snake, it rattled its tail. When you decapitate a snake they can be deadly up to 90 minutes after death. It can still strike and even kill you. Snakeheads should be buried immediately after decapitation. Severed Snake Heads Can Still Bite — and Often DoAngel FallsAngel Falls, with a 90-foot hanging plunge, is located in western Maine’s Franklin County, near the town of Byron. This is one of the most impressive waterfalls in Maine. It is one of the most spectacular in the state. It is comparable in height with Moxie Falls in Forks Township. In high water, the cascading water creates the shape of an angel’s wing giving the falls its name. From Byron, take Route 17 until you reach a short hiking trail marked by signs. The easy to moderate trail is 0.8 miles in length and leads through the woods to the waterfall. Give yourself 30 minutes to hike to the falls. Angel Falls is fed by Mountain Brook and tumbles 90 miles over a rocky cliff. Visit in June or July for the best hiking conditions and views of the waterfall.Angel FallsDunn FallsOne of the highest-rated waterfalls in Maine. Dunn Falls is a beautiful waterfall located near Andover in Oxford County. The upper falls is a 70-foot drop forming a horsetail and fans. The lower falls is a direct plunge, dropping 80 additional feet. There is a moderately difficult 2-mile loop leading past the falls. This loop includes part of the Appalachian Trail, small pools suitable as swimming holes, and six smaller waterfalls. The trail is accessible from Andover Road and is marked by white blazes. As you hike along you will find swimming holes, travel a stretch of the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail, and discover lower and upper Dunn Falls as well as a half a dozen smaller, unnamed cascades. Dunn Falls is best viewed from July through October, when water flow is the greatest.Grand FallsAlthough Grand Falls is not as tall as other waterfalls in Maine, its immense 120-foot breadth and enormous water flow makes it live up to its name. From The Forks, travel 3 miles north on U.S. Route 201 until you reach Lower Enchanted Road. Turn left on this dirt road and continue for 14 miles. An easy 0.8 mile trail leads to the waterfall, which is 40 feet high. The falls are beautiful year-round, with the heaviest water flow during spring runoff. Swimming is prohibited at this waterfall. Simply enjoy its power, thundering noise, and fresh spray.Gulf HagasGulf Hagas is located in remote Piscataquis County. Access the trail to the waterfall from the parking area in Hay Brook. The trail is an 8.6-mile loop, making it appropriate as a day hike for experienced hikers. To begin, you must cross the West Branch of the Pleasant River, which is approximately 150 feet across and knee-deep. Beware of the swifter current and high water levels during the spring. Pick up a map at a gas station or North Maine Woods checkpoint to ensure that you correctly follow the trail. The area features four named waterfalls, dozens of smaller unnamed falls, a gorge called “The Grand Canyon of Maine,” two rivers, and a variety of swimming holes. Enjoy swimming at the base of the falls for a cool, relaxing end to your hike.Houston Brook FallsHouston Brook Falls, located in Somerset County near Pleasant Ridge, is a broad 32-foot waterfall with horsetails and plunges. The Houston Brook cascades over beautiful rocks to form this scenic waterfall. Follow Carry Pond Road southeast from Pleasant Ridge until you see a sign advertising the falls. There is an easy 0.25-mile trail leading to the waterfall. There are several excellent swimming locations at the bottom of the falls. Be careful when scrambling across the rocks, which become very slippery because of the mist. Views of the waterfall are best in the morning from May to October.Katahdin Stream FallsKatahdin Stream Falls, located in Baxter State Park, is a magnificent cascading waterfall. It is accessible by a moderate 2.4-mile hike. To access the waterfall, enter Baxter State Park at Togue Pond Gate. Continue 7 miles to Katahdin Stream. There is a nearby campground if you want to stay overnight. Autumn is one of the best times to visit this waterfall because the surrounding woods are awash in color.Moxie FallsMoxie Falls is one of the longest single drops in Maine, with a plunge of over 90 feet. The waterfall is fed by Moxie Stream and is located in Moxie Gore Township. To get to the falls, take Route 15 south from Greenville, turning right at Shirley Village and continuing for 12 miles. Turn left onto Moxie Road and follow the signs to the parking area. The trail to Moxie Falls is an easy 0.6-mile hike. To get to the best swimming holes, you must scramble over rocks approximately 100 feet downstream from the waterfall.Screw Auger FallsScrew Auger Falls is located in Grafton Notch State Park. This 30-foot waterfall forms a lovely streaming cascade that makes for breathtaking photographs. Fed by the Bear River, the waterfall is handicap accessible via a 0.1-mile path. The area has picnic tables, ample parking, and bathrooms. Swimming and wading at the base of the falls is permitted.Smalls FallsSmalls Falls is located just south of Rangeley and is popular for its beautiful waterfall, excellent swimming holes, and scenic gorge. The gorge features amazing colored walls, with beige, orange, brown, gold, ivory, green, and black rock. Enjoy the bathrooms, fire pits, and picnic tables after your easy 5-minute hike to the waterfall. Smalls Falls has a 54-foot drop with numerous cascades.Step FallsStep Falls does not offer a dramatic plunge like some of Maine’s other waterfalls, but it gradually descends over 250 feet. It is a spectacular long chain of descending horsetails and cascades that lies a few miles outside of the eastern border of Grafton Notch State Park. It is situated on a 24-acre property managed by the Mahoosuc Land Trust, a local organization dedicated to "protecting and conserving land and traditional land uses." It’s a long chain of cascades and horsetails and creates a beautiful, misty water flow. The waterfalls offer dozens of smaller pools with excellent wading and swimming opportunities. To get to Step Falls, take Route 26 northwest from Newry until you see signs for Step Falls Preserve. Follow the moderate 0.6-mile trail, which takes approximately 20 minutes to hike. Step Falls is most scenic from May to October. Step Falls was acquired in 1962 by The Nature Conservancy and transferred to the Mahoosuc Land Trust in 2012. It has been a popular attraction for waterfall fanatics and swimming hole lovers for decades. During spring runoff, the water volume has been known to reach up to 500 cubic feet per second. In the summer months, however, horsetails and plunges transform into skinny, nearly powerless slides, and dozens of water-sculpted paths that existed in spring often dry up. The yellow-tinted water in the pools has a very clear and clean appearance. The largest pool at the site, approximately 40 feet long by 12 feet wide, is bounded by several moss-surrounded horsetails that empty into the pool. Along the edges of the pools are broad, mostly flat, sunny granite slabs that meet every requirement for a relaxing picnic. Visitors should be aware that pets must be kept under control and that their owners must clean up after them. Neighbors on all sides of the preserve request that visitors respect their private property and stay within the boundaries of the preserve (which means that the uppermost falls are off-limits and are marked with "permission required" signs).Honorable MentionLittle Allagash FallsLittle Allagash Falls is found at the northern end of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. The scenic 30-foot waterfall is a popular rest stop for canoeists paddling the Allagash River.Hay Brook FallsHay Brook Falls, located in Piscataquis County, is very remote and seldom visited by tourists. This makes it an excellent place to share a picnic or relaxing afternoon on the shore of Hay Brook. There is a short, 0.2-mile trail to reach the 28-foot waterfall. Equally scenic in low or high water, the falls drop a total of 28 feet in three distinguishable steps. The top drop is of particular interest; the waters of Hay Brook travel down a chute, hit an upward sloping slide, change direction by 90 degrees, and crash into a small pool. All drops are surrounded by varying species of moss—the colors yellow, beige, and green are represented—creating a colorful opportunity for some photographs.Little Wilson FallsLittle Wilson Falls, located near Elliottsville Township in Piscataquis County, features a 25-foot plunge. The upper falls of Little Wilson Stream is one of the very best. The gorge surrounding the upper falls is one of the most rugged east of the Mississippi. The 18-foot tall lower falls of Little Wilson Falls offers a great pool for swimming and wading. This is one of the most popular places where the locals go on a warm summer day. Between the scenic waterfall and the fun swimming holes, visitors of all age groups are often seen here. The waterfall is found just off the side of the road, making it easily accessible by handicapped individuals and young children. Take a dip in the small pools at the base of the waterfall for a fun way to cool off on a warm summer day.Poplar Streams FallsVisitors to Carrabassett Valley’s famous Surgaloaf USA ski resort may take a detour to see Poplar Streams Falls. The Poplar Streams waterfall drops 24 feet, while the South Brook waterfall drops 51 feet. A 4.7-mile trail loop connects these waterfalls.Rumford FallsRumford Falls, also known as Pennacook Falls, is a extensive chain of drops of the Androscoggin River. The total drop of the waterfall is 176 feet, making it the largest vertical drop east of Niagara Falls. The waterfall is best viewed during the spring runoff season when its water flow is high.