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NOTES

NORTH AMERICA

AGKICULTUEAL, ECONOMICAL,
AND SOCIAL

JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON

M.A., r.B.S.S.L. & E., F.G.S., C.S., Ac.

RFADEB IN CHEMISTRT AND MINERALOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM

TWO VOLUMES

BOSTON:
CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLI

K ''

May 1913

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18->0, by

James F. W. Johnston,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts-

HIS EXCELLENCY

SIK EDMUND HEAD, BAET,

LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF THE PROVINCE OP NEW BRUNSWICK,
&C. &C.

Dear Sir Edmund,

I dedicate these volumes to you,
partly because they contain, among other matters, the obser-
vations I made during a lengthened Tour through the pro-
vince of which you are the Governor, and in the prosperity
of which you feel so lively an interest. But I do so chiefly
as a mode of testifying the respect and regard I entertain
for yourself and your family, and as affording me an oppor-
tunity of expressing my sense of the many acts of kindness
I experienced during a prolonged stay at Fredericton, under
your hospitable roof.

Believe me, dear Sir Edmund, with great respect.

Your obedient Servant,

JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON.

PEEFACE

I HAVE given to the following volumes the title of
" Notes," because I am conscious of the imperfect
and hurried character of some of the observations
thej contain, and that mistakes, generally trivial
I hope, and always unintentional, may be dis-
covered in them bj natives of North America.

In recording my remarks and impressions, while
I am sensible that I have regarded objects with the
eyes and feelings of a " Britisher," and have gene-
rally written as if I were addressing British readers
only ; yet I have endeavoured to speak fairly and
with candour, both of the institutions and of the
social condition of the States and Provinces through
which it was my fortune to travel. While I have
expressed my opinions freely, I have endeavoured
to avoid either ridicule or causeless reproach. And
although I cannot hope that my remarks will be
always agreeable to my friends in the United States,
yet I hope none will accuse me of a desire either
to violate confidence, or to return bitterness of

VI PEEFACE.

speech for the respect and kindness which I eyerj-
where experienced.

In addition to the matters usually commented
upon by those who visit foreign countries, the
reader will find in these volumes a kind and class
of observations which he will not have met with in
other books of travels. And though I maj appear
to incur the risk of injuring their popularity with the
general public by introducing agricultural remarks,
yet, in the present condition of our own agricultural
interest, there are few persons to whom some infor-
mation in regard to that of America will not be
acceptable. These observations on rural matters
are also so mixed up with remarks on other subjects
as not, I hope, to fatigue even the ordinary readers
of books of travels.

It has long struck me as a vital defect in the
accomplishments of most of our travellers in foreign
countries, that the want of an agricultural eye has
prevented them from giving us any of that positive
and matter-of-fact information upon which alone a
correct estimate of the real character, capabilities,
and future economical prospects of a country can
be safely based.

I have been more detailed in my remarks upon
the lower St Lawrence and the province of New
Brunswick, because this is almost untrodden ground,
and, so far as I am aware, we possess, in reahty, no
good account of this region by an eye-witness from

PREFACE. Vll

Great Britain. In the province of New Brunswick
I spent four months, and travelled two thousand
miles — penetrating to the confines of the settled land
in nearly every direction. I owe it to the province,
therefore, to make its own inhabitants, not less than
those of Great Britain and of the United States,
better acquainted with the real character and capa-
bihties of its surface. In this respect, I believe the
following pages will form a historical document to
which future provincial antiquaries will turn back
for a description of the state of their country in the
middle of the nineteenth century.

Some persons in the United States, and perhaps
not a few at home, may be inclined to controvert the
opinions I have expressed in regard to the agricul-
ture and to the productive capabiHties of the wheat
regions of North America. I will not maintain that
more knowledge might not somewhat change my views
on these subjects ; but as these form in reality one
of the points in my book upon which I have bestowed
much deliberation, I have not put them upon paper
without being fully satisfied that they are substan-
tially correct. It will not alter these opinions, that
some American writers may dissent from them. My
own experience has shown me, that the areas in
regard to which individuals in the United States
possess really correct and precise agricultural infor-
mation are very local and limited; while the majority
are insensibly inclined to give faith to exaggerations

Vm PREFACE.

upon this as upon other topics, provided their ten-
dency be the patriotic one of exalting the greatness
of their country.

I trust, however, that even where my observations
do not wholly coincide with those of my American
readers, they will at least acquit me of picking out
deficiencies even in their agriculture, for the mere
sake of finding fault, or of exposing them in a cen-
sorious spirit. I have spoken of the soil, and its
treatment, as I would if I were describing a district
of Great Britain ; and where I have pointed out
defects in past or present practice, it has been for
the purpose of mentioning along with them the
remedies for past mismanagement, and the improve-
ments of which existing methods are susceptible.

If I may rely upon the testimony of my nume-
rous Transatlantic friends, my temporary residence
in New Brunswick, New England, and the State of
New York, has not been without beneficial results
to the agriculture of those countries. I trust that,
while these volumes make my own countrymen better
acquainted with these interesting regions, they will
be found to contain not a few hints which may still
further benefit and encourage the rural industry, both
of Great Britain and of North America. I hope, also,
that the general spirit which pervades them will tend
to draw still closer the numerous bonds by which
our kindred nations are already so intimately allied.

Durham, February 1851.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

A WEEK IN NOVA SCOTIA.

J

Halifax in !N"ova Scotia. — Roman Cattolic fete and pi'ecedence.
— Coloured people and Indians. — Maritime commerce and
fisheries. — Agricultural character of the coast line of North
America. — Letters of Agricola. — Population and agricultural
produce. — Road from Halifax to Windsor. — Soils and forests. —
Pacing horses. — Gypsum quarries. — Alluvial lands of the Bay
of Minas. — Their varieties and prices. — Sand plain of Ayles-
ford. — Vale and town of Annapolis. — Ice-holes and iron-works.
— Healthiness of the country. — Handiness and provincialisms
of the Nova Scotians, .....

CHAPTER 11.

UP THE RIVER ST JOHN IN NEW BRUNSWICK — FROM THE CITY OF
ST JOHN TO THE GRAND FALLS.

Area and population of New Brunswick. — The lumber-trade, its
benefits and evils. — City of St John. — Diminution in its import
trade and in the provincial revenue. — River St John. — Rich
river fiats. — Average produce of Queen's and Sunbuiy counties.
— City of Fredericton.— Farm on the St John. — Intervale land,
its different qualities and values. — Emigration fever. — Wood-
stock.— Quality and value of land in its neighbourhood. —
Exhausting culture of first settlers. — Farming on Shares. —
Charivari of the Mickeys of Woodstock. — Farm at Jackson-

X CONTENTS.

Page
town. — Speculators in land. — Iron ore and iron smelting. —
Itinerant lecturers.— Mouths of the Tobique and Aroostook
rivers. — Potato breakfasts and meals in common. — Mellicete
Indians on the Tobique. — Irish settlement and thriving settlers.
—Grand Falls and town of Colebrook, . . .33

CHAPTER III.

UP THE ST JOHN TO LITTLE FALLS, AND ACROSS THE PROVINCE FROM
FREDERICTON TO MIRAMICHL

Upper St John. — Colonel Coomb's farm. — Growth and consump-
tion of buckwheat. — Valley of the Madawaska. — Edmonston,
or Little Falls. — Houses of the Acadian farmers. — Tea dinners.
— ^Ascent of the river Tobique. — Rich upper lands of the
river. — Why buckwheat is unfavourable to good husbandry. —
Terraces of the St John River. — Autumnal tints of North
America. — Time of growth of grain-crops in New Bi'unswick. —
Sumach trees. — Apple-orchards. — Scotch settlement. — Making
land at Fredericton. — Rising of stones under the influence of
the frost. — Fire-weeds and Canada thistle. — Stanley, the settle-
ment of the New Brunswick Land Company. — Price of farms.
— Running fire in the fields. — Bilberry swamp. — Fai-m and
opinion of an Aberdonian. — Raspberry hay. — Mare's-tail cut for
hay. — Boistown. — Great fire of 1825. — Gloomy landscape. —
Fires in the forest. — Nakedness of the cleared land. — Success
of farmers in New Brunswick. — Price of farms on the Mira-
michi River. — Increasing consumption of oatmeal, . 67

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE MIRAMICHI RIVER TO THE CITY OF ST JOHN, BY
SUSSEX VALE.

DouglastowD. — Great heat. — Mode of reclaiming forest land. —
Plague of grasshoppers — Average produce, prices and wages.
— Chatham. — Golden rod, a troublesome weed. — North Ameri-
can oaks. — European weeds on the cleared lands. — History of
an Annandale settler. — Bay-du-Vin schoolmaster. — Richi-
bucto. — Buctouche River. — Sweet fern soils. — Patience and
contentment of the French settlei^s. — Shediac, famed for its
oysters. — The Bend-Bore of the river Petitcodiac. — Height of
high water above that of the Bay. — Case of Mr Nixon. — Use of
river mud. — Greater industry of new settlers. — Burned Bridge.

. CONTENTS. XI

Page
■ — Beauty of Sussex Vale. — Mr Evanson's home- farm. — Mv
Alton's farm. — Hampton, and its conglomerate soils. — Fine-
looking yeomen of New Brunswick. — Price of farms. — A dis-
contented Irishman. — Dyked marshes of St John and the
Atlantic border. — Rate of wages for agiicultural labour in the
several counties of the province, . . ", . 102

CHAPTER V.

FROil ST JOHN IN NEW BRUNSWICK TO SYRACUSE IN WESTERN
NEW YORK.

Steamboat from St John to Portland, in Maine. — Railway to
Newhaven, in Connecticut. — Alleged rudeness of American
manners. — Farming in Connecticut and Massachusetts. — Yale
College. — Number of Students. — Expense of residence. — Infe-
rior position of professional men. — Estimation of lawyers and
medical men. — Favouring of quacks. — Medical schools in the
United States. — Elm-trees of Newhaven. — Tree-toad. — Fair-
haven ; its oyster-trade. — Two species of American oysters of
large size. — Railway to Albany up the Housatonic Valley. —
Post-tertiary clays and sands of the upper valley of the
Hudson River and of Lake Champlain. — Natui-al forests
which grow upon them.^Schenectady. — Valley of the Mo-
hawk.— Rich bottoms of this valley. — Broom corn, {Sorghum
saccharatum,) its extensive cultivation. — German flats. — Utica.
• — German population. — Change in the meaning of familiar
vi^ords. — Choice of judges by popular election. — Titular judges
and generals. — Popped com. — Flour of Indian corn ; varieties
in its colour. — City of Rome. — Mr Clay. — Verona. — Arrival
at Syracuse, . . . . . . .131

CHAPTER VI.

THE CITY OF SYRACUSE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

Syracuse. — Its rapid growth. — Populai'ity of Mr Clay. — Show of the
New York State Agricultural Society. — Agricultural imple-
ments.— What they teach. — Law against long leases. — Breeds
of stock in New England, and in the Western States. — Merino
sheep. — Trotting horses. — Condition of agriculture. — Fniit
region of Western New York. — Profits of apple-growing.' —
Quantity of fruit exported. — Varieties of apples in the
United States and in Normandy. — Apple-trees producuig a

Xll CONTENTS.

Page
crop every year — Gout de terrain. — Mr Geddes's farm. — Rich

soils of the Onondaga salt group. — Rotation followed. —
Exhausting effects of this rotation.-^Average produce of the
State and of its richest western counties. — Profits of farm-
ing.— Property confers no political privilege. — Experiments
with gypsum. — Wages of farm-servants. — Section of the
wheat region of western New York. — Beautiful relation of
the soils to the rocks. — Quantity of salt manufactured at
Syracuse. — Consumption of salt in the United States and in
Great Br-itain.— Revenue from the salt springs. — Method of
extracting the salt, . . . . . .157

CHAPTER VII.

FROM SYRACUSE TO BUFFALO AT THE FOOT OP LAKE ERIE.

Railway to Buffalo. — The Americans a clever people. — Joe Smith,
founder of the Mormons. — His removal to Missouri, to Ohio,
and Illinois. — Progress of his sect. — New State of Utah, on
the Salt Lake. — Character of the book of Mormon. — Canan-
dagua. — City of Rochester. — Genesee flour. — Value of farms
on the Genesee River. — Profits of farming in this valley. — Mr
Wadsworth's farms and farming. — Inducements to invest
money in land in New York State. — Relative values of rural
produce and of human labour. — Average produce of the
Genesee country. — New York does not produce wheat enough
for its own consumption. — North-east America not a danger-
ous competitor in the English wheat mai^ket. — Duty upon
Canadian wheat. — Importance of the direct trade to Em'ope
by the St Lawrence. — Erie Canal ; its trafi&c and revenue. —
Number of emigrants from different countries. — Influence of
New England on the development of the new States. — Demo-
cratic party. — Principles of the Old Hunkers and the Barn-
burners, . . . . . . .192

CHAPTER VIIL

BUFFALO AND THE NOKTH-WESTERN STATES.

City of Buffalo ; causes of its rapid rise. — Influence of the growth
of the Western States on the agriculture of western New
York and Upper Canada. — Home ideas as to these new
States. — Cheap wheat does not imply rich land. — Michigan. —
Average produce of this State, and of its several counties. — Can

CONTENTS. Xm

Page
the export of wheat from these new States continue ? — Quantity
of seed-corn per acre sown in the several States. — Copper
mines of Lake Superior. — Immense masses of native copper.
— How they occur. — Ancient Indian workings. — State of
Wisconsin. — Popular feeling in regard to the several new
States. — Land sold in each in 1847. — Minnesota, the New
England of the West. — Influence of these new States on the
future traffic of the St Lawrence. — Wonders of the hog
crop of Ohio. — Indian corn the staple of Ohio. — Hogs killed
in the western States. — How they are fed. — " Packing
business" at Cincinnati. — Various marketable products of this
business at Cincinnati, . . . . .221

CHAPTEE IX.

FROM BUFFALO TO THE FALLS, AND DOWN LAKE ONTARIO TO KINGSTON
IN LOWER CANADA.

Case of American cleverness. — Butcher in Buffalo. — Influence of
Europe on the progress of American cities. — Cause of dif-
ference in the progress of Canadian and New York cities. —
Lake Erie. — Supposed periodical rise and fall in the level of
the great lakes. — Water discharged by the Niagara River. —
Hotel at the Falls. — Coloured waiters. — Geological Section at
the Falls. — Wearing action of the water. — Influence of the
winds on Lake Erie. — Influence of the noise of the Falls
on their impression upon the mind, — Railway to Lewis-
town. — View from the mountain ridge. — Voyage on
Lake Ontario. — Profits of New York farming by a New
York farmer. — City of Oswego. — Sackett's Harbour. — Railway
to Canada. — Kingston in Upper Canada. — Character of the
Upper Canadians. — Difference between a Canadian and a New
York wife to a working man, . . , . _ 242

CHAPTER X.

KINGSTON AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

Kingston. — Show of the Upper Canada Agricultural Society. —
Implements in the show-yard. — Canadian coffee. — British
sympathy with colonial grievances. — Alleged pusillanimity of
the Governor-general. — Wheat the surest crop in Canada
West. — Total produce of Canada West, and average yield per
acre. — Diminished productiveness of the wheat-crop. — Social
position of the farming class in Upper Canada. — United

XIV CONTENTS.

Page
Empire Loyalists. — Indian-corn whisky. — Extensive manufac-
ture of it at Cincinnati in Ohio. — Whisky from pease. —
Prospects of Kingston. — The Thousand Isles of the River
St Lawrence. — Descending the rapids. — The Sault St Louis.
— Approach to Montreal. — Metamorphic limestone rich in
phosphate of lime. — Agricultural value of this rock. — Deposits
of mineral phosphate in the State of New York. — Origin of
this mineral phosphate, and of gai'net, graphite, &c. found in
crystalline limestones. — Singular contortions exhibited by this
limestone, . . . . . . . 264

CHAPTER XL

MONTREAL AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

Montreal. —New churches. — Ruins of the Parliament House. —
Scotch farmers in the Island of Montreal. — Cultivation of
hops.— Price of land. — French Canadian farms and farming.
— Clerical obstacles to the settlement of Protestant farmers. —
Importance of a better husbandry in Lower Canada. — Instruc-
tion in agricultural 'principles. — Excursion to St Hilaire. — St
Lawrence and Atlantic railroad. — Maple sugar manufacture
in Canada and the adjoining States. — • Soil of the valley of St
Lawrence. — Pigeon or stone weed, its prevalence. — What its
history teaches. — Belloeil Mountain. — Beautiful view of the St
Lawrence flats. — Exhaustion of this foi'mei"ly fertile region. —
Seignorial tenure of land, — Reserved rights of the seigneur. —
Sherbrooke. — Lands of the " Canadian Land Company," in the
eastern counties. — Their progress. — Voyage to Quebec. — The
Ottawa River and District. — Its rising importance. — British
and French in Montreal. — Parties in the city. — Why
British members from Upper Canada voted for the Rebellion
Losses Bill. — Explanation of one of their number, . . 287

CHAPTER XIL

FROM QUEBEC DOWN THE ST LAWRENCE TO THE MITIS RIVER.

Land opposite Quebec. — Its quality and value. — Few immigrants
into this region. — Roman Catliolic seminary. — Self-sacrifice of
the teachex's — Falls of Montmorenci. — Sun-setting on Quebec.
— Proportions of the different sects. — Comparative prosperity
of Montreal and Quebec. — Fires in the latter city.— Journey
down the St Lawrence.— Flat lands of St Thomas. — St Roque

CONTENTS. XV

Page
des Annais. — Long fanning streets. — Upper Bay of Kamouraska.
— Price of farms. — College of St Anne. — Eapid increase of the
French population. — Early marriages. — Healthiness of the
climate. — Comparative births and deaths in Lower Canada
and in England. — Kamouraska. — Village of Du Loup. — Cacona.
— Extent of wild land in these lower counties. — Large families
of the peasantry. — Subdivisions of farms.- — Resemblance of the
poorer habitants to the poorer Irish. — Wages in the Rimouski
district. — Longitudinal valleys parallel with the St Lawrence.
— Bog-earth of North America. — Rimouski. — Irish landlord. —
Scotch settlers at Mitis, . . . . .322

CHAPTER XIIL

THE AGRICULTURE AND WHEAT-PRODUCING CAPABILITY OF THE UNITED
STATES AND CANADA — AND THE NAVIGATION OF THE ST LAWRENCE.

Ideas generally entertained of American fertility and agricultural
resources. — Agriculture as an art in North America. — Effect
of general exhaustion on the production of staple crops. —
Retreat of the wheat-exporting lands towards the west. — Re-
markable change in Lower Canada. — Its eflFect on the corn-
markets of the world. — Similar changes probable in other
parts of North America. — Import duty on Canadian Corn. —
Would its removal benefit Canada as a whole] — Why can
Rochester millers compete with Canadian 1 — Large profits
expected in Canada. — Growth of flax and export of linseed. —
The St Lawrence the natural outlet of the Lake-bordering
countries. — Exertions of Canada in the construction of canals.
— Its energy compared with that of New York. — Ohio wheat
will prefer the St Lawrence to the Mississippi route. — Impor-
tance of this route to the political independence of the free
North-western States. — Diflficulties and future prospects of
the navigation of the St Lawrence, .... 354

CHAPTER XIV.

FROM MITIS ON THE ST LAWRENCE BY THE KEMPT ROAD ACROSS THE

PENINSULA OF GASPE TO CAMPBELTON AND DALHOUSIE ON THE

EESTIGOUCHE.

Road through the forest. — Clearings and accommodations by the
way. — Great Metapediac Lake. — Little lake. — Burned forests
and bridges. — Noble's. — First gi'een fields. — Home associations.

XVI CONTENTS.

Page

— Scotch settlers. — Yankee adventurers. — Campbelton. —
River Restigouche. — Flat lands. — Views on the river. — Old
settlers, their fond recollections of home. — Home and provin-
cial geographers. — Indian settlement. — Sugar-loaf Moiintain. —
Agricultural societies and shows. — Lumber-trade on this
river. — Town of Dalhousie.— Settlement on the Eel River. —
Illustrations of social and domestic differences between the
States and the provinces. — Ancient republics and modem, 384

NOTES

NORTH AMERICA

GHAPTEE I.

Halifax in ISTova Scotia. — Fresh complexions of the people. — Eomau
Catholic fete. — Roman Catholics in Halifax, — Precedence and title
conceded to Bishops. — Coloured people in Nova Scotia. — Micmac
Indians. — Maritime commerce of Nova Scotia, its certain extension.
— Mackerel fishery. — Shoals of mackerel. — Export of salt fish. —
Scratched rocks, and agricultural character of the neighbourhood of
Halifax. — Stony and unfertile surface of the coast line. — Young's
Letters of Agricola. — Increase of population in Nova Scotia. — Propor-
tion of the agricultural produce to the population. — Inner Bay of
Halifax. — Railway from Halifax to ^Yindsor. — Soils and forests of the
Ardoise hills.— Drought of 1849.— Pacing horses of Canada. — How
trained in Sardinia. — Gypsum quarries at Windsor, — River Avon. —
Dyked alluvial lands of the Bay of Minas, — Varieties of land, and
their money -values. — Sand plain of Aylesford. — Structure of the vale
of Annapolis. — To%vn of Annapolis. — Ice-holes in the North Moun-
tains, — Ironworks of Bear river. — Healthiness of the country. —
Handiness of the Nova Scotians, — Blue-nose provincialisms.

On Saturday the 28th of July, at 3 p.m., I sailed from
Liverpool in the steam-ship America. We took the
northern course ; lost sight of the west coast of Ireland
on the afternoon of Sunday the 29th ; ahout noon of the
following Sunday came in sight of Newfoundland ; and
VOL. I. A

2 EOCKY SHORES OF NOVA SCOTIA.

early on tlie morning of Tuesday the 7th of August, I
landed at Halifax in Nova Scotia. We had thus a
pleasant passage of nine days and fifteen hours ; and as
we had an agreeable party, we felt almost sorry our
voyage had been so short.

The noble harbour of Halifax, in which all the navies
of the world might securely float, is only one of the count-
less inlets and basins which the Atlantic coast of Nova
Scotia, from Cape Canseau to the Bay of Fundy, every-
where presents. The jagged outline of this coast, as
seen upon the map, reminds us of the equally indented
Atlantic shores of Scandinavia ; and the character of the
coast, as he sails along it — the rocky surface, the scanty
herbage, and the endless pine forests — recall to the
traveller the appearance and natural productions of the
same European country.

The coast of Nova Scotia is indeed very unpromising
in an agricultural sense ; and though of the surface of
the province there are in reaUty three and a half millions
of acres which present to the Norwegian, the Swede,
or the Finlander, the rocky soils, scenery, and, generally
speaking, the natural productions of his own country, yet
both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have in reality
been unjustly depressed in European estimation by the
character of their shores. The greater number of those
who have hitherto returned to Europe from this part of
North America, and who have regulated European
opinion in regard to it, have seen only the coast line, or
the interior of its rocky harbours; and these are cer-
tainly as naked and inhospitable as an inhabited country
can well be. Those who have sailed along the Baltic
shores of Sweden and Finland, or to Gothenburg by the
estuary of the Gotha, or among the rocks and inlets of
the western coast of Norway, will be able to realise,
without visiting them, what the sailor sees on the shores
of our American colonies.

FRESH COMPLEXIONS OF THE PEOPLE. 3

But the interior parts of these provinces are not
represented by these barren borders. Though they do
contain large tracts of poor and difficult land, yet rich
districts recur at intervals, which rival in natural fertil-
ity the most productive counties of Great Britain. The
colonists complain, with reason, that the evil opinion
entertained of them has diverted the tide of English
settlers, English capital, and English enterprise, to
more southern or western regions, not more favoured by
nature than they are themselves.

A European stranger who, on landing in Halifax,
looks for the sallow visage and care-worn expression
which distinguish so many of the inhabitants of the north-
ern States of the Union, will be pleased to see the fresh
and blooming complexions of the females of all classes,
and I may say of almost all ages. Youth flourishes
longer here, and we scarcely observe, in stepping from
England to Nova Scotia, that we have as yet reached a
climate which bears heavier upon young looks and female
beauty than our own.

The day of my landing at Halifax was a fete-day
among the Roman Catholic schools. Twelve hundred
children, in holiday dresses, were marching in long pro-
cession by nine in the morning, with flags and banners
and music, along the main street of the city, and thence
under a triumphal arch of flowers and an avenue of green
pine-trees, planted for the occasion, to a steamboat which
was in waiting to convey them across the bay to M'Nab's
Island, where the amusements of the day were provided.
As music and dancing and refreshments were among the
entertainments, this fete attracted a large assemblage of
all parties, whom rigid religious views did not restrain
from countenancing a public display of the Roman
Catholic body. As a stranger, I was grateful to the
provincial secretary, Mr Howe, for an invitation to
accompany him and his family in the afternoon to the

4 UNRESTRAINED AND EQUAL INTERCOURSE.

scene of festivity. We crossed the bay in a steamboat
crowded ahiiost to suffocation ; and it was here, and
among the thousands whom I saw on the island, that I
was enabled to judge of the adaptation of the northern
climate to the complexions of our island population.

In Europe, it is in countries which, like Great Britain,
Ireland, and Holland, are surrounded by an atmosphere
rarely arid or dry, either from excessive cold or from
excessive heat, but which, more or less loaded with mois-
ture, always softens and expands the minute vessels of the
skin, that health and freshness of complexion in both sexes
is most conspicuously perceived and most permanent.
To the fogs and rains, therefore, which so frequently visit
this and other parts of the North American coast, lying
within the influence of the Gulf Stream, the healthy looks
of the people are probably In some measure to be ascribed.

I was early struck, on this my first day's residence in
North America, -with the less constrained and more equal
intercourse which appeared to prevail between what we
should call the different classes of society. The servant
and the mistress, the mechanic and the barrister, with
little distinction of dress or behaviour, discoursed on a
perfect equality, and persons filling the highest political
offices were jostled about as unceremoniously, and were
as familiarly hailed, as the humblest of the crowd. The
secret is, that every one feels what I understood when
my friend said to me, " That girl may marry, and be
better off than her mistress to-morrow ; and the lowest of
these men may rise to the highest civil office in the pro-
vince." As the ermine of the bench, and the mitre of
the archiepiscopal seat, secure to the humblest member
of two of our learned professions in England a portion
of that respect with which we look upon a future Lord
Chancellor or a possible Archbishop, so I suppose the
sense of equal opportunities being open to all entitles each
man in these provinces to a more equal consideration.

ROMAN CATHOLIC BODY. 5

The Eoman Catholic bodj in Halifax is strong and
growing, chiefly through the yearly accessions of emi-
grant Irish and their descendants, who here appear to
thrive, and are said to be well-behaved. The Pres-
byterians nsed to be, and probably still are, the most
numerous of the religious sects in Halifax, and next to
them the Episcopalians of the Church of England. The
Roman Catholics have of late years increased, and they
have obtained an advantage over the non-Episcopal sects
in the title of " My Lord," lately conceded to their bishop
by order of the Home Government, and in virtue of which
he takes rank with the Church of England bishop, and
precedence of all the dissenting clergy.

That this is a great grievance in the eyes of the Pres-
byterians and others, in the two colonies of Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick, I was scarcely a day in Halifax till
I had learned. Until recently, the bishop of the " Church
of England in the colonies " was the only person
addressed as " My Lord," — a solitary and invidious title
among a people composed, for the most part, of what we
call dissenters in England, and in a country where so
little distinction of ranks prevails. It became less singu-
lar when the same title was conceded to the Roman
Catholic bishops, and, of course, a greater number of
persons became interested in keeping up this distinction.
But the hostile feeling was in consequence only made
stronger in the breasts of the majority of the people.

Such distinctions in a colony, it appears to me, ought
to be conceded, not for an imperial, but for a provincial
reason — not because a certain religious body is powerful
in Europe, but in consideration of the feelings and wishes
of a large body of the colonists themselves. Now, if this
latter reason had been influential, there are other sects
to whom some equal distinction ought to have been con-
ceded. The Presbyterians and Baptists are both stronger
bodies than either the English Episcopal or the Eoman

f) POLICY OF CONCEDING CLERICAL RANK.

Catholic in the colonies of Nova Scotia and New Bruns-
wick, and therefore more entitled to consideration at the
fountain of honour. If there be any way in which it
could be done, therefore, the head of these several bodies
— their moderator or president for the time being —
should be equally honoured with the more permanent
heads of the Episcopalian sects ; — that is, if the distinc-
tive title is to be retained at all, and the precedence of
high clerical office retained.

It may be said that the Presbyterian, Baptist, and
other bodies, are opposed upon principle to the connec-
tion of honorary precedence with clerical office, and have
therefore never asked such distinctions for the head of
their several denominations. This is probably true ; but
my intercourse with the inhabitants of these colonies has
satisfied me that much lurking ill-will against the mother
country has arisen from the kind of half-establishment
originally granted to the English Church ; and that this
ill-will, instead of being lessened, has been deepened in
intensity by the selection of the Roman Catholic body
for a similar distinction. Why should the mother country
procure ill-will — manufacture it, I may say, for herself —
by intermeddling in the religious disputes of the different
denominations in the colonies ? Either we ought to leave
these entirely to the control of the local legislature, as
all other internal political and social matters now are
left, or the offer, at least, of similar honours should be
made to the head of each religious body possessing a
certain numerical force, and consequent political weight,
in the province. This offer, whether accepted or not,
would at least remove the complaint of invidious distinc-
tions from the shoulders of the Home Government, and
would confine the discussion in future to the general
question of precedence or no precedence to the holders
of high clerical office. Should any unfortunate circum-
stances bring about a separation from the mother country,

COLOURED PEOPLE IN HALIFAX. 7

such distinctions in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
would certainly not be permitted to exist for another hour.
On the field upon M'Nab's Island, where the people
were assembled, were music and dancing parties in differ-
ent places ; swings and refreshment stalls, whites of all
grades, and darkies of different shades ; but I saw neither
intoxication nor disorder, nor rudeness, nor incivility
anywhere. A little of the liveliness of the early French
settlers probably clings to the modern Nova Scotian; but
though there were many both Irish-born and of Irish
descent among the crowd, there was no shade of a dispo-
sition to an Irish row.

Many coloured people, some apparently full-blood
negroes, were to be seen in the streets of Halifax acting
as porters, and in other humble employments. A few of
these looked miserable enough.

As far back as the close of the American war, numbers
of coloured people came here, either with their loyalist
masters, or alone, and at the expense of Government.
These early settlers have multiplied and become to a cer-
tain extent acclimatised, and many of them are industrious
owners of small farms. Generally, however, the negroes
are spoken of as indolent, as hanging about the towns,
and as suffering much from the severity of the winter.

People of colour enjoy, I believe, in all the British
colonies of North America, the same political privileges
as are possessed by other classes of her Majesty's subjects.
I went into the jury court, where the author of Sam Slich
was the presiding judge, and I was both surprised and
pleased to see a perfectly black man sitting there in the
box as a juror.

Among the other novelties to a stranger in Halifax is
an encampment of the Micmac Indians, whose wigwams
I found pitched upon some high ground above the town
of Dartmouth, on the opposite side of the bay. These
Indians have a broad Asiatic face ; and are more intelli-

8 MICMAC INDIANS.

gent, but less patient of restraint than the negroes. Little
real success has attended the many attempts which have
been made to educate and localise them. Thej have
become faithful Roman Catholics, are obedient to their
priests, regular at confession, and very honest ; but they
do not settle steadily to the monotonous labours of agri-
culture, or to the confinement either of domestic service,
or of regular handicraft or mechanical trades.

In the first vrigwam I entered, I found half-a-dozen
men playing at cards ; and, in the next, as many women
and children making baskets. Their English is broken,
and to each other they converse in their native tongue.
They are diminishing in numbers, many having been
carried off some time ago by a fever, which raged spe-
cially among themselves; but there are said still to remain
five thousand of them in Nova Scotia.

In the harbour of Halifax, I saw few large ships ;
there were, however, many small vessels employed either
in the fisheries or in the coasting trade to the States
and the Canadas. There are four circumstances which
seem to concur in promising a great future extension to
this maritime portion of Nova Scotian industry. In the
first place, the sea and bays, and inlets along the whole
Atlantic border, swarm with fish of many kinds, which
are the natural inheritance of the Nova Scotian fisher-
men. Second, this coast is everywhere indented with
creeks and harbours, from which the native boats can at
all times issue, and to which they can flee for shelter.
Thirdly, there exists in the native forests — and over three
millions of acres in this province probably always will
exist — an inexhaustible supply of excellent timber for the
shipbuilder. And, lastly, from the influence of the Gulf
stream most probably, the harbours of Nova Scotia are,
in ordinary seasons, open and unfrozen during the entire
winter ; while, north of Cape Canseau, the harbours and
rivers of Prince Edward's Island and of the Canadas are

FISHERIES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 9

closed up hy ice. This latter circumstance, if a railway
should be made from Halifax to the St Lawrence, ought
to place the West India trade of a large portion of the
Canadas and of New Brunswick in the hands of the Nova
Scotia merchants — while all the circumstances taken
together will doubtless, in the end, make them the chief
purveyors of fish both to Europe and America. At pre-
sent, they complain of the bounties given by their several
Governments to the French and United States fishermen.
But bounties are in all countries only a temporary expe-
dient : one part of a people gets tired at last, of paying
another part to do what is not otherwise profitable ;
bounties are therefore abolished, and employment in con-
sequence languishes. The fisheries of Nova Scotia are
the surer to last that they are permitted or encouraged
to spring up naturally, without artificial stimulus, and in
the face of an ardent competition.

Of the coast fisheries, the most important to the trade
of Halifax is that of mackerel. This fish abounds along
the whole shores, but the best takes are usually made in
the Gulf of St Lawrence, off the shores of Cape Breton
and Prince Edward's Island, and especially at Canseau,
wdiere the quantity of fish has been '^ so great at times as
actually to obstruct navigation.''^'^' The excitement caused
by the arrival of a shoal of mackerel, is thus described
by Judge Haliburton, in The Old Judge: —

" Well, when our friends the mackarel strike in towards
the shore, and travel round the province to the northward,
the whole coasting population is on the stir too. Perhaps
there never was seen, under the blessed light of the sun,
anything like the everlasting number of mackarel in one
shoal on our sea-coast. Millions is too little a word for
it ; acres of them is too small a tarm to give a right
notion ; miles of them, perhaps, is more like the thing ;

* Gesner's Industrial Resources, p. 124.

10 SHOALS AND EXPORTS OF MACKEREL.

and, when they rise to the surface, it's a solid body of
fish you sail through. It's a beautiful sight to see them
come tumbling into a harbour, head over tail, and tail
over head, jumping and thumping, sputtering and flutter-
ing, lashing and thrashing, with a gurgling kind of sound,
as much as to say, ' Here we are, my hearties ! How are
you off for salt ? Is your barrels all ready ? — because we
are. So bear a hand and out with your nets, as we are
oflf to the next harbour to-morrow, and don't wait for
such lazy fellows as you be.' " *

A ready market for this fish is found in the United
States ; and the absolute as well as comparative value of
the trade to Nova Scotia, may be judged of from the
following return of the quantities of pickled fish of the
most plentiful kinds, exported from Halifax in 1S47 : —

Barrels.

Alewives, . . . 7000

Salmon, . . . 6000

Herrings, . . . 22,000

Mackerel, . . . 190,000

From Cape Breton and Newfoundland the largest
export consists of cod-fish.

The day after my arrival at Halifax, I drove round
the peninsula on which the city stands, and up the north-
west arm — an inlet or creek, by which the peninsula is
formed, and which runs inland from the bay a few miles
behind Halifax.

To one who wishes to form a general idea of the
agricultural character and capabilities, as well as of the
geological structure and botanical relations of the Atlantic
border of the province, this drive is very Instructive.
On a clear sunny day the views are beautiful, and the
ride most exhilarating. The old slate rocks are inter-
spersed with masses of granite — probably, in many cases,

* The Old Judge, by Scam Slick, vol. ii. p. 96.

COUNTRY EOUND HALIFAX. 11

only old stratified rocks, a little more changed than
themselves — while stunted pine-woods and peaty hollows
form the principal features of the surface. Anciently
submerged, however, as all this country has been, there
are everywhere visible traces of those currents or glaciers
which about the same period scratched and grooved so
large a portion of the northern continents of Europe and
America. Scratches, continuous, deeply cut, generally
parallel, but frequently crossing each other at angles of
ten to twenty degrees, are beautifully seen on the broad
naked granite surface of Point Pleasant, on which the
fort stands, upwards of a hundred feet above the sea, and
at other places in that immediate neighbourhood. These
markings, with the accumulated drift and boulders,
strengthen more the general likeness of the country to
what the visitor may have seen about Stockholm in
Sweden, or Helsingfors in Finland.

Difficult to the farmer, and eminently stony, the country
about Halifax really is. In some places, boulders of
various sizes are scattered sparsely over the surface ; in
others they literally cover the land ; while in rarer spots
they are heaped upon each other, as if intentionally accu-
mulated for some after use. One ought to visit a country
like this, while new to the plough, in order to understand
what must have been the original condition of much of
the land in our own country, which the successive labours
of many generations have now smoothed and levelled.

When Csesar invaded Britain, stony deserts might
exist where the plough now easily cuts the soil ; so that
the greater produce is not due alone to the higher skill
of those who now cultivate the land, but more probably
to the effect of labour and hard toil expended upon it by
drudging serfs in former ages. The northern end of
Lough Corrib, in Ireland, would probably still bear a
comparison with many of these difficult places in North
America. The huge walls of stones which the peasantry

12 PROSPECTS OF THIS STONY SURFACE.

have gathered from their fields in other parts of the
same island, indicate that, within comparatively recent
periods, they have heen little better; while what England
has been may be inferred from the fact that, in an old-
farmed district in Northumberland, I have myself known
of six hundred cart-loads of trap boulders being raised
and carried out of a single field. I am less inclined,
therefore, than some may be to bewail as hopeless the
apparently unimproveable condition even of the stonier
parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The progress
of agriculture in such districts is necessarily slow, but
a thousand years will do for these countries infinitely
more than it has done for us. Productive fields and farms
have indeed already risen in many places from among
the rocks and stones around tlie city of Halifax. The
market it affords for produce, and the wealth from time
to time accumulated by its merchants, have had their
effect upon the surface; and gardens and fields and small
farms have gradually spread their cheerful surfaces along
the hilly slopes which skirt the beautiful bay. But where
and while such stony tracts occur, arable farming on a
large scale can never be carried on. It is not in this
neighbourhood, therefore, that the agricultural emigrant
is to look for those rural attractions which are to dispose
him to settle in Nova Scotia.

One would scarcely expect that much should ever have
been done in such a locality for the general promotion
of North American agriculture. And yet I was much
interested to meet with a work published at Halifax in
1822, under the title of Letters of Agricola^ by John
Young, Esq. — the father, T believe, of the present Attor-
ney-General of the province — which, for sound knowledge
of the subject, both practical and scientific, for honest
common sense, and for a warm but prudent zeal to
improve the country in which he lived, is, as a whole,
superior to any other book of the time I have hitherto

LETTERS OF AGRICOLA. 13

met with in any language. It was not to be wondered
at that, throiigli the exertions of Mr Young, a provincial
Board of Agriculture should have been established, and
many county agricultural societies, which still exist,
though less patriotically urged forward, perhaps, than in
his time.

The publication of the Letters of Agricola marks
an era in the agricultural history of the province ; the
writings of the author of Sam Slick an era, not only
in its social history, but in that of the steam traffic and
intercourse of the world. Both writers must rank
among the truest patriots of Nova Scotia. Is there none
in the province now who can take up the mantle of
Young again, and re-awaken, in behalf of agriculture,
the spirit which, thirty years ago, when less v/as known
of its principles, he was so successful in creating ?

If we are permitted to draw any conclusion from the
increase of population in Nova Scotia, this province would
appear to have advanced as rapidly as almost any other
part of North America. The number of its inhabitants,
at different periods, is stated to have been —

In 1772,

18,300

In 1826,

130,000

...1781,

12,000

...1846,

280,000

... 1784,

32,000

...1850,

300,000

The province has many resources in fishing, mining,
and agriculture, and cannot be prevented from increasing,
both in population and in wealth. But its progress will be
more rapid in proportion to the wisdom, energy, and
singleness of purpose of those whom the colonists — to
whom all public officers are now responsible — may select
to manage their affairs.

It possesses an area of nine and a half millions of acres,
of which five and a quarter millions are granted to private
parties, and four and a quarter still remain in the hands
of the provincial Government. It does not grow corn

14 FOOD PRODUCE OF THE PROVINCE.

enough for Its own consumption ; but Dr Gesner states,
that not a fiftieth part of the surface is cleared of timber,
and that not a hundredth part is in cultivation.*

Now, one hundredth part of the whole area is about
95,000 acres ; and supposing this to produce, at the same
rate as the cultivated land of Great Britain — of which
each 170 acres supports 100 inhabitants — they would
raise food for about 60,000 inhabitants. But the surface
of Nova Scotia is not so well cultivated or so productive,
as a whole, as Great Britain. Its 95,000 cultivated acres,
therefore, do not support so many as 60,000 of its people.
On the other hand, it is certain, from the quantity of food
actually imported, that more than 60,000, or one-fifth of
the population, must be maintained by what the province
itself produces. I conclude, therefore, that Dr Gesner's
estimate of the proportion of the province which has
already been brought into cultivation is largely understated.

Again, according to the estimate of Dr Gesner, not
more than one-half of the population is employed in
agriculture, the rest being engaged in lumbering, fish-
ing, &c.t That is, each person employed in agricul-
ture raises less food than is necessary to support two
people — since there is a large importation of American
flour. But, in England and Scotland, only one-fourth
of the population is engaged in, or dependent upon,
agricultural employment ; that is, each person occupied
In tilling the land raises food for four people. Hence
Nova Scotia is not made to yield half so much food as
Great Britain, In proportion to the number of people
employed in agriculture, if Dr Gesner Is nearly right as
to the number so employed in Nova Scotia.

I think he can scarcely be under the truth in estimating
the agricultural population at one half of the whole. We
are compelled, therefore, to conclude, either that the land
in general Is not grateful for the labour expended upon

* Industrial Economy of Nova Scotia, p. 23. t Ibid., ji. 24.

INNER HAEBOUR OF HALIFAX. 15

It, or that the inhabitants are deficient in industry; or
that, from want of agricultural skill, their labour is not
turned to the best account, and the capabilities of their
soil not fully brought out.

From my brief stay in the province, and the peculiar
aridity of the season, I had not an opportunity of deter-
mining these points by my own observation ; but, from
all I have learned, I am inclined to attribute much of the
comparative deficiency of produce in the province to a
want either of skill or of persevering industry on the
part of the cultivators.

On the morning of Thursday the 9th of August I left
Halifax, by stage, for Windsor, whence the steamboat
proceeds across the Bay of Minas and the Bay of Fundy,
to St John in New Brunswick. The morning was
fine, and the ride up the west side of the bay very
delio:htful. The harbour of Halifax consists of an
outer and an inner bay, both of great extent. The inner
bay, which is completely land-locked, is as yet little
frequented, even by boats ; and one laments to see so
many fine sites for houses and clearings, on both shores,
unoccupied and almost desolate. The land in general is
poor and stony, and wealth has not yet so largely accu-
mulated at Halifax as to give a value to the compar-
atively unproductive margins of this wide inner lake.

A ride of ten miles brought us to Sackville, at the
head of the lake, where we stopped to breakfast. In
passing over these first ten miles on a new continent, a
native of Great Britain or Ireland, though not learned in
trees, can hardly fail to be struck with the new and
varied general outlines, forms of leaf, and appearances of
bark, which force themselves upon his attention. The
varieties of pines, maples, and birches, and the pecuHar
foliage of the native oak and ash trees, give much novelty
to the journey along the borders of this lake. Little spots
of land occurred along its margin, of various quality, and

16 RAILWAY FKOM HALIFAX TO WINDSOR.

suited, therefore, to the growth of a larger number of
species of trees tlian are usually seen over much greater
distances In the Interior of the country.

Above Sackvllle, which as yet is little more than an

inn, with its necessary outbuildings — but which
doubtjbe the site of a future town — several small streams
unite in a main valley, and empty themselves into the
head of the lake. Up this valley, and across the penin-
sula, runs the road to Windsor aud the line of the pro-
jected railway between Halifax and that town. As a
means of facilitating and hastening the communication
between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the execution
of this raihvay would be of great benefit to both pro-
vinces. With good steamers on the Bay of Fundy, this
short line would reduce the distance iii time between
Halifax and St John to ten or twelve hours, and Avould
make the Cunard steamers greatly more useful to the
province of New Brunswick. And if, as is likely to be
the case, the transport of merchandise across the Atlantic
by steam is to be diminished in cost, and to become much
more common and extended, this railvray would at once
promote the extension of such a traffic. And while by this
traffic the steamers themselves would be aided, the com-
merce of New Brunswick would obtain the advantage of
a direct and easy weekly access to the European markets.
Were this railway constructed, w^e might hope, within a
brief period, to see merchant steamers plying between
Halifax only and the British ports on the Mersey, the
Clyde, and the Bay of Galway, laden with the lighter
articles of traffic which the merchants on either side can
mutually interchange. Thus, not only would the settle-
ment and more rapid improvement of the part of Nova
Scotia, through w^hich the railway is to run, be greatly
promoted, but the general commerce of the two provinces
also increased, and the extension and profit of Atlantic
steam communication hastened on.

DROUGHT OF THE SEASON. 17

Poor claj-slate soils, thin and cold, with occasional
quartz rock, and granite in mass or in drifted boulders,
accompanied us beyond the summit of the Ardoise hills,
which form the water-shed between the Atlantic rivers
and those which empty themselves into the Bay of Minas.
Pine forests mostly usurped the surface, though here and
there, on the margins of lakelets, or where flatter and less
stony tracts occur, labour and industry had overcome
nature, and compelled rich herbage and moderate corn to
spring up in their stead. It was interesting to observe
how the absence of human labour for a few years gave
again uncontrolled supremacy to the natural vegetation ;
and pine forests, young, but flourishing and dense as ever,
gradually covered again even long-established clearings.

The summer and autumn of 1849 will long be remem-
bered in the British provinces of North America, as well
as in the north-eastern States of the Union, for its exces-
sive drought. The first striking effects of it I had yet seen
came uuder my observation to-day, in the burnt forest we
occasionally passed on either side of the road, and in the
blazing trees and underwood, which, in a few places, hem-
med us in on both sides, and, w^ith horses less accustomed
to fire, might have proved a source of danger. It was
remarkable to see how much the soil, and the seeds it
contained, seemed to have been quickened by the passage
of the fire. Ferns and fire-weeds embraced the black-
ened stumps and trunks of fallen trees, while smoke still
lingered around them ; and I was assured that a couple of
weeks was often sufficient to produce such effects.

After crossing the water-shed, which rises about seven
hundred feet above the sea, and descending about half-
way on the other side tow^ards Windsor, we left the stony,
granite, and metamorphic slates, and entered upon soils
of a more propitious character, derived from those gyp-
sum-bearing and red sandstone rocks which have been
referred to the lower part of the Nova Scotia coal for-

VOL. I. B

IS PACINO HORSES OF CANADA.

mation. The country is also more undulating, better
inhabited, more generally cleared — bearing corn or useful
herbage — and has a less humid and changeful climate
than the Atlantic slope of the Ardoise hills. Here I first
saw a field of growing Indian corn ; and, as we stopped to
change horses, had an opportunity of walking into and
examining it. But I could not repress a feeling of melan-
choly as we drove along, and saw vegetable life every-
where suiFering from the excess of drought. Herbage
for the cattle was scarcely to be obtained ; the grass fields
were burned up, and displayed one universal brown.
The hay crop had almost entirely failed, and how to obtain
winter food for the stock had already become a matter of
most difficult consideration. The reader who Is possessed
of an agricultural eye will judge how far it was possible
for a stranger passing through it, to form, under such
circumstances, an idea of the agricultural capabilities of
the country. I afterwards saw much of the same effect
of drought in New Brunswick and the north-east-
ern States ; and I was informed by those who had
known the province for forty years, that nothing equal
to the drought of 1849 had been experienced in their
time.

On starting with our new team of horses, my attention
was arrested by the peculiar gait of the off leader. It
slipped and waddled along, alternately lifting and rest-
ing upon the fore and hind feet of the same side, a pace
I had never seen before. It proved to be a Canadian
horse, trained, as they frequently are in that province, to
this peculiar pace. It is a sort of shufiling, awkward-
looking gait, but is very easy for riding. It is said that
a person may ride a whole day at this pace without any
fatigue. I hoped to have been able during my sub-
sequent visit to Canada to make a trial of this alleged
easiness to the rider, but the opportunity did not fall in
my way. Horses so trained are known as pacing horses,

HOW TRAINED IX SARDINIA. 19

and the practice has probably been introduced hj the
French settlers.

1 have never myself seen it in France, and should
suppose it to be an uncommon pace even there, and that
it has most likely been introduced from the shores of
the Mediterranean. I find a notice of it in a work
upon Sardinia, lately published by Mr Warre Tyndale.*
" Much attention," he says, " is paid to giving the
better class of horse a peculiar step called portante^ for
which we have neither a corresponding word or pace,
being something between an amble and a trot, and
taught in the following manner : —

" The fore and hind legs are attached to each other by
two cords, supported by others fastened to the saddle so
as to prevent their dragging on the ground ; and, thus
fettered, the horse is put in action — the trainer pulling
the right and left side of the bit, alternately, and giving
a corresponding pressure with his leg, which forces the
animal to move either the two off or the two near legs
simultaneously, producing thereby an easy glissade step.
It has been compared to the Turkish amble, but, judging
from personal experience, it is as dissimilar as it is to our
cavalry or farmer's trot. The movement is delightfully
easy, especially easy where one has to be on horseback
for many consecutive hours ; and, as Cetti says, ' II viag-
giare in Sardegna e percio la piu dolce cosa del monde :
Fantlpongo all' andare in barca col vento in poppa.'
The travelling in Sardinia is, on this account, the most
agreeable thing in the world : I prefer it to going in a
boat with the wind astern."

I do not know how the training is effected in Canada,
but it is very interesting to find this pace prevailing in
two countries so remote from each other. May it not
have been introduced into Canada by some of the

* The Island of Sardinia. London, Bentley, 184^, vol. 1. p. 200.

20 GYPSUM COUNTRY AND QUARRIES.

Romish clergy from the islands or borders of the Medi-
terranean ?

Windsor, which we reached after another hour's drive
is a neat, clean, well-built little town, standing on the
estuary of the Avon, and within a short distance of the
mouth of the St Croix river. Both of these rivers
empty themselves into the Bay of Minas, and are dis-
tinguished by the lofty white cliffs of gypsum which are
seen at various places along their banks. The country
adjoining the lower pai't of both rivers is in many places
gypsiferous, and the undulating appearance of its sur-
face, the rounded hills, and the sudden hollows which
here and there appear, are in great part to be ascribed
to the numerous swallow holes and sinkings which have
been produced through the gradual solution and removal,
by surface water or by springs, of the gypsum from
beneath, A similar surface of rounded hills and hollows
afterwards attracted my attention along the shores of
the Cumberland basin, in some parts of New Brunswick,
and on the gypsiferous strata along the out-crop of the
upper beds of the Onondaga salt group, and the base of
the Ilelderberg limestone in Western New York.

After a hasty dinner, at the small but clean town of
Windsor, I paid a hurried visit to the plaster quarry of
Judge Hallburton, which affords the principal article
of export from the river Avon. The gypsum occurred
and was worked very much as our limestones are, forming
a face of rock in which different layers were visible of
various degrees of whiteness, and crystalline structure.
The whitest and purest is quarried and conveyed, by
an economical railway to the river, where it is shipped
chiefly for the United States.

At Windsor, it is usual to embark in the steamer for
St John in New Brunswick. In favourable weather
this is a run of twelve or fourteen hours with the
steamers now on the station. That I might see a por-

WINDSOR TO WOLFVILLE. 21

tion of the ricliest land in the province, however, I had
been recommended to proceed westward to Annapolis,
about eighty miles by land, and thence by a steamer
which plies regularly to the city of St John.

Starting again with the stage, we ascended the Avon
till it became sufficiently narrow to be bridged over,
and then crossed to Falmouth by one of those covered
wooden bridges of which I afterwards saw so many in
North America. They form long dark wooden tunnels,
stronger, perhaps, and more durable for their darkness,
but most effectual in preventing either the beauties or
defects of the river scenery from reaching the eye of the
passenger.

Whoever has sailed up the Avon to our English Bristol
when the tide was low, would, this afternoon, have agreed
in the propriety of the name which has been given to
this river of Windsor. The tide was low, and, as in the
EngHsh Avon, lofty and steep mud banks confined the
waters, and showed at once how high the tide must rise,
and how fertilising its muddy water must be.

From this point the land had an improved appear-
ance, and the first good crop I had seen during my
whole day's ride began to cheer my eyes. As we drove
along, I gradually shook off the feeling of despondency,
with w^hich I had looked upon the parched upland
country through which I had come to Windsor. I was
now proceeding over a more elevated and less valuable
portion of that rich alluvial land, for which the shores of
the Bay of MInas, and Its tributary creeks, and of the
head-waters of the Bay of Fundy in general, have been
long famous. Advancing twelve or fifteen miles further
to Horton and Wolfville, I found myself on the edge of
the richest dyke-land in the province. I quitted the
stage at Wolfville, for the purpose of taking a drive over
a portion of the most productive land before the evening
set in.

22 ALLUVIAL LANDS OF MINAS BAY.

Having obtained a light carriage, and an intelligent
guide, I drove over some dozen miles of what is certainly
a naturally fertile, and was then a comparatively smiling,
district. But even at this low level, and so near the
waters of the broad bay, the drought had seared and yel-
lowed the usually luxuriant herbage ; and had I not come
from a far more arid region, it would have conveyed to my
mind the impression that the agricultural capabilities of
the township of CornwaUis had been much over-estimated.

These dyked alluvial lands of the Bay of Fundy
are to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick what the carses
of Gowrie and Falkirk are to Scotland, and the warped
lands of Lincolnshire to Eastern England. The thick
waters of our Humber and Trent give a fair idea of
those of the Bay of Minas, and of the other broad creeks
which communicate with the Bay of Fundy ; only the
American waters are scarcely so dark in colour, and the
mud they deposit is of a redder hue. The frequent
villages, and the numerous scattered habitations, which
are visible from the higher ground of CornwaUis, are
abundant proof of the productiveness of the soil of this
more favoured part of Nova Scotia. It is not all, how-
ever, of equal quality.

Three kinds of land are distinguished in this and the
adjoining province. First^ dyke-land — the rich alluvial
deposit of these waters, so called from its having been
laid dry by a succession of dykes, which for the last two
centuries have been gradually advancing beyond each
other towards the bay. This land sells at present at
from £15 to £40 sterling per acre ; and some of it has
been tilled for 150 years without any manure — a treat-
ment, however, of which it is now beginning seriously
to complain. It averages 300 bushels (9 tons,) and
sometimes produces 600 bushels (18 tons,) of potatoes to
the acre. Second^ Intervale — the generally light alluvial
soil, which in variable width fringes the banks of the

VALLEY OF ANNAPOLIS. 23

livers above the head of the tide-waters. This also
varies in quality, but with farm-buildings is rarely
valued so high as ^^20 an acre. Third^ Upland —
elevated above both rivers and tides, and which owes
nothing to either. Over a large portion of the province,
the upland is said to be comparatively fertile, and free
from stones. The most improved of this kind of land,
however, with farm-buildings attached, rarely sells so
high as <^10 an acre. The wild or wilderness land is
granted by Government at about 3s. 6d. an acre.

The Baptists, as I have already observed, are a power-
ful body in these provinces. At AVolfville, they have a
college or academy, attended by a large number of stu-
dents. It is a handsome building, situated on a rising
ground, which overlooks the rich flats beneath, the
Minas basin beyond, and carries the eye over to the
Cobequid Mountains on the other side of the sea. Before
reaching Windsor, we passed, at a short distance on our
left, a Church of England college, also finely situated,
but said not to be so well frequented, or in so flourishing
a condition, as its friends would desire.

By starting early in the morning, I was enabled to
advance as far as Kentville before the departure of the
stage, and to proceed along the valley to Annapolis, a
distance of nearly seventy miles. The road, in general
good, though in some places sandy, runs along the foot
of what are called the South Mountains, from their skirt-
ing this long valley on the south. It rises very gently
and very slightly till it reaches an immense bog — called
in these provinces a Carriboo bog or Carriboo plain —
which is the water-shed from which flow both the Cora-
wallis river and that of Annapolis, in opposite directions ;
thence it descends as gently to the town of Annapolis.

Along the lower part of each river there is much good
land, but towards the middle of the day's journey, espe-
cially about Aylesford and after passing the bog, it

24 AYLESFORD SAND-PLAIN.

becomes sandy ; and there is here, occupying a large
breadth of the valley, an extent of many miles of light
and comparatively worthless land. On this poor soil I
saw, for the first time, the sweet fern, Comptonia aspleni
folia^ which I became well acquainted with in my after
journeys in New Brunswick. It rejoices in light, sandy,
almost useless soils, of which I know scarcely any more
sure practical indicator.

The " Old Judge " thus describes what he calls the
great Aylesford sand-plain : —

" The great Aylesford sand-plain folks call it, in a
ginral way, the DeviFs Goose Pasture. It is thirteen
miles long and seven miles wide ; it ain't jest drifting
sand, but it's all but that, it's so barren. It's oneaven,
or wavy, like the swell of the sea in a calm, and is covered
witli short, thin, dry, coarse grass, and dotted here and
there with a half-starved birch and a stunted mis-shapen
spruce. Two or three hollow places hold water all
through the summer, and the whole plain is criss-crossed
with cart or horse tracks in all directions. It is jest
about as silent, and lonesome, and desolate a place as you
would wish to see. Each side of this desert are some
most royal farms — some of the best, perhaps, in the pro-
vince— containing the rich lowlands under the mountain ;
but the plain is given up to the geese, who are so wretched
poor that the foxes won't eat them, they hurt their teeth
so bad. All that country thereabouts, as I have heard
tell when I was a boy, was oncest owned by the lord,
the king, and the devil. The glebe-lands belonged to
to the first, the ungranted wilderness-lands to the second,
and the sand-plain fell to the share of the last, (and people
do say the old gentleman was rather done in the divi-
sion, but that is neither here nor there,) and so it is called
to this day the Devil's Goose Pasture."*

* TJie Old Judge, vol. ii. p. 5.

HOxME IN THE PROVINCES. 25

It Is a pleasant thing in the British provinces to hear
the people talk of England and Scotland and Ireland —
of the Old Country generally — as home ; and It is plea-
sant to meet so many persons who, though long settled,
and having families of province-born children, were them-
selves born at home, and like to ask of places they knew
in their youth from one who has lately seen them, and to
tell how they have struggled and fared since they came
to the New World. Those persons are greatly deceived
who think that less labour, and less patience and perse-
verance, are necessary to success In the New World than
In our part at least of the Old. The chief difference Is,
that there Is room enough In the broad lands of America
for the full employment of all, and that the diligent man
of moderate desires Is sure of a competency.

Along this road I met the first examples of these old
settlers, and I was especially Interested by the narrative of
an old Aberdonian, at whose house we stopped to refresh
our horses. He had remained fixed wdiere he first settled,
and the determination he brought with him from his
native country had at length made him master of almost
everything desirable around him.

As we descended towards Annapolis, the land and
country improved, and the last fifteen miles were beau-
tiful In scenery, and showed extensive fertile flats in the
bottom of the valley. Bridgetown, ten or twelve miles
above Annapolis, struck me forcibly as neat, clean, well
built, and apparently prosperous. It depends almost
solely upon the agriculture of the neighbourhood.

The structure of the narrow valley along which I came
to-day, and at either end of v/hich, but especially at the
eastern end, so much fertile land is to be seen, is very
simple, but very interesting. Two ridges of elevated
land, called respectively the North and South Mountains,
run nearly parallel to each other from Windsor to beyond
Annapolis and Digby, a distance of upwards of a hundred

26 rOEMATION AND FILLING UP

miles. The northern ridge consists of trap, resting upon
a red sandstone, and forms the southern boundary of the
Bay of Fundy. The southern ridge, called the South
Mountains, consists of granite and of, more or less, meta-
morphic (Silurian and Cambrian) slates. The surface of
the former has been crumbled by the action of the weather
sufficiently to form over the greater part of the North
Mountains a considerable depth of soil, which, like that
of so many other trap rocks, is said by Dr Gesner to be
rich and fertile. The granites and slates of the South
Mountains have in general been slowly acted upon by
the weather, and have unwillingly produced poor and
scanty soils.

Between these ridges runs a long valley, widening
towards the Bay of Minas, and affording at that extre-
mity a larger expansion for the fertile alluvials of Corn-
wallis and Horton. In this valley lies, or formerly lay,
a red sandstone deposit — that which still dips beneath the
trap of the North Mountains — resting probably on some
of the softer slates of the Silurian age.

In the drift period, when the whole of this country was
submerged, the northern current, of which we have so
many traces in these countries, rushing between the two
lofty ridges of hard rock, scooped out the softer and less
coherent red sandstones and marls and softer slates, and
produced the existing valley, which, like the Bay of Fundy
— a wider and longer excavation — has a north-east and
south-westerly course.

And now, when the land was elevated to the existing
level, the tides began to act as at present upon the Bay
of Fundy, and to run round either end of the North
Mountains, which, from Cape Blomedon to the Digby
Gut, formed a long narrow island, having the Bay of
Fundy on one side and the Strait of Annapolis on the
other.

But the natural entrance of the tide into the strait

OF THE VALLEY OF ANNAPOLIS. 27

between the two ridges was through the Gut of DIgbj or
Annapolis — a gut or opening through the lower end of
the North Mountains into the Bay of Fundj — and here
it would therefore enter when the waters reached it on
their way up the Bay of Fundy. But through this nar-
row gut the tide could not advance with a velocity equal
to that with which it ascended the open bay, and thus
the tidal waters would round Cape Blomedon into the
Bay of Minas, and, rushing westward towards Cornwallis,
would meet the smaller arm of the tide which had come
through the gut somewhere in the strait. Here a struggle
would ensue, which would be repeated every tide, would
shift its locality a little with the height of the tidal waters,
and with the direction of the wind, but the effect of which
would be to sweep into, and deposit on the site of the
struggle, all the loose materials which the rains and
streams brought down from either mountain-side, or
which the tides themselves might tear from them. Thus
a growing sandbank, and finally a bar, would be estab-
lished in the strait, which would be a virtual water-shed,
separating, as now, the tidal waters of the Bay of Anna-
polis from those of the Bay of Minas. On either side of
this dividing line, the muddy waters of each bay would
begin to deposit the rich slime which has consolidated into
the fertile dyked land. And as the tendency always is,
where such deposits take place, to raise the land highest
near the water, the first formed dividing bank would
remain at a lower level than the alluvial soil of newer
formation, and thus a lake would be formed upon it, to
dry up sooner or later into a bog or marsh. The great
Carriboo bog, which still forms the water-shed and the
origin of both rivers, stands on the site of the original
bank, the scene of the once daily struggle of the two
opposing tides.

The rest is easy. The deposits from the muddy Avater
have gone on as they are doing now, till they have filled

28 FINE FUTURE OF NOVA SCOTIA.

the wliole of the space which the valley now occupies.
And if the Annapolis dyked lands are less rich than those
of Cornwallis, it is because the waters of the Bay of
Fundy, coming in from the Atlantic, are less loaded with
enriching matter as they enter the Gut of Digby than
they are after they round Cape Blomedon ; and because
the discharge of fresh water into the west end of the
valley is less, and the streams come through geological
formations that yield their materials less largely to the
waters which pass over them.

Annapolis is a quiet clean town, with considerable
shipping capabilities, but little traffic. The drought, the
potato failure, and other causes, had made the farmers
poor ; the home trade was therefore dull, and the good
people of Annapolis in consequence discontented. As they
could not think the cause of their interrupted prosperity
was in any way to be traced to themselves, they were
inclined to believe, with the Canadians, that it must be
the fault of the Home Government, and that the certain
cure was to shake themselves free of the mother country.
I had not had much time to become initiated in local
politics, but I was certainly pleased in listening to some
of the warmer Annapolis politicians, to find them so very
unsuccessful in making for this province anything ap-
proaching to a reasonable grievance against the Colonial
Office. I pictured to myself Upper Canada in the charac-
ter of one London jarvie saying to Nova Scotia in the
guise of another, " What, no raw? " and thus exciting the
ambition of his brother chip to discover or establish one.
My present impression of Nova Scotia is, that it has a
fine future before it. The friends of humanity will regret
if its local rulers — its inhabitants, that is — shall suffer mi-
croscopic or imaginary evils to retard the discovery and de-
velopment of its many natural resources, on which the rapid
and sure realisation of that fine future so much depends.

On my arrival at Annapolis, I found that the steamer

ICE-HOLES IN THE NORTH MOUNTAINS. 29

to St John did not sail till Monday ; so that I had two
days to amuse myself in this neighbourhood. Part of
one of these I spent in crossing the bay, and climbing
the North Mountains, to visit a spot where I had been
told that ice was to be met with all the year round. The
day was hot, and the hill steep, and wdien we were fairly
in the woods, I occasionally, for a short cut, forsook my
guide and the trail, and fell among windfalls, so that I
was not a little pleased when he announced our arrival
at the spot. A windfall, in the English sense, usually
means a bit of good luck ; but when an Englishman gets
into an American forest, he will soon unlearn this home
sense of the term, and come to class it among unlucky
events, with the occurrence of an alder swamp or a Car-
riboo bog.

The spot we had come to was a kind of notch in the
side and summit of the mountain, where angular frag-
ments and rocky masses of trap were piled one upon
another, a little runner flowing down the centre of the
notch. The whole was overgrown with mixed timber,
chiefly hardwood, the roots of the trees fixing themselves
wherever a holding-place among the stones w^as to be
found. At various spots a freezing cold air was felt to
issue from among the stones ; and, on digging under the
fallen leaves among the stony crevices, we succeeded in
obtaining some lumps of ice, which, with the water of
the brook and a little brandy — a prohibited drink in these
parts — formed a refreshing beverage after our fatiguing
ascent. This locality resembles those which have been
described in different parts of Europe, where ice occurs,
even in hot weather, among masses of collected rocky
fragments. The air proceeds most probably from caverns
in the mountain, which are filled with ice during the
long and severe winters of this latitude, and are rarely
melted by the warm air that enters them even during a
hot and protracted summer.

30 ORES AND IRON-WORKS ON BEAR RIVER.

I heard many complaints of the excessive drought in
this part of the province. Parties who are badly off for
hay are in the habit, in ordinary years, of sending to
those who have hay to spare, three cattle at the begin-
ning of winter, to receive back two in spring. This year
five were already spoken of to get back three, and higher
payments might become necessary.

The Bay of Annapolis is about twenty miles long, and
at the foot of it stands the town of Digby. Several
rivers flow into it from the South Mountains, among
which the Moose river is distinguished by the occurrence
of deposits of iron ore a few miles above its mouth.
Another deposit of the same ore occurs on the Nictau
river, which descends from the same mountains into the
valley, about half-way between Cornwallis and Annapolis.
Both ores are very rich, and that of Nictau abounds in
casts of Silurian fossils.

Some years ago a company was formed for the purpose
of mining and smelting these ores ; and buildings were
erected at the mouth of Bear Biver, where the manu-
facture was established and carried on. But differences
arose among the partners, and the works were stopped.
The site of the works is ten or twelve miles below Anna-
polis ; and I was indebted to the kindness of Dr Leslie —
a Scotchman possessed of the 'perfermdum ingenium of
his country both in heart and head — for driving me to
the spot. The site appeared to be well chosen, especially
for convenience of shipment. There were also heaps of
ore, and many tons of unfinished blooms, lying in the
crumbling buildings, showing how summarily operations
had been stopped. The furnaces and workshops were
already falling to ruin, for want of that stitch in time
with which masons, as well as tailors, can keep things in
repair at a small expense. The locality is admirably
adapted for the supply of iron to the markets of the two
provinces, and of thex4.tlantic States ; and if the adjoining

HANDINESS OF THE NOVA SCOTIANS. 31

forests yield fuel abundantly, and at a cheap rate, a pru-
dently managed manufactory of malleable iron ought
here to succeed.

I could not help sympathising with my friend the
Doctor, when he discoursed of the extreme healthiness
of the Annapolis district. Though he is the only medical
man for sixteen miles one way and fifteen another, a
fortnight will often elapse without a single summons.
Were it not that the population increases, and that bones
break sometimes, medicine and surgery might be banished
the country.

The Nova Scotians have the reputation of being super-
latively handy. " What will I do now ? " issues from
the mouth of a despairing Irishman ; but with the emer-
gency the resource not only springs up in the head, but
actually rushes to the hands, of the Nova Scotian.

A farmer on the South Mountains will cut down lum-
ber on his farm, and will convey it with his own horses
to the shores of the bay. With or without the aid of a
carpenter, he will lay down the lines of a ship. He will
build it himself, with the help of his sons ; he will even
do the smith's work with his own hands. He will mort-
gage his farm to buy the materials, and will rig it himself.
He will then load it with firewood from his own farm,
and himself sail the ship to Boston, and sell cargo or
ship, or both ; or he will take a freight thence to the
West Indies, if he can get it, and return in due time to
pay off his encumbrances — or to sell his farm, if he have
been unsuccessful, and begin the world anew. If the
world were really to make up its mind to hang those
who have no shifts, a vast number of our Irish fellow-
subjects would be the first to taste the cord. The last
survivor would be a Nova Scotian, unless, indeed, it were
his fate to be strangled by my friend and subsequent
fellow-traveller, Mr Brown of New Brunswick, of whose
shiftiness I shall have occasion to speak in the sequel.

32 PROVINCIALISMS OF NOVA SCOTIA.

On the Sunday I attended service in the Episcopal
church, and heard a sermon preached with a nasal twang
so perfect that I guessed the preacher must be a Yankee.
I was afterwards mortified to learn that he w^as a native
of St John in New Brunswick ; but I can honestly say
for New England, that neither in the pulpit nor out of
it did I meet, during my subsequent stay in the States,
with any one so handy at speaking through his nose as
.this unhappy preacher of Annapolis.

The readers of Sam Slick naturally expect to hear
many provincial expressions when they come to Nova
Scotia. I was on the look-out for them ; but w4iether it
was that I did not fall in with any of the real blue-noses,
or that the Queen's English is really better used than I
had been led to expect, I scarcely heard a single pecu-
liarity of expression during my stay in the province.
Occasional guessings there were as to things which the
guesser knew perfectly well — as when a man guessed
his own age or his daughter's to be so-and-so, and
the not unfrequent use of " admire " instead of " wonder
at ;" but w^hat are these compared with our county pro-
vincialisms ?

On Monday morning, the 13th of August, I embarked
in the steamer for St John in New Brunswick. The
weather was fine till we passed through the Digby Gut,
and were fairly into the Bay of Fundy. A cross sea
tossed us a little at the mouth of the gut, and by-and-
by the fogs, and finally the rains and gusts of this bay,
assailed us. The steamer was a poor affair, and among
other freight had some sheep on board, for which the
farmers of the Cornwallls and Annapolis districts find a
ready market at St John. The breadth of the passage
is about forty-five miles, which we accomplished by four
in the afternoon ; when I landed at St John, and took
up my quarters in the hotel.

CHAPTER II.

Area and population of Xew Brunswick. — Tlie lumbei'-trade, its benefits
and evils. — It retarded and discouraged farming. — Emigration caused
by a crisis in this trade. — City of St John. — Diminution in its import-
trade and in the provincial revenue. — Apprehensions as to the ability
of the province to sustain its population. — River St John. — Rich
river flats. — Average produce of Queen's and Sunbury counties. — City
of Fredericton. — Farm on the St John. — Intervale land, its different
qualities and values. — Emigration fever. — Indian com as a fodder
crop in England. — Opinion as to farming with paid labour. — Wood-
stock.— Quality and value of land in its neighbourhood. — Exhausting
culture of first settlers. — Farming on Shares. — Charivari of the
Mickeys of Woodstock. — Farm at Jacksontown. — Speculators in
land. — Iron ore and iron smelting. — Itinerant lecturers. — Mouths of
the Tobique and Aroostook rivers. — Potato breakfasts and meals
in common. — Sowing of winter wheat on newly cleared land only. —
Rust and wheat fly, remedy for.— Mellicete Indians on the Tobique.
— Irish settlement and thriving settlers. — Healthiness of the pro-
vince.— Grand falls and town of Colebrook.

Before my departure from England, I had been invited
by the Governor and House of Assembly of New Bruns-
wick to visit that province, with the view of drawing up
a report, to be presented to his Excellency and the Legis-
lature, in reference to its agricultural capabilities. I had
undertaken this task without very clearly understanding
the nature of the duty, or of the country, and in the hope
that it would not seriously interfere with my other plans
in visiting the American continent. On my arrival, how-
ever, I very soon found that the extent of the province,
VOL. I. C

34 TRANSITION STATE OF NEW BRUNSWICK.

and the slow rate of travelling, would compel me to
devote some months longer to the work than I had
originally anticipated ; and, In order to complete It, I
was subsequently compelled to delay, to a future oppor-
tunity, my Intended ylsit to the more southern and
westernly portions of the American Union.

The commercial, and I may say the entire Internal
and social condition of the province of New Brunswick,
is in a transition state ; and as all transitions occasion em-
barrassment and distress more or less general, wherever
they occur, It has been the fate of this province to suffer
a temporary check In Its progress. In consequence of this
transitlonary state of things.

New Brunswick contains an area of eighteen millions
of acres, of which about five millions are at present unfit
for agricultural purposes. Its population is estimated at
two hundred and ten thousand. With twice the geogra-
phical extent of the province of Nova Scotia, it has still
a population about one-third less. It is therefore In a
considerable less advanced condition than the latter pro-
vince. Indeed, It was not till 1784 that It was separated
from Nova Scotia, and formed Into a distinct government.

The earliest inland trade of these northern provinces
was confined in a great measure to the purchase, by way
of barter, of the furs of wild animals collected by the
native Indians In their hunting excursions. Next, and
as settlers increased, the timber, or lumber trade as it Is
called, sprang up, and an apparently Inexhaustible article
of export was drawn from the boundless forests which
stretched uninterruptedly over the entire surface of the
province. The cutting of the trees, and the haulage and
floating of them down the rivers, gave healthy employ-
ment to many men ; the raising food for these men called
agricultural industry into play; the export of the timber
employed shipping, and afforded the means of paying
for the British manufactures and West India produce

VICISSITUDES IN THE LUMBER TEADE. 35

imported In return ; while the profits of the merchants
erected towns and public buildings, improved harbours
and Internal communications, tempted foreign capital into
the province, and generally sustained and carried it for-
ward to Its actual condition.

But, like other branches of Industry, the lumber trade
has always had Its periods of activity and depression.
When the demand was brisk and prices good, the trade
was pushed eagerly forward; lumberers went into the
woods by droves, and timber was shipped to England in
quantities which over-loaded the market. Prices in con-
sequence fell — those who w^ere obliged to realise were
compelled to sacrifice capital as well as profit ; and thus
mercantile crises, and many failures, periodically occurred
among the colonial merchants. It was the over-trading
of our own manufacturers in another form. The mer-
chants of St John and the other lumbering ports were
subject to these vicissitudes, not from any interference
of home regulations, but through excessive Individual
competition among themselves. Still, on the whole the
colonies gained, though many Individuals were constantly
suffering. And If home capital was lost to those who
embarked it, it was a gain to the colony, inasmuch as It
had been expended in paying for colonial labour, by
which, directly or indirectly, colonial land had been
cleared and prepared for the plough.

But such an export trade in the large could only be
temporary. Land cleared of timber does not soon cover
itself again with a new growth of merchantable trees.
Every year carried the scene of the woodmen's labours
farther up the main rivers, and into more remote creeks
and tributaries, adding to the labour of procuring and to
the cost of the logs when brought to the place of ship-
ment. Hence, prices must rise at home, or profits must
decline in the colony, and the trade gradually lessen.
All these had already taken place to a certain extent,

86 LAVISH CUTTING OF TIMBER.

when the further increase of home prices was rendered
almost impossible by the equalisation of the timber duties.
In this alteration of our British laws, a large number of
those engaged in the timber trade have been inclined
to see the sole cause of the comparatively unprosperous
circumstances in which they have recently been placed.

In so far as I have myself been able to ascertain the
facts of the case, I think, with many patriotic colonists,
that the welfare of these North American provinces
would on the whole, and in the long run, have been pro-
moted by a less lavish cutting and exportation of the
noble ship-timber which their v/oods formerly contained,
and which has already become so scarce and dear. Home
bounties have tempted them to cut down within a few
years, and sell at a comparatively low price, what might
for many years have afforded a handsome annual revenue,
as well as an inexhaustible snpply of material for the
once flourishing colonial dockyard.

At the same time, it is useless to lament over past
mismanagement. It is easier to discern evils and their
causes, after they have occurred, than to prevent even
their recurrence. The cream of the timber trade
being fairly skimmed ofl*, the question, on my arrival
in the colony, had assumed the matter-of-fact form —
" How are we colonists in future to make our butter? "

It was an acknowledged evil of the lumber trade, that,
so long as it was the leading industry of the province of
New Brunswick, it overshadowed and lowered the social
condition of every other. The lumberer, fond as the
Indian of the free air and untrammelled life of the woods,
receiving high wages, living on the finest flour, and
enjoying long seasons of holiday, looked doAvn upon the
slavish agricultural drudge who toiled the year long on
his few acres of land, with little beyond his comfortable
maintenance to show as the fruit of his yearly labour.
The young and adventurous among the province-born

CONDITION OF THE LUMBERERS. 37

men were tempted Into what was considered a higher
and more manly, as well as a more remmierative line of
life ; many of the hardiest of the emigrants, as thej
arrived, followed their example: and thus not only was
the progress of farming discouraged and retarded, but a
belief began to prevail that the colony was unfitted for
agricultural pursuits. The occasional large sums of
money made by It induced also vast numbers of the
farmers themselves to engage in lumbering — as a lucky
hit in a mining country makes many miners — gradually
to involve themselves In debts, and to tie up their farms
by mortgages to the merchants who furnished the sup-
plies which their life In the woods required. Thus not
only were large numbers of the young men demoralised
by their habits In the woods, trained to extravagant
habits, and rendered unfit for steady agricultural labour,
but very many of the actual owners of farms had become
involved In overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, when
the crisis of the lumber trade arrived, and stopped all
further credit.

What added to the apprehension of the colonists at this
time was the comparatively extensive emigration which
began to take place when the demand for timber became
less, and, consequently, for labourers to procure it. Un-
disposed to continuous farm-work, the lumberer left the
province — as our navigators wander from country to
country — to seek employment in Maine or elsewhere
towards the West, where their peculiar employment was
to be obtained. Even the pine forests of Georgia were
not too distant for their love of free adventure. Unable
to shake oif their encumbrances at home, many of the
embarrassed owners of farms also hastened to leave them
— some in the hands of their creditors, without even the
form of a sale — and made for the new states of the West,
under the Idea that in a new sphere they would be free
men again, and that probably a less degree of prudence

38 EMIGEATION AND THE FEAR CAUSED BY IT.

or industrj- might there secure them the competence
which their own neighbourhood had denied them. No love
of home, or attachment to the paternal acres, restrained
either class of men ; for these Old World feelings or
notions have scarcely yet found a place among the Anglo-
Saxons of any part of North America.

That such native-born and old settlers were leaving the
province in considerable numbers, was construed into an
indication that the province was Inferior, as a place of
residence, to the states and provinces to which they emi-
grated. Alarmists made it a topic of melancholy lamenta-
tion and gloomy forebodings ; and, as in similar cases at
home, party feelings laid hold of the emigration as a
demonstration of the correctness of special party views,
and exaggerated its evil effects. The departure of the
working lumberers was a necessary consequence of the
cessation of their favourite employment ; and It was not
considered that the moral character and habits of these
men as a body, and the disheartened and embarrassed
condition of the owners of the encumbered farms, ren-
dered the departure of neither class a real loss to the
population of the province ; that the departure of both, in
fact, was necessary, in order that the social state might
have a fair chance of returning to a healthy, cheerful,
energetic, and prosperous condition.

But if lumber, as a staple export, was to be insufficient
to supply the future wants of the colony, in the way of
paying for the necessary Imports of West India produce
and of flour, upon what were the colonists to fall back ?
Were the hitherto undervalued agricultural resources of
the colony greater than they had been supposed? Could
these 18,000,000 of acres really be made to support a
population of 210,000 inhabitants, and thus enable them
to dispense at least with the large importation of bread
stuffs for which they had hitherto been yearly Indebted
to the United States, to Prince Edward's Island, and to

CITY OF ST JOHN. 39

Canada ? Or were the mines of the country of such value
as to make up for the faUure both of lumber and of corn,
and to enable New Brunswick to keep pace in future
progress with the adjoining states and provinces ?

Such were the ideas and questions which had been
passing through men's minds when I was honoured with
the request to visit the colony, and give an opinion upon
its agricultural capabiUties. I trust that the result of my
tour has been to inspire new hopes and awaken new con-
fidence in the food-producing and population-sustaining
powers of the land of this valuable colony, though it has
lessened very much in ray mind the opinion I had pre-
viously derived from books as to the extent of its
mineral resources.

The city of St John is situated at the mouth of the
river of the same name, which falls into the Bay of Fundy.
It has a safe, though not extensive harbour, the entrance
of which is defended by Partridge and other small
islands. The principal part of the town is situated upon
a rocky peninsula, which stretches into the harbour, but
it is now extending itself in various directions over the
adjoining crags and hollows. Notwithstanding the de-
pression of trade which had for some time prevailed, the
surface of naked rocks was, at the time of my visit, selling
at the rate of £100 an acre for building purposes ; and
tasteful cottages, on picturesque sites, were springing up
in the neighbourhood of the city. The older inhabitants
of the city, the descendants of American loyalists, have
many interesting facts to relate regarding its growth,
upon what, sixty years ago, was a rocky headland,
skirted by cedar swamps ; and, considering the still
generally uncleared condition of the province, and the
position of the city itself, its progress has been at least as
rapid as that of any of the greater cities on the Atlantic
border of the North American continent.

Yet that there has been a serious change for the worse

40 FALLING-OFF IN ITS TRADE.

in the trade of this part of the province is shown by the
official returns of exports and imports from the port of
St John, for the three years ending in December 1848.
These are as follows : —

Diminution

1846.

1847.

1848.

in 1848.

^977,683

£1,070,514

£588,422

£482,092

810,742

632,612

588,466

44,146

Imports,
Exports,

Thus the exports have been regularly diminishing
during these years, and consequently, though not imme-
diately, the imports also. And, as affecting the trade
with the mother country, it is an important fact that, of
the total decrease in 1848, compared with 1847, no less
than £336,100 were in the imports from Great Britain.
Of this sum the diminution in the importation of —

Manufactures of cotton, woollen, linen, and silk, was £157,421

Iron, wrought and unwrought, .... 46,267

Copper, . . . . . . . . 9,319

Hardware, 22,951

Leather manufactures, ..... 1,923

Cordage, twine, and canvass, .... 47,044

Tea, 6,975

Thus,^all our home industrial interests are concerned
in the prosperity of our colonial possessions, and we help
our own pockets when we contribute to their material
advancement.

Another way in which this falling off in the exports
and imports of St John had affected, not only the city,
but the province in general, and had made people fretful
and uneasy, besides embarrassing the Government, was
the great reduction it caused in the revenue, a large por-
tion of which is derived from the duties levied at the
custom-houses, and from a small export-duty on timber.
Thus, in the three years I have mentioned — ■

1846.

1847.

1848.

The total revenue was

£127,336

£127,410

£86,437

The revenue from customs,

30,961

31,912

2,711

The export-duty on timber.

22,664

16,553

18,252

UNEASINESS IN NEW BRUNSWICK. 41

It was natural, therefore, that all parties should feel
uneasy at such a state of things — a falling off in the reve-
nue of nearly one-third — and I was not surprised to hear
charges of the gravest nature occasionally made against
the competency, and even the honesty, of the existing
provincial Government ; or the Canadian grumblings
re-echoed, that connection with England, after all, was
the main source of colonial sufferings. It is human
nature, and especially the nature of political parties, to
ascribe to neglect or unskilfulness on the part of man
what physical or moral laws render it impossible to
prevent.

I shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the exten-
sive diminution of the wheat crops in North America ;
but I may here merely mention, in connection with the
other causes of colonial depression, that the united fail-
ures, for a succession of years, of the wheat and potato
crops were further just causes of disquietude to the pro-
vincial population. It must have alarmed those who
were not themselves possessed of agricultural skill, or
who had not had an opportunity of looking at the whole
province with an agricultural eye, to learn from the
published returns that, in 1847, wheat and flour, to the
amount of about 240,000 bushels, were imported into
New Brunswick, and that the estimated value of all the
bread stuifs imported during that year was £280,000
currency.

Beckoning all the grain imported at the average high
price of 40s. a quarter, this sum would imply, that at
least 140,000 quarters of grain, or their equivalent in
flour, were imported in 1847 — a quantity sufficient to feed
at least one-half of the whole population of the province.
It was natural, therefore, to say— if the lumber- trade
fail, and we can raise at home only enough of food to
support one-half of our population, where are the means
to be obtained by which the other half is to be kept

42 THE RIVER ST JOHN.

alive ? In such circumstances of doubtful anxiety, the
political condition of the province must, on the whole,
have been satisfactory to have given rise to the very
small measure of excitement which it was my fortune to
meet with during nearly four months that I spent in the
province.

The river St John empties itself into the harbour
through a narrow passage between high opposing cliffs
of metamorphic-slate and limestone rocks. At low tide,
a long rapid and a considerable fall exists at the mouth
of the river ; but the tide rises twenty-six feet, which is
sufficient to equalise the level of the outer and inner
waters, so as, for a brief space before and after high water,
to allow vessels of considerable tonnage to ascend and
descend with safety. Well-appointed steamer's ply upon
the river between St John and Fredericton, the seat of
Government — a distance by land of sixty-five miles, and
by water, I believe, of about ninety. In spring and
autumn, when the water is deep, they ascend to Wood-
stock, which is sixty-two miles higher; and when the
contemplated improvements are made in the river, small
steamers are expected to mount as high as the grand falls,
wdiich are seventy-three miles above Woodstock. This
extensive natural inland navigation — nearly equal in
length to that possessed by the state of New York — will
every year become more valuable to the colony.

14th August. — At one P.M. I embarked on board the
steamer for Fredericton, where I arrived at 8J P.M.,
being at the rate of about twelve miles an hour. The
day was fine, and the sail very beautiful. For tlie first
thirty miles the river is wide, and has rocky banks of
varying height and form, covered with a natural forest
growth, except where the hand of man has been busy in
partially clearing and establishing farms. The rocks, at
the outset, consisted of mixed limestone and slate, then,
for a considerable distance, of trap and metamorphic

ASCENT AND SCENERY. 43

slates, as far as the head of what is called the Long
Reach. Then turning us sharply to the left, and nar-
rowing the river for a few miles, a ridge of granite,
visible only on one side of the stream, succeeded to the
trap ; after passing which we emerged into an open and
flatter region, over which grey sandstones, of the coal
formation, extended and accompanied us all the way to
Fredericton.

The trap country reminded me of some of the thinly-
peopled districts on our Highland lakes. It was covered
in many places with a sandy drift, and bore, in general,
a mixture of broad and narrow leaved trees. On the
granite, broad-leaved or hard wood prevailed, the poorest
soils bearing only the white birch. Endless pine forests
covered the sandstone soils, where drift from other for-
mations, or the sorting action of flowing water, had not
modified their natural character.

Through the first twenty miles of this sandstone forma-
tion extends a very beautiful portion of the river. From
the north-east enters the Washademoak River; and fifteen
or twenty miles above its mouth, the Salmon River, after
traversing the Grand Lake, escapes into the St John. At
the mouths of both these rivers, the St John widens, and
is studded with several large and fertile islands ; while
the low intervale land, as it is called, stretches some-
times a couple of miles from its banks. Gagetown and
Scovell's Point, on its opposite shores, are centres of
rich land, which appeared to be tolerably well farmed.

Many emigrants, with money to purchase farms at two
to four pounds an acre, might settle comfortably here.
This alluvial land has been long famed for its grass and
its produce of hay. In this country, where hay has
hitherto been the chief reliance for the winter food of
stock, the produce in hay is generally considered a test of
the value of a farm, either to rent or to buy. In renting
land, not a very frequent practice, a pound of rent for

44

SOILS AND AVERAGE PRODUCE.

each ton of natural hay produced by the farm is, on the
St John, considered a fair equivalent. The produce in
grain is not taken into account. Hay sells, according to
the season and locality, at 35s. to 50s. a ton.

These low lands are liable to be flooded when the ice
melts in spring, but they are, nevertheless, very healthy.
There are no agues in the country ! I have heard of none,
indeed, in the whole province, even where waters and
bogs and marshes most abounded. These spring floods,
no doubt, contributed to the richness of the land ; but the
best situated or most esteemed farms here are those which
consist partly of this low intervale and partly of upland.

The soils in general are light and loamy, as we should
expect in a sandstone country 5 and, therefore, adapted
to the culture of Indian corn, which in this part of the
province has been considerably extended during the last
seven years — I suppose since the wheat crop became less
certain. From the mouth of the Washademoak river,
in ascending to within a dozen miles of Fredericton, the
St John carries us through the centre first of Queen's,
and afterwards of Sunbury county. Much of these
counties is still in native forest ; but the general produc-
tiveness of the cultivated land, and something of the
husbandry and cultivation, may be judged of from the
following returns as to the maximum, minimum, and
average produce, in imperial bushels, of the crops usually
cultivated in these two counties.

Queen's.

Sunbury. 1

Max.

Min.

Average.

Max.

Min.

Average.

Wheat, .

20

8

IH

30

12A

I9i

Barley, .

18

18

18

40

20-

30

Oats,

bO

13

29

50

30

38i

Buckwheat,

50

15

27i

60

20

33|

Maize,

50

20

33.4

80

35

5l|

Potatoes, .

400

100

181"

400

100

204

Turnips

1000

200

550

800

200

500

Hay,

3 tons

1 ton

1 ^ tons

3 tons

Iton

1 h tons

BEAUTY OF PARTS OF THE EIVER. 45

The produce of the potato in this table is small,
because of the failure of this crop during the last few
years. The turnip culture is not general as yet, but is
extending. The intervales of Sunbury county are
especially productive in Indian corn.

I have seldom seen anything of its kind, which, as the
sun declined, seemed to me more beautiful than the
banks of the St John in this county, as we passed
Majorville and Sheffield, and approached the mouth of
the Oromucto river. The river, full to the lip, reflecting
the light of the western sun towards which we w^ere
steaming, shaded on either bank by rows of the Ameri-
can elm — which I here saw in its great beauty for the
first time, and which, every time I have since seen it
growing wild in its favourite localities, has always struck
me as the loveliest of American trees — and beyond the
banks broad fields of Indian corn in the full rich green
of its still unripe growth. In this there was newness
enough, perhaps, to give it a charm to my eye, which
would not have been seen by one more familiar with
the country ; but, after making a large deduction for
this, there remained beauty enough over to make this
part of the river, at this season, interesting to the oldest
dweller in the province. I have since seen no river
scenery in America which has left on my mind a livelier
impression than this part of my voyage on the St John.

Fredericton is the seat of Government. It stands on
a flat of level intervale land, in some places nearly a
mile in width, and raised about thirty feet above the river.
Upon this level, thirty years ago, there were only two or
three houses, surrounded by thickets and cedar swamps.
It is now a considerable town with five or six churches,
besides a cathedral, built under the auspices and by the
exertions of the present bishop. It has a University,
(King's College,) a dissenting academy, a grammar
school, normal school, court houses. Government offices,

46 CITY OF FREDEKICTON.

legislative halls, "w ell-built streets, barracks for a thou-
sand men, and a population probably of four or five
thousand people. The soil of the level on which it
stands is light and sandy, resting at a variable depth on
a bed of clay. The hill-slope behind is in general very
stony, and costly to reclaim, and is covered for the
most part with the native forest of pine. Opposite the
town is the mouth of the Nashwauk, a considerable
stream, which here falls into the St John; and a little
above the town that of the Nashwauksis, or little Nash-
wauk. The former is navigable for some distance into
the interior.

The St John itself is here confined within higher
sloping banks, and is about three-quarters of a mile
wide. The influence of the tide is observed about four
miles above the town ; and at Fredericton it seldom
rises more than fifteen inches, so that it may be said to
be situated at the head of tide-water. Steam and horse
ferries are established on the river, by which a regular
communication is kept up with the opposite shore.

IQth August. — At Fredericton I was joined by Mr
James Brown, a member of the Provincial Assembly,
and by Dr Robb, Professor of Natural History in King's
College, who accompanied me during the whole of my
subsequent tour in the province, and to both of whom I
was indebted for much information and assistance. The
familiarity of the former with the practical agriculture
and economical condition of the province, and of the
latter with its geology, in so far as it had previously
been made out, enabled me to arrive much more rapidly
at satisfactory conclusions, in regard to the agricultural
capabilities of the province, than I should otherwise have
been able to do.

Early this morning we started in an open carriage up
the right bank of the river, and stopped to breakfast at
Oakhill, a farm lately bought by Mr Jardine, a merchant

A FARM ON THE ST JOHN. 47

of St John, and occupied by Mr Gray, a Scottish
farmer, who had recently quitted the neighbourhood of
Girvan in Ayrshire, for the purpose of settHng In New
Brunswick. We found him busy improving and enlarg-
ing his farm-buildings, and after breakfast we walked
over his farm. As it is the first farm I examined In
the province, I may be permitted to give some general
description of it.

It consists of a thousand acres in all, of which two
hundred are cleared, and eight hundred in forest, chiefly
soft (pine), but some of it hardwood. It contains land
of three kinds. First^ an island in the river of eighty
acres, to which I crossed, and found it a free grey loamy
clay full of natural richness, and subject to be overflowed
only twice during the last thirty years. Second^ inter-
vale land, generally light and sandy, but bearing in
some places good turnips, and resting upon a loamy clay
resembling that of the Island, at a depth in some places
of no more than eighteen Inches from the surface. I do
not know the extent of this intervale, on which the
house stands. Third^ the rest is upland, on the slopes
generally very stony, but in other parts of the farm
capable of being easily cleared. But two hundred acres
of cleared land form a large farm where labour Is scarce
and dear.

This farm cost about two thousand pounds currency
(£1600 sterling), or two pounds an acre over head ; and
this may be considered about the present price of such
mixed farms on the upper St John. It had been
exhausted by the last holder by a system of selling off
everything — hay, corn, potatoes — the common system,
in fact, of North America of selling everything for which
a market can be got; and taking no trouble to put
anything into the soil in return.

Farming on shares, the Metayer system, is practised
in the Provinces and New England states, more than our

48 LETTING LAND ON SHARES.

home method of paying rents. In this way a man who
has nothing receives a farm, with stock, implements, and
seed, from the owner, provides all the labour or works
the farm, and receives half the produce of cheese, stock,
grain, potatoes, &c. This is said to be, in general, rather
a better thing for the cultivator than for the owner. In
most cases, however, there are specialties in the bar-
gain, the owner receiving more or less according to the
condition, position, or richness of the farm. I have
already spoken of the system of reckoning the value of
land for renting by the quantity of hay it will produce.

Leaving Mr Gray's, we continued our drive up the
river. Hitherto we had been upon the grey sandstones,
some beds of which, from the quantity of earthy felspar
cement they contain, are capable of yielding soils of fair
quality. We now came upon the slate rocks, and upon
these we continued, with the intervention of a narrow
band of red sandstone, and occasional masses of trap,
or trap-like metamorphic slates, for upwards of twenty
miles. We then crossed a broad zone of granite, which,
like a long ribbon, stretches across the province in a
north-east and south-west direction, from the Bay de
Chaleurs down to this part of the Hiver St John, and
hence over into Maine.

On the slates good land often occurs ; but, as the river
banks are high, a journey along the river side is not
favourable to an estimate of the quality of the upland.
The granite region, and much of the slate country
adjoining it, are thickly strewed with stones ; though the
soil itself, as seen among the stones, or where the stones
are removed, is very good. Eich intervale land and
occasional islands were seen along the river and the
cleared openings we passed. The frequent boldness and
beauty of the landscape, the varying forms and fresh
verdm-e of the trees — elm, butter-nut, black-birch, maple,
oak, beech, cypress, and numerous pines — with the good

VARIETIES OF INTERVALE LAND. 49

roads along which we passed, and a good dinner by the
way, and agreeable companions, full of information new
to me, made the day glide on very pleasantly, till we
reached the month of Eel River, a distance of fifty miles
from Fredericton, where we took up our quarters for the
night.

Of the intervale land there are three varieties at least
along the river St John. The best is that which is just
above the present high water, or usual flood level, of the
river. It is generally a free rich loam, easily tilled, and
producing large returns of hay, a crop here so highly
valued. The next is a ledge from eight to twenty feet
above the former, which is usually of a lighter quality,
and less valuable — sometimes sandy, gravelly, and almost
worthless. On these dry worthless sands, and as a
token of their worthlessness, springs up the fragrant
everlasting, Gnaphalium 'polyce-plialum^ with which I had
the opportunity of becoming very familiar before I
quitted the province of New Brunswick.

At a higher level still, the third intervale land occurs ;
and besides the sand and gravel of which it not unfre-
quently consists, it carries stones or boulders, occasionally
in considerable numbers.

These different intervales are in reality successive
terraces, rising to difi'erent elevations above the existing
bed of the river, but showing the different heights at
which the water has stood since the stream began to flow
in its present channel.

I have alluded in the commencement of this Chapter to
the emigration from the province, which to some had
been the cause of much anxiety. I heard at this place
of the first striking example of the height to which the
emigration fever will run. About eight miles from the
mouth of the Eel river lies the Howard settlement,
situated on a tract of good second-rate upland, in the
VOL. I. D

50 FARM FOR SALE.

township of Dumfries. In this settlement a farm Is at
present offered for sale, consisting of 200 acres, of which
60 acres are cleared. Four acres are in wheat, 2 in
Indian corn, 24 bushels of oats have been sown, li
of buckwheat, and 20 of potatoes. There are also
four cows, two oxen, two horses, two heifers, fifteen
sheep. 20 tons of hay, with a house 20 feet by 30, and
a barn 30 feet by 40, The whole offered for £140
currency (£112 sterling.) The only condition is that of
ready money. The owner is said to be mad to go to
Wisconsin. It ought not to surprise us that some of
those who have shifted once — breaking loose from all ties
of place and blood — should after a time have another
access of the roving fit, and, right or wrong, insist on
moving a second or a third time. Changing their
country is to many like a change in their religion — they
don't know when or where they ought to stop.

11th August. — This morning, the rest of our party
proceeding by land, Dr Robb and myself went up the
river in a canoe, as far as Woodstock, that we might see
better the general character of the country on either side
of the river, and look out for a bed of rock-salt, which a
sharp New Englander alleged to exist somewhere by the
way. As to the latter point, as the river runs all the
way through old slate rocks, our exploration was of
course unsuccessful ; but we found a beautiful white vein
of quartz, which looked white and glistening like salt,
and had most probably been mistaken for it. The
shallowness of the river at this season of the year made
the pulling and polling heavy, so that we spent a large
portion of the day in going over these twelve miles.

A few miles below Woodstock we stopped to look at
a farm on the left bank of the river, ow^ned and occupied
by Mr Rankin. It consists of about 1100 acres of inter-
vale and upland, of which 100 were in crop, meadow,
and pasture, chiefly on the intervale land. It is an

INDIAN CORN FOR FODDER. 51

upper intervale, resting on accumulations of gravel and
sand, and therefore for the most part light, and sometimes
sandy. Wheat, oats, Indian corn, and potatoes, are the
crops raised — the corn more largely since the failure of
wheat and potatoes commenced. The wheat on the
ground this year promises 25 bushels an acre, potatoes
yield an average of 150 to 200 bushels. The Indian
corn always ripens, yields about 50 bushels, and is at
present the most profitable crop.

The straw of the Indian corn is a very valuable
fodder. If cut before it is dead ripe, it is as valuable as
hay, and the cattle eat it as readily. Of this fact I
afterwards met with many corroborations, though, both
in the Provinces and in the Northern States, the waste-
ful practice of leaving the straw in the field uncut
extensively prevails. Besides the grain, as much as
three tons of excellent fodder may be generally reaped
from an acre of Indian corn of the taller varieties. The
advantage of this, not only in saving food, but in manu-
facturing manure, every home farmer at least will
understand.

Indian corn has at various times been recommended as
a grain crop to our British farmers. But our summers
are not dry and hot enough to make it certain as a grain
crop. It is worthy of a trial, however, as an occasional
fodder or green crop on our lighter barley soils. A well-
manured field would raise a large crop of green stalks,
which are very sweet, and it might be profitable ei-ther
for soiling or for making into hay.

The stock kept by Mr Rankine was seventeen milk
cows and thirteen other cattle, which consume on an
average about 60 tons of hay. Butter and cheese meet
with a ready sale. He had also sixty-five sheep, which
average, including lambs, 6J lb. of wooh This his
family manufactures into excellent homespun checks and
tartans, which are sold in the neighbourhood.

62 PROFITS OF FARMING.

The reader will naturally inquire, as I did — '' Here
you possess a farm of 1100 acres, and you have only 100
cleared, and of this 100 only 50 in arable culture ; why
don't you clear more, and farm more extensively?"
" We clean up two or three acres every year of the
lumbered land (land from which the timber has been
cut,) because it is unsightly, not because we want it —
we have as much land already as it is profitable to
cultivate.'"*

And this I afterwards found to be a very prevailing
opinion, not only in New Brunswick and the other
Provinces, but in the United States, as far west as the
foot of Lake Erie, the limits of my own tour. It is
profitable to farm as much as can be cultivated with the
members of a man's own family — it is not profitable to
farm with paid labour. That such an opinion should be
so widely entertained shows that it is the result of a very
wide experience. At the same time it may only be true
of the system of farming hitlierto adopted by the parties
who entertain it, or inculcate it upon others. It may
not be true of another or more improved system.

In reference to the agricultural capabilities and
improvement of the colony, and especially in reference
to the question of its being desirable as a settlement for
British farmers possessed of capital and skill, this ques-
tion is a most important one. I shall briefly state the
general result of my inquiries when I shall have gone
over a larger portion of the province.

Woodstock, the chief town in the county of Carlton, is
advantageously situated at the mouth of the Medux-
nakik, on the right bank of the St John. It has four
churches, a grammar school, and about 3000 inhabitants.
It is likely to flourish, both because it is connected with
one of the richest agricultural districts in the province,
and because here the road to Houlton in Maine branches
off, and it ought therefore to be the centre of the traffic

COUNTr.Y NEAR WOODSTOCK. 53

with the upper portion of that state. The boundary line
between Maine and New Brunswick runs about ten miles
west of Woodstock.

From the mouth of Eel River, twelve miles below
Woodstock, where we left the granite region, the soil
has gradually improved ; and from the neighbourhood of
the town northwards to the Grand Falls, and on both
sides of the St John, it is generally equal in quality to
the best upland in New Brunswick. The Cambrian
appears in this region to have given place to the Silurian
slates, and the soil resembles in some degree those of the
upper Silurian slates, which I afterwards saw in the wheat
region of western New York.

The president of the county Agricultural Sopiety drove
me a few miles inland to what is called Scotch Corner, in
the direction of the Maine boundary. A long, flat, second
terrace, or intervale, stretches inland about a mile from
Woodstock. The cleared land on this flat is valued at
£5 an acre. The country as we proceeded was beau-
tifully undulated — chiefly covered, where the forest
remained, w^ith large hardwood trees. The rock maple
and black birch, mixed with butter-nut and elm, indicate
good, deep, heavy land — the beech a heavier soil.

At Scotch Corner, I saw a fine second crop of potatoes,
grown without manure ; and I examined a field of oats,
which was the tenth grain crop (oats, pease, and buckwheat
in succession) grown on it without manure. The soil
consisted of fragments of a shivery slate, which crumbles
readily, and which, at a depth of sixteen inches, rests on
the rotten slate rock.

Old Country agriculturists, or those who, v/ithout being
farmers themselves, condemn every practice which differs
from what they have been in the habit of hearing com-
mended at home, cannot fairly appreciate the circum-
stances of the occupier of new land in a country like this.
For ten years — for eight, or twelve, or twenty years in

54 EXHAUSTING OF NEW LAND.

other localities — this new land requires no manure to
make it yield good crops. On the contrary, the addition
of manure makes the grain or grass crops at first so rank
that they fall over, or lodge, and are seriously injured.
Thus, to a settler on new land, which he clears from the
wilderness, manure is not only unnecessary, but it is a
nuisance ; and hence he not only neglects the preparation
of it, but is anxious to rid himself in the easiest way of
any that may be made about his house or barns.

Careless and improvident farming habits were no doubt
thus introduced, so that, when at last the land became
exhausted, the occupiers were ignorant of the means of
renovating it. Old habits were to be overcome, new
practices to be adopted, and a system of painstaking and
care to which they had been previously unaccustomed.
Hence, no doubt, the reason why I was almost everywhere
told that it was cheaper and more profitable to clear and
crop new land, than to renovate the old.

Still, because of these future evils, we are not justified
in speaking contemptuously of present holders of new
land, who, being desirous of making the most of it with
the means at their command, waste none of their atten-
tion upon unnecessary manures. These men form that
body of pioneers in American agriculture, who, having
done their work in clearing and superficially exhausting
one tract of land, move off" westward to do the same with
another, selling off each farm in succession to men pos-
sessed of more knowledge than themselves ; whose skill
and industry must bring back the fertility which had
disappeared under the treatment of their predecessors, and
who have no temptation to fall off into negligent modes
of fiirming.

According to this view, the emigration of this class of
wilderness-clearing and new land-exhausting farmers, is
a kind of necessity in the rural progress of a new country.
It is a thing to rejoice in rather than to regret, as I found

WOODSTOCK CHARIVARI. 55

some of my New Brunswick friends doing. At all events,
I believe it has had a considerable influence In setting in
motion and in maintaining that current of human 7novers^
which, beginning in a tiny rivulet at Newfoundland,
gathers, as it advances westward, till it forms the great
river which is now flowing so fiercely into California.

On my return from Scotch Corner, I visited a fine farm
belonging to my conductor, the president. It Is let on
shares to an English farmer. The landlord stocks it, the
farm seeds Itself, and the farmer does the farm work, and
receives half the profits. The drought of the season had
lightened the grain crops, but I saw some fields of excel-
lent turnips, and some of oats averaging about twenty-
six bushels an acre. In the yard was a fine herd of
stock, chiefly mixed Herefords and Devons, with a little
short-horn blood. They were coarse and thick In the
skin, but probably on that account better adapted to the
climate. On the whole, though the owner thought I
did not sufliciently praise them, I did not afterwards see
in the province a herd In all respects equal to them.

At Woodstock, in the evening, we were gratified with
an interesting musical entertainment. It seems that the
Orangemen are numerous In some parts of New Bruns-
wick, and that Woodstock has its full share of them.
Some twelve months or more ago, a riot took place
between them and the Romanists, (Mickeys, as they are
here called,) attended by the destruction of a consider-
able amount of property, which the county of course was
called upon to pay. But the county applied to the pro-
vincial House of Assembl}", to have the sum in whole or
in part paid out of the provincial treasury ; and in refer-
ence to this matter, my fellow-traveller Mr Brown, as a
member of assembly, had given a vote which was unsatis-
factory to the Woodstock Orangemen. Hearing of his
arrival, therefore, instead of lynching him, as they might
have done a little farther West, they serenaded us all at

56 HANNAH S FARM.

the hotel until near midnight with a charivari of all the
most discordant noises, vocal and instrumental, which the
tongs, kettles, saucepans, and throats of Woodstock could
produce. There were also tar-barrels and bonfires on the
occasion, and finally a burning in effigy. Fortunately
the budding Orangemen did not personally know the
man they thus deHghted to honour ; so that Mr Brown
himself flitted about the blazing barrels, and enjoyed the
burning fun as much as any of them.

l^th Aug. — Though a little tired with the dissipation
of the previous night, we started by half-past seven a.m.,
to proceed up the river as far as the Grand Falls.

On leaving the town we turned to the left, forsaking
the river, and taking an inland road, for the purpose of
passing through some of the new settlements in this
county. Jacksontown, at the distance of five or six
miles, was the first settlement we entered upon. It is
about fifteen years since it was first commenced. The
land is good, though now and then patches, overspread
with sandy drift occur, bearing the ill-omened Everlasting
as their natural produce.

I stopped a few minutes at Hannah's farm, on which
reapers were at work. It consisted of 200 acres, of which
80 were cleared. This, besides building a nice house,
he had cleared with his own hands in thirteen years.
The cradlers, who were cutting his grain, received from
1 to 1 J dollars a day, besides their victuals. They were
lumberers, who at this season of the year are usually at
home.

Most of the land in this region is granted ; and here I
first began to hear from the mouths of working farmers
the complaint which has been made successively in all
the provinces, and is not unknown in the newer States of
the Union, that large portions of the best land have been
granted — that is, sold at the Government price — to spe-
culators, who buy for the purpose of liolding on till the

IRON ORE AND SMELTING FURNACES. 57

neighbourhood is improved, and then selling at an increase
of price. This is provoking to poor men who wish to
buy farms, and settle near their friends; but it is injurious
to the whole community, in a country where roads are
comparatively few, and desirable lands in many localities
are at present worthless, because miles of tangled forest
shut them out from communication with the world.

It is very difficult either to remedy or to prevent this
evil. The provincial Government are endeavouring to
make it less frequent in future, by limiting the extent of
individual grants, and by requiring that a certain pro-
portion of each grant shall be cleared within an assigned
number of years.

Notwithstanding the obstacle presented by the pre-
emption of so much of the good land, in this neighbour-
hood, by persons who do not intend to improve it, the
extension of this settlement has proceeded rapidly of late.
The failure of the lumber-trade is inducing more young
men to adopt what is, after all, a surer mode of living ;
and back lots are taken up and being cleared, where the
line of farms next the road is already disposed of. The
same is the case on the Maine side of the boundary line,
where the land is also good and settlers fast pouring in.

Iron ore is abundant in this neighbourhood. It is of
the hematite variety, and a smelting furnace has lately
been erected within a short distance of Woodstock, for
the purpose of smelting it. It is reduced by means of
charcoal, and the hot-blast is employed. The iron
obtained, up to the time of my leaving the province, was
too brittle for casting, but it was said to make good
malleable bars and steel. I visited the works on my
return down the river, and it appeared to me, considering
all the circumstances, that the company had begun their
works on too large and expensive a scale. Some of the
less ambitious establishments on the Housatonic river, in
Connecticut, would have probably been safer models foi;

58 ITINERANT LECTURERS.

them at first, than the huge smelting-furnaces of Scotland
and Wales. The success of these^ works, however, is of
great moment to the province, inasmuch as their failure
would be a serious check to future adventures of capital
in similar undertakings.

The land on this day's journey continued good nearly
the whole way ; and the crops of oats and potatoes were
more like good crops in Scotland than anything we had
yet seen. The English or Scottish farmer who may
think of settling in this country must not consider himself
as quite out of the world in these parts. There are
wandering teachers, who supply with knowledge the
thirsty cultivators in the humblest villages. Notices are
stuck up in the inns, or are printed in the newspapers,
or are spread in the form of handbills, such as two I
met with to-day — " Mr Humphreys intends to lecture in
this village, during the current week, on electricity and
the electric telegraph." — " Mr Dow intends to lecture on
physiology and anatomy during the present week ; we
hope our friends will give him full houses during his stay
among them."

That these wanderers receive encouragement, not only
here but on the other side of the border, is shown by an
amusing circumstance told me subsequently by a fellow-
traveller, when on my way, through Maine, from Bangor
to Boston. Though a Bangor man, he had property
and business Avhich took him frequently into Georgia.
^' When on his way to Boston, on one occasion, with a
friend, who had also been with him in Georgia, they
dined at a hotel, where they saw opposite to them at
table two New Englanders, whom they had last seen
peddling in Georgia. ' Well,' says his friend to one of
them, ' when did you quit your peddling in Georgia?'
The questioned made no reply, but, swallowing his dinner
expeditiously, as a New Englander can, he went out of
the room, and, waiting for my friend and his companion,

MOUTH OF THE TOBIQUE. 59

accosted them with, ^ For heaven's sake, sav nothing
about the peddling. We have have been up to Maine,
and, as our wares were out, we took to the lecturing.
It's not a bad trade ; we have made sixteen dollars
a-day since we began. I take astronomy, and he does
the phrenology. We have been lecturing In Bangor,
and we have promised to go back. We had an invitation
to go down to Bucksport, but we heard of some people
there who knew quite as much as ourselves, so we
declined. Now, you won't say anything about the
peddling.' "

We had returned to the St John, dined on its banks
at an inn, situated at the mouth of what is called
Buttermilk Creek, and had driven nearly thirty miles
further, when we found ourselves at the mouth of the
Tobique, a river which comes from the east, and falls
into the left side of the St John. This position is
remarkable for an extensive second interval or terrace,
of great extent, and of comparatively rich land, which is
all cleared and settled. Is finely cultivated and improved,
and is pleasant to the European eye, from the number of
well-built, clean, comfortable-looking houses, which are
spread over the flat. The place has also its Episcopal
church, and, on the whole, appeared to me rather an
enviable locality, though at present a considerable distance
from the world. It is opposite the mouth of the river
Tobique, which flows through a still, wild, but agricul-
turally capable country, which fifty years hence will
sustain a considerable population. This flat, therefore,
is likely to be the site of a future town of some importance.

The upland here is also of good quality. A farm of
200 to 250 acres upon it, with 40 or 50 cleared, and a
good house, will sell at present for about a pound cur-
rency an acre.

Three or four miles further of a pleasant drive brought
us to the mouth of the Aroostook river, which flows from

60 VALLEY OF THE AROOSTOOK.

the interior of Maine, and empties itself into tlie right
side of the St John. This is an important river, as, in
seasons of high water, it admits of about 400 miles of
inland and lake navigation, ( Gesner^) and passes through
a rich valley, forming one of the best farming regions of
the State of Maine. The valley of the Aroostook was
one of the most valuable portions of the disputed terri-
tory, and one which both New Brunswick and Maine
desired to possess. At present, this valley forms a rich
and almost untouched lumber country, from which large
quantities of timber are floated down to the St John on
the waters of its river. By treaty, the free navigation of
the St John is secured to the produce of the Aroostook.
We stopped for the night at an inn at the mouth of this
river, which, in the height of the lumbering season, is
alive with swarms of lumberers, whose hobnailed shoes
had everywhere indented the wooden floors of the rooms
and passages. A few scattering men were already on
their way up to the woods.

Sunday^ l^th August. — The English traveller, who
starts on a North American tour, must shake off some
of his home habits and notions. Potatoes to breakfast,
which he will see everywhere — without which, I believe,
in these provinces, a breakfast would be considered in-
complete— is not an American custom solely, as I have
met them many years ago in the west of Scotland, and,
if not of Irish descent, is probably a home provincial
custom, extended, by the necessity of circumstances, in
the foreign provinces. A common table for all will at
first surprise him more. The driver and his passengers,
the hired and the hirer, and the humblest wayfarer who
may desire to dine when your dinner is ready, sit down
together. We had ordered our own meal to-day in our
own sitting-room, but we found ourselves, after a time,
seated side by side with ill-appointed lumberers, in fustian
jackets, without any one, except myself, appearing even

WHEAT SOWING ON NEW LANJ). 61

to feel that there was anything out of rule In such intru-
sion. We were close to the boundary of the country
where all men are bom free and equal.

The wheat crop in these northern parts of America
has a history which is interesting, not merely to the
practical agriculturist, but even to the political economist
of the broadest views. I shall have occasion hereafter
to return to this subject, in discussing the relation of the
American wheat-producing capabilities to our home agri-
cultural condition. I shall here, however, mention two
particulars of a practical kind.

In the first clearing of a piece of woodland, when he
hews his farm out of the forest, the new settler sows his
wheat in the autumn. The winter snows fall and cover
it, till one sweeping thaw comes in spring, when the
green blades spring up under the influence of the sun,
and ripen into a healthy crop. But after the woods have
been cut back, and the laud has been more widely cleared,
the continued covering of snow is not so certain. Spring
comes with partial thaws and freezings, which throw out
the winter wheat, and kill It in whole or in part. The
only practical remedy adopted for this is to sow spring
wheat, which rushes up and ripens rapidly, but yields a
grain which is said to be not equal in quality to the
winter corn. This fact has an important bearing on the
supply of first-quality flour to the American and Euro-
pean markets.

Again, in many localities the wheat crop is liable to
rust, and In many more the wheat-fly has come like a
pestilence, and almost put an end to the cultivation of
it. The practical remedy for these two evils is to sow
bearded wheat. Of this two varieties are here sown,
both spring wheats. The one is known as the old
bearded red, and the other as the Black Sea wheat — a
white bearded variety. These are supposed to be less
liable to the attack of both the vegetable and the animal

62 INDIAN VILLAGE.

plague ; but even of these varieties, average crops, until
the present, which is a very promising year for grain,
have been by no means to be depended upon.

After breakfast, I drove back to the Tobique, and
attended service in the Episcopal church. The service
was well read, but the congregation was small, and the
horses and waggons tied to the railing showed that most
of the people had come from considerable distances. The
Episcopal clergy of the province have hitherto, 1 believe,
been almost entirely supported by remittances from the
Propagation Society at home. These, as the country
becomes settled, must, of course, be withdrawn ; and the
Bishop is, I understand, exerting himself very much in
preparing the people for the coming emergency.

At the mouth of the Tobique, on a flat high intervale
of good land, upon the opposite or left bank of the St
John, is situated a native village, of twenty or thirty
houses, containing about a hundred and twenty Indians.
After forenoon service, I crossed to the village in a canoe,
and was informed by my Indian ferryman that the popu-
lation was nearly all collected in the chapel. I went
towards it, and, as I approached, a few small children ran
screaming from me in terror, and beat lustily for admis-
sion at the chapel door. On reaching the chapel, I was
admitted by some of the older people attracted by the
noise. I found a few well-dressed Indians, men and
women, seated in pews, but the herd of the squaws and
dirty children squatted on the floor at the end of the
chapel. There might be thirty, young and old, in the
place, and two men of the tribe, kneeling at a respectful
distance from the altar, were doing their best to chaunt
the service. I staid a few minutes, and then, having put
a bit of silver into the collection-box, and distributed all
the copper coins I had among the little ones as I went
out, I left them apparently not dissatisfied with my in-
trusion.

MELLICETES IN THE PEOVINCE. 63

On walking down the village, I met one or two of the
Indian men, and on asking them why they were not at
prayei-s, they said they did not belong to the priest's
people ; but whether they were Protestants or heathens,
I did not clearly make out. I then went into several of
the cottages, and found in some only women and children,
in others brawny men devouring wild-berries, which the
women had been collecting in the woods. Some of the
cottages were clean, and the inmates comfortably clad.
This was especially the case with the house and family
of the chief, whom I visited after his return from the
chapel, where he had been officiating in the absence of
the priest. He was an old man, small in size, but with
a very intelligent face.

These Indians are of the Mellicete tribe, as I beheve
are all the Indians of New Brunswick. They are a
robust race of men, not half civilised however, and never
to be weaned from their love of the woods. At this place
they own a reserve of 16,000 acres, a large portion of
which is choice land, which they will never cultivate, and
which must by-and-by be sold by Government in some
way for their benefit. There are altogether in the pro-
vince some 1400 Indians, and they hold reserves of about
63,000 acres of land.

I returned to the Aroostook to dinner, and afterwards
went on to the Grand Falls. This was a drive of four
hours, and, by the aid of the good roads, we reached the
Falls — otherwise, the town of Colebrook — about 8 p.m.
The roads in New Brunswick are really good, and very
creditable to the province. This opinion, which I had
already formed, was subsequently everywhere confirmed,
after I had travelled nearly 2000 miles upon them in all
directions.

About half way between the Aroostook river and the
Grand Falls, we passed a small settlement of Koman
Catholic Irish, whose very failings, wherever we met

64 INDUSTRIOUS lEISH SETTLERS.,

with tliem, henceforth appeared as virtues in the ejes
of my fellow-traveller, in whose honour the Woodstock
charivari had been got up by the Woodstock Orangemen.
These families, however, were really industrious, had
good crops, and appeared to be thriving. One of the
settlers, called MacLachlan, had eleven children, and a
farm of 200 acres, of which 60 were cleared. He had
cut 10 tons of hay, and had some of the best oats and
potatoes I had seen in the province. He had been in
the country four years, and had cleared all with his own
hands : I suppose that means with the help of his chil-
dren, for all can do something. He said an emigrant
who had £20 in his pocket, after paying for his land,
would he easy. He only required a little to carry him
on till his first crops were gathered. His own 200 acres,
with the 60 cleared, he said, might now be worth £100.
There were many excellent hard-working Scotch and
Irish farmers in the neighbourhood, he added ; the natives
— native-bora he meant — were too lazy, and liked lum-
bering better. Indeed, the more I saw of North America
all over, the more I was satisfied that an indolent man
will do better at home than on the new continent; but
industry and patience are sure to be rewarded with com-
petence and a comfortable living.

Another Irishman had been three years in the country,
and a third only one year. All were happy, and had
excellent crops, with new-chopped land burning for
those of next year. One of these had paid £50 for his
200 acres, because a little of it had been cleared. The
Government price is 3s. currency an acre, and 3d. for
surveying, payable in four instalments, or 20 per cent
discount for ready money ; so that 1000 acres would
cost £120 to Government, and £12 to the surveyor.

These Irish settlers struck me as representing industry
personified. I saw many others of the same nation,
afterwards, of whom I could not speak so well. The

THE GRAND FALLS. 65

labour they undergo appears severe ; but I am told, by
those who have themselves gone through it, that it is
not really so severe as it appears to be, and that it is by
no means unpleasant. This is intelligible enough after
the anxieties and seasoning of the first year are over,
and the crops on the new land begin to ripen. One
comfort certainly attends it, the greatest of all earthly
ones, undisturbed good health. Ague and fever, as 1
have already said of the sea-coast of the province, are
unknown ; and a healthier set of children of all ages I
have never seen anywhere than greet the eyes of the
stranger all over this province.

The slate rocks towards this upper part of the St
John become more calcareous, and beds of limestone
occasionally occur, which will afford an additional means
of advancement to the future agriculture of the country.

The town of Colebrook is prettily situated, on a little
peninsula, formed by a sharp turn of the river St John,
which here precipitates itself perpendicularly over a
ledge of slate rocks from a height of 58 feet. It then
proceeds through a narrow rocky gorge of hard slate
for about three-quarters of a mile, in the course of which
it descends 58 feet more, making its total descent 116
feet. As a picturesque object the falls are very strik-
ing, when seen from the high over-hanging rocky
cliffs, and well deserve a visit. Economically, they
form a great reservoir of mechanical power, which on
some future day will, no doubt, be made available for
useful purposes. Some years ago saw - mills were
erected upon the edge of the falls on a large scale, and
expensive constructions made by the late Sir John
Caldwell, which brought many people about the place,
and for a time quickened the growth of the town.
These works, however, have been long ago abandoned ;
the buildings have been allowed to go to decay, and

VOL. I. E

66 TOWN OF COLERIDGE.

only a few rare trees were being cut up, by this huge
force, when I visited the scene of Sir John's indefati-
gable exertions, and expensive ingenuity.

Coleridge, being the lower limit of the navigation of
the Upper St John, which drains an extensive and
improvable country, must hereafter become a town of
considerable consequence. This will be hastened and
increased if the proposed improvement in the St John,
between the head of the tide-waters near Fredericton,
one hundred and twenty miles below the Grand Falls, be
carried into effect, and if, by means of a canal through
the peninsula at Coleridge, the navigation of the upper
can be connected with that of the lower part of the river.
It is imfortunate that, in a new country like this, there
is always more to be done than there is of money to do
it with ; and that, consequently, many most desirable
improvements are obliged to stand over, till more
favourable times arrive. Colebrook is a very old
military station, which it is now thought expedient to
strengthen, from its proximity to the American boundary
as fixed by the Ashburton Treaty.

CHAPTEE III.

Upper St John. — Colonel Coomb's farm. — Growth and consumption of
buckwheat. — Aversion to the oat among settlers of French extraction.
— Valley of the Madawaska. — Edmonston, or Little Falls. — Houses
of the Acadian farmers. — Tea-dinners.— Ascent of the river Tobique.
— Rich upper lands of this river. — Large growth of buckwheat. —
Why buckwheat is unfavourable to good husbandry. — Terraces of
the St John River. Autumnal tints of North America — Ferry farm
at Woodstock. — Time of growth of grain crops in New Brunswick. — ■
Sumach trees. — Apple orchards. — Scotch settlement. — Making land
at Fredei'icton. — Rising of stones under the influence of the frost. —
Turnip culture in the pi'ovince. — Fire-weeds and Canada thistle.
— Stanley, the settlement of the New Brunswick Land Company.
— Heavy wheat in this province. — Price of farms.— Hop culture. —
Running fire in the fields. — Bilbery swamp. — Farm and opinion of
an Aberdonian. — Advice to intending emigrants. — Wild raspberry. —
Raspbeny hay. — Mare's-tail cut for hay. — Boistown. — Great fire of
1825. — Gloomy landscape. — Fires in the forest. — Nakedness of the
cleai-ed land.— An Irish settler. — Evil of farmers engaging in the
timber trade. — Deserted farms, and emigration to the United States,
how brought about. — Success of farmers in New Brunswick, who
mind their farms only. — Price of farms on the Miramichi River. —
Inci-easing consumption of oatmeal. — Legislative bounty for the
erection of oatmeal mills.

Monday^ 20th August. — At nine in the morning we
started for Edmonston, or the Little Falls, at the mouth of
the Madawaska, where the latter river empties itself
into the St John. The distance is about forty miles.
After ascending the right bank about a mile, we crossed
the river by a ferry-boat, and continued our journey up
the left bank, as only a few miles farther up the state of
Maine comes down to the water's edge, and the river

68 COLONEL coomb's FARM.

forms the International boundary. The soil and country,
after we crossed the river, immediately became of infe-
rior quality, and the settlers appeared to be both needy
and indifferent cultivators.

They were chiefly French Canadians, brought here
to work at the saw-mills ; and who, seven years ago, on
the failure of this employment, squatted on the pieces of
land they now occupy. Freehold grants of land on the
Upper St John were withheld by the Government, till
about a year ago, when the disputed boundary question
had been settled.

At a distance of twelve miles we came to Colonel
Coomb's farm, the first piece of good land of any extent,
upon the bank of the river, which we had yet passed.
The hill-tops on each side of tlie road and river were
generally covered with soft wood; but farther inland
the land was said to be better adapted to farming pur-
poses. It is generally upland of second quahty, a sort
of third-rate soil.

Colonel Coomb's farm contains 1025 acres, of which
80 only were cleared. Of these, 50 acres consist of
high intervale or terrace, of a light-coloured clay loam,
occasionally sandy, as is the case with nearly all the
higher terraces. This intervale land he valued at £15
an acre, the cleared upland at £3, and the whole farm
at .£'1200 to .^'ISOO. On the Intervale I walked through
beautiful crops of potatoes, oats, and Indian com. The
heads of the Indian corn were large, and fully formed,
but had not yet escaped from their sheath. It was
sown on the 28th of May, and the crop I saw would
yield 50 or 60, though the average is only about 30
bushels an acre. It generally ripens here.

On the poorer soil of the upland, buckwheat is sown,
and yields 35 bushels. This grain has been everywhere
very extensively cultivated in New Brunswick of late
years, and since the wheat has become so precarious a crop.

CULTIVATION OF BUCKWHEAT. 69

We saw large breadths of it, on our way up the valley,
during the remainder of this day's journey ; and, sub-
sequently, in nearly all parts of the province. Colonel
Coomb assured us that at least three-fourths of all the
bread consumed in this district was made of buckwheat.
It is used chiefly in the state of thin cakes, called pan-
cakes. These are generally small, and, when nicely
made and browned, very much resemble our English
crumpets, with half their thickness. They are eaten
hot, and generally with butter and molasses, or maple
honey. All over Northern America these pancakes are
seen at the breakfast and tea table, and are really very
good. As to the nutritive quality of this grain, I find
by analyses, which I have since had made, that buck-
wheat flour possesses about the same value, in this
respect, as our best varieties of British-grown wheat.

Potatoes yield here 250 bushels an acre, and oats 30
bushels. Wheat used to yield 25 bushels. Newly
cleared upland will yield 20, and old upland 10 to 15
bushels of wheat, when this crop succeeds ; but for the
last seven years Colonel Coomb's had not raised enough
for his own family.

I found that in this valley, as I subsequently found in
Lower Canada and in the north-eastern parts of this
province, the oat is generally disliked as food by the
natives of French extraction. This is one reason why
they live so much on buckwheat cakes, and on bread
made of mixed buckwheat, barley, and rye. The oats
of New Brunswick are very good, and are said sometimes
to weigh as much as 50 lb. a bushel. They form one of
the most certain crops of the province ; and hence both
the cultivation and the use of the oat for food has, of
late years, been greatly extending.

The oat is a kind of grain which difters much in qua-
lity and in palatableness, according to the variety raised^
the climate in which it is grown, and the way in which it

70 SCOTCH AND ENGLISH OATS.

is manufactured into meal. For these reasons, English
oats and oatmeal are generally quite diflferent from, and
inferior, both in quality and flavour, to those of Scotland ;
and hence one reason of the dislike which many profess
against an oatmeal diet. Thus the definition of Dr John-
son, instead of being unjustly regarded as a bit of ill-na-
tured satire, should be considered rather as the expression
of a wise opinion, in which he was before his time — that,
"while Scottish oats were food for man, English oats were
only food for horses." As elsewhere in the province, the
land on the Upper St John is generally ill-treated, — the
take-all-and-give-nothing system being pursued, partly
from ignorance and partly from idleness. The old Aca-
dian French, who are settled in numbers in the upper
part of this valley, are described as fine industrious men ;
but the Lower Canadians, who came across from the
shores of the St Lawrence, are represented by the Eng-
lish settlers as a " miserable set." This probably arises
from the fact that, as the Irish do with us, the poor Lower
Canadians come into and through the country as beggars
in great numbers.

There was little change in the character of the country
till we were more than half-way to Edmonston, The
upland was covered with soft wood, rare clearings, little
rich intervale land, and that chiefly at the mouths of the
small streams which come into the St John from the north.
But beyond this the country improved much, both in
beauty and fertility. The river channel opens up into a
wide valley, with extended cultivation, scattered farm-
houses, and a striking back-ground of mountains towards
the north. For the last twelve miles the river had
become the boundary — the one bank being British, and
the other American, as it is usual to express it. This
beautiful valley, with the rich lands which border the
river above the mouth of the Madawaska, as far almost
as that of the river St Francis, is the peculiar seat of the

VALLEY OF MADAWASKA. 71

old Acadian French. Driven successively from one set-
tlement to another, during our struggles on the American
continent, the original French settlers in Nova Scotia had
finally found refuge in this remote district. They are
four or five thousand in number ; and as they occupied
both sides of the river, a portion of them were transferred
to Maine, when the river became the boundary. They
are all Eoman Catholics, and have three large chapels in
the district.

It was pleasant to drive along the wide flat intervale
which formed the Madawaska Valley, to see the rich
crops of oats, buckwheat, and potatoes ; the large, often
handsome, and externally clean and comfortable-looking
houses of the inhabitants, with the wooded high grounds at
a distance on ourright,and the river on our left — on which
an occasional boat, laden with stores for the lumberers,
with the help of stout horses, toiled against the current
towards the rarely visited head-waters of the tributary
streams, where the virgin forests still stood unconscious
of the axe.

Twelve miles below Edmonston, we dined at Kelly's.
We found him selling mixed white and black oats to
the lumberers at 2s. a bushel. He said Is. 3d. a bushel
would pay the cost of raising them. A little farther on,
we crossed the mouth of the Green Kiver, which comes in
from the north, and opposite to which, on the American
side, we saw the first of the large Roman Catholic chapels
of the district, beautifully situated at the foot of a cliff.
Within four miles of Edmonston, we passed the Mada-
waska chapel, a large and fine old building, with a com-
fortable preshyiere close by ; and soon after we met the
cheerful-looking, fatherly, fat old priest driving home in
his gig. About eight in the evening we reached Edmon-
ston, or the Little Falls, which was the limit of my
travels in this direction.

The river Madawaska here comes in from the north.

72 TOWN OF EDMONSTON.

Its banks are settled for about twelve miles above its
mouth, along' the road to Canada. From Edmonston to
the mouth of the Bivl^re de Loup on the St Lawrence,
is about seventy-six miles. Along this line of road, the
provincial mails are carried, and it is the usual route of
travellers from the one province to the other.

Edmonston is a small village, with a comfortable inn,
which will hereafter, from its position, rise into conse-
quence. Being so near the border, it is an important
military position, and is therefore nominally protected
by a block-house, perched on the top of a rock. Above
it, on the St John, there is some rich intervale land. I
walked out to one farm upon this land, and found beautiful
crops of wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, and potatoes.
The upland, immediately bounding the valley, is rocky
and forbidding 5 but, as on the lower part of the Mada-
waska district, the land is said to improve on going
farther inland. This inland country, however, is at
present inaccessible for want of roads.

August 21st. — At six in the morning, we started on
our return, and drove half-way to the Grand Falls to
breakfast. Farms in this part of the valley, with one-
half cleared, may be had for about a pound an acre. That
of Mr Cyr, who gave us breakfast, consists of 350 acres,
with 150 cleared, and he valued it at £300 to £400. We
found a new house building here by a respectable Aca-
dian, who has hitherto lived and farmed on the American
side. On the settlement of the boundary, he became a
citizen of Maine, and was sent by his neighbours to the
state legislature. But he is tired of the new dominion,
and is building himself this house on the British side, that
he may live again under provincial laws and among his
own people only.

The houses of the Acadian farmers look cleaner and
more comfortable without than they often do within. I
here entered one of them, and found myself in a large

ACADIAN HOUSES. 73

room, in the middle of which a stove was placed, where
the baking and cooking was done, round which the family
sat to warm themselves, and the pipe from which ascends
through and warms the upper rooms. All the other
lower rooms enter from this general family apartment.
In some houses a kitchen and sitting-room are formed
under this first floor and half under ground, into which
the family retire in winter. Except the stone founda-
tion, the houses consist of a wooden frame-work, with
planks nailed over these, and the exterior finished off
with shingles or thin boards tacked on, so as to repel the
rains and drifting snows. I found a party at dinner,
eating with their boiled beef the very dark bread of
mixed buckwheat, barley, and rye, of which I have
already spoken. As in Lower Canada, pease, as a vege-
table food, have here been largely introduced and culti-
vated since the wheat crop became uncertain.

Above the Grand Falls we observed no hemlock trees ;
and it is said that they do not grow in this upper region
of the St John. This fact will probably admit of a geo-
logical explanation. Again, as to the intervale land — the
low intervale is generally lighter and more sandy than
the low intervale of the under part of the river. This
may arise partly from the lighter and finer particles of
drift being carried by the flowing w^aters to a greater
distance downwards, leaving the sand behind, and partly
from the nature of the country through which the streams
descend. The large feeders — the Aroostook, the To-
bique, and others, which enter below the Falls — may
bring down from the softer strata through which they
pass the materials that render the lower intervales more
heavy in their soils, and more fertile in their produce.

Pork ham was a frequent relish to our tea-dinners and
tea-teas in this part of the world ; but English leather
would be called tender in comparison with the hams
which are the pride of the valley of Madawaska. The

74 MADAWASKA PIGS.

porkers we saw frequently grunting along were to me
another reminiscence of my ancient Swedish adventures.
Only, in every undesirable quality, they were a little
more so even than my Scandinavian acquaintances. My
natural-historical fellow-companion pronounced tbem a
cross between a giraffe and a crocodile — the former
having given them length of leg, and the latter length of
snout.

Tea is — in this province at least — almost as constant
a beverage as it is in Russia. No dinner is complete
without the tea ; and one of the females of the household
always considers it her duty to attend, during the con-
sumption of the potatoes and the ham and other good
things, to pour out the tea for the company.

In Norway, I used to amuse myself with the perpetual
lax'^ everywhere set before us. It was lax to breakfast,
lax to dinner, and lax to supper — here, as a witty friend
of mine observed, it was " Te veniente, te redeunte die."

At Grand Falls we only stopped to dine. We then
returned through the better land, and the more familiar
Scotch and Irish settlements, to the mouth of the Restook
river, and thence to the mouth of the Tobique, where
there is a comfortable inn. To-day, as during our whole
excursion, the beautiful fire-weed, Epilohium angustifo-
lium^ springing up with its tall stem and purple flowers,
wherever the forest has been burned, and sometimes over
great breadths at once, as if it were a sown crop, formed
an interesting and striking contrast to the blackened
stems and twigs among which it grew.

22d August. — The mist still rested thick and heavy on
the waters of the St John, flowing here at the rate of
eight miles an hour, when at five minutes before five, .
after a hasty breakfast, my Mellicete Indian boatman,
John Francis, pushed off his bark-canoe to pole and

'^ Dried salmon.

VOYAGE UP THE TOBIQUE. 75

paddle me up the Tobique river with all speed, as far as
the Red Rapids.

The Tobique and the Restook, or Aroostook, are both
large feeders of the St John, descending to it, as I have
already mentioned, from opposite directions. The former
comes from the north-east, and is derived from four main
sources, which unite into one stream about eighty miles
above its confluence with the St John. The interior
country through which it flows is still unsettled, with a few
scattered exceptions, and inaccessible for want of roads.
At the time of my visit the waters were low, and the
river full of shallows and rapids, which made the ascent
fatiguing, and condemned my boatman to the use of his
pole for the most part, instead of his paddle. He pushed
me willingly along, however, and the mist gradually
cleared away as we ascended. After a couple of miles'
polling, we came to the narrows of the Tobique, where
the river is hemmed in by high rocks, and runs deep and
swift through a chasm nearly a mile in length. There
was to. me a new interest in feeling myself heading in so
frail a canoe these now sullen waters, and now swift and
tumbling rapids, and warily avoiding the projecting rocks
and rocky islets. Like the salmon underneath, the canoe
seemed to pick out for itself, as if by instinct, those places
in the rapids which were the easiest and safest to ascend.
It was beautiful to see with what skill and strength of
arm it was propelled, equally through the strong silent
streams and the troubled and noisy currents.

When we emerged from the narrows, and had over-
come the rapids above them, the river opened out, and
presently the sun threw some of his rays slantways
through the mist along the trees on the right bank of
the river. Seen through a veil of unilluminated mist, the
mixed pines and birch and maple thus hghted up, on the
edge of the expanding sheet of water which lay between
us, gave the scene, as we emerged from the gloom of the

76 ALTERNATE LAYERS OF DRIFT

narrows, an exceeding beautj. While on the opposite
bank, though still lying in the shade, the hemlock and
cedar trees, with their long waving locks of hoary lichen
—which selects these trees as favourite spots for its para-
sitical growth— contrasted strikingly with the dark-green
foliage of the towering spruce and the lighter hues of the
white birch.

For five miles we passed through the Indian reserve,
which, as I have said, amounts in this place to about
16,000 acres. Much of it is good land, though soft wood
prevails on the river banks, above the fringe of yellow
birch and maple, which usually skirts the margin of the
stream.

The slate rocks, as we ascended, were usually highly
inclined, and covered with a thick coating of drift. The
angles of inclination, however, where they became visible,
after we had made some progress up the river, appeared
to lessen, and occasional indications of nearly horizontal
beds were seen.

At the upper end of the Indian reserve, on the right
bank of the river, beneath the site of a small saw-mill,
the slate rock appears rising about twenty feet above the
river bed, and dipping down the stream at a high angle.
But, above the section of rock, a deep bed of what
appeared to be rolled slate-drift fills up the break — as if
the ledge of rock had arrested it while moving ; and a
little above this again, the gravel bank consists of about
twenty feet of this slate-drift, overlaid by about six feet
of red sandy drift ; and thin traces of this reddish cover-
ing are spread over the surface at considerable distances
from the sandstone country to which the ascent of the
Tobique conducts us. If these two layers of drift
were deposited by the agency of the same current run-
ning in the same direction, they ought to be differently
disposed — the red sand below, and the slate-drift above —
as the newer red sandstone rocks would be carried away

SAND ON THE UPPER TOBIQUE. 77

before the water could touch the slates which lie below
them. They indicate, probably, a change in the direction
of the current, by which the water before it reached this
spot was made to traverse the red sandstone region, and
strew its spoils over the previously distributed debris of
the slates.

Above this point a few small clearances appeared, and
among these one upon a little intervale on the left bank,
the scene of John Bradley's farming and clearing opera-
tions. At the foot of this intervale nearly horizontal
beds appeared, for the first time since I left the neigh-
bourhood of Fredericton — beds of red sandstone, of which
this was only a little apparently isolated outlier. Two
miles above, at the Red Rapids, so called from the colour
of the rock which forms tliem, the red sandstone basin
begins. It consists here of red sandstones and marls,
resting on the edge of the slate rocks. These red
rocks extend to a distance of thirty miles up the river,
being intermixed about half-way up with interstratified
cliffs of gypsum. They probably belong, therefore, to
the gypsiferous red sandstones, which in Nova Scotia
lie immediately under the coal measures. Nearly the
whole of the region, however, over which they extend, is
a virgin wilderness — covered however, in many places,
with varieties of hardwood timber, which are known to
indicate good land. When roads shall be opened into it,
I infer, from the nature of the formation, that, except
where ungenial drift covers the surface deeply, this will
prove one of the best farming districts in the province.

At the Falls, a large clearing existed — a good house,
large barns, some land in cultivation, and the ruins of
what had been an extensive and costly saw-mill establish-
ment. Like many others in the country, this establish-
ment had failed and gone to ruin, and the house and land
were in the market. The spot was far from the world,
and, for want of roads, almost inaccessible, except by the

78 FLIES ON THIS RIVER.

river, which at this season was barely deep enough for
my bark-canoe. The Provincial Government, however,
Avill by-and-by open roads along this river, and arrange
with the Indians for the sale of their grants, when the
stream of emigration is sure to direct itself up the banks
of the Tobique.

I found the farm in charge of a Canadian, who had
been employed as a workman in the mills. He held the
100 acres of more or less cleared land on condition of
paying to the proprietors one-half of the produce of hay.
I came upon him in a hollow while he was sharpening
his scythe, and was attracted by what at first appeared to
be a quiver suspended across his shoulder. On a nearer
approach, however, it proved to be a roll of cedar bark,
so rolled up as to resemble a quiver, which was lighted at
one end, and attached across the shoulders in such a way
as to cause the smoke from the burning bark to float
about the head of the wearer. This was to keep off the
flies. It is an Indian mode, I believe, in common use in
the country ; and on the Tobique, at certain seasons, it is
said to be indispensable. The flies are most troublesome
in the evening ; and I had already elsewhere on the St
John seen fires kindled in the open air for the benefit of
the cattle, which are happy to come in the evening and
hold their heads in the smoke, with the view of escaping
to some extent from their tormentors. As the country
becomes cleared, the flies may be expected to diminish.

The river looked very tempting above the Falls, but
I had no time to ascend higher; I therefore again
embarked in my canoe, and descended swiftly to the St
John. My Indian took nearly five hours to pole me up,
and he worked very hard ; but we descended in about
half the time. One soon acquires confidence in a bark-
canoe, even in rough rapids ; and it is certainly very
interesting to observe the ease with which the sharp eye
and practised hand of an Indian boatman keep it in safe

OBJECTIONS TO BUCKWHEAT. 79

waters. A little touch upon a rock, at a well-calculated
time and place, snatches you from undoubted danger; and
the ease with which all mishaps are avoided is apt to
make the stranger fancy that it is the simpleness of the
work, and not the skill of the workman, that bears him so
confidently along. A single trial of his own powers,
however, soon sets him right on this point.

At the mouth of the Tobique I joined my fellow-
travellers, and started on my way back to AVoodstock.
We kept along the banks of the river all the way, and
saw some fine patches of intervale land, the sites of good
farms. On some of these, buckwheat, during the last
few years, has been grown in very large quantity. I
was told of six or seven hundred acres being raised by
one individual.

This grain, I have said, Is sufficiently nutritive. Those
accustomed to the use of it even say that it gives more
strength than any other food. In the form of cakes, the
only form in which I have eaten it, it is also very
palatable. But the objection to it as the staple food of a
people consists in the ease with which it can be raised,
the rapidity of its growth, the small quantity of seed it
requires, the slovenly and unskilful husbandry which is
sufficient in favourable seasons to secure average crops,
and the casualties to which the crop is liable from the
seasons. It grows on very poor land, from which no
other grain crops in remunerative quantity can be
obtained, and it is rarely favoured with the luxury of
manure. Like the potato, therefore, it induces an indo-
lent, and slovenly, and exhausting culture. And suppos-
ing the crops to fail, as the potato and the wheat have done,
the poverty of the land, and the want of skill in the farmer,
will render it very difficult to replace it by other crops,
which demand more industry, more skill, and more atten-
tion to the collection, preservation, and application of
manures, and which will refuse to grow on exhausted land.

80 MISERY OF THE BRETON PEASANTRY.

Some of tlie facts above stated may, however^ be
considered as arguments in favour of the cultivation of
this grain ; and, where the soil is naturally poor, buck-
wheat is really a precious gift of nature, by which sub-
sistence may be raised until, by cultivation, the land is
made capable of producing more desirable crops. But
it is the prelude of evil when a kind of food which
requires little exertion to obtain it becomes the staple
support of a people. They are sure to become indolent,
and careless of further comforts. And if the food be one
which, like buckwheat, will grow upon a poor soil, they
are apt to allow the soil to become poor, because it will
still grow this crop. Thus, they are inevitably exposed
to periodical accessions of scarcity or famine, and by
these visitations are certain to be reduced to permanent
poverty.

xA.t all events it is well-known that, in those parts of
Europe where buckwheat is the staple food of the people,
ignorance and neglect of good husbandry prevail, and great
poverty is seen. In France tlils grain is regarded as the
symbol of agricultural misery, and of the most detestable
culture ; and, with the chesnut, is the " triumph of impro-
vidence and idleness." * Of the whole surface of France,
less than an eightieth part (gV) is sown with buckwheat ;
but in the province of Brittany one-twelfth of the whole
surface Is sown with this grain. " The exceeding misery
of the Breton peasant was noticed by Neckar in 1784,
again by Arthur Young ten years later, and, relatively
to the population of the rest of France and of Great
Britain, it Is as conspicuous as ever. The interior of a
Breton cabin in the North Breton departments is described
as a parallel to that of an Irish one — buckwheat bread
being the chief sustenance, instead of potatoes." f
Whether this grain be the cause, or only the attendant

* Notes Econorrciques sur la Sfatisque Agricole la France, p, 205.
+ Proceedings of the British Association for 1818, p. 116.

CONSTANT COOKINa REQUIRED BY BUCKWHEAT. 81

of misery, it cannot be a desirable thing to see it become
the staple food of any population.*

Another consideration which may strike the traveller
through countries in which buckwheat, the potato, and
Indian corn form the staple food of the people, as an
important objection to their use, is the constant cooking
they require. Wheat, oats, rye, barley, and even pease,
can be made into bread which will keep several days, or
even weeks. The rye-bread in the north of Europe is
in many families baked only once in two or three months.
But no method, I believe, is yet known by which a
palatable bread, which can be kept for days, can be made
of maize, buckwheat, or potatoes. Thus, a constant
cooking is required, a constant loss of time in the house-
hold, a derangement of order and neatness, and a large
waste of fuel. It is chiefly female labour which is
expended in this cooking and its attendant duties, but
this labour in a well-regulated household is precious, and
can be fully employed in other ways, in supplying the
wants and contributing to the comforts of a family.
This I consider an important economical and social
reason why bread-producing grains should be encouraged
in a country, rather than maize, buckwheat, or potatoes.

In many localities through which I passed, in this and
my subsequent excursions among the Anglo-Saxon popu-
lation of the rural parts of North America, I found poor
log- cabins, badly-cultivated fields — dirty with weeds,
and disorderly in consequence of many neglects — which
light and easy labour would rectify. And while want of

* lu Spain and in Sardinia the sweet acorn, the seed of the Quercus
gramuntia of Linngeus, is eaten as a principal food of the people in
certain districts. In Spain they are buried till they lose their astringent
taste. In Mara Calagonis, near Cagliai'i, in Southern Sardinia, the
miserable inhabitants, about 1100 in number, live chiefly upon this
acorn, of which they make bread. They extract the bitterness from the
shelled acorns by means of wood-ashes.

VOL. I. F

82 TERRACES ON THE ST JOHN.

hands and the cost of hired labour was complained of,
females in abundance might be seen, for whom the
humble log-cabin could scarcely afford a reasonably
constant occupation. Except among the French, and
some of the Irish settlers, it is considered beneath the
dignity of a female to engage in even the lighter of those
healthy field-occupations which are not disdained by the
wives and daughters of our European peasantry.

The terraces which the banks of the St John exhibit
in so many places were very marked in the neighbour-
hood of Presque Isle, about half-way between the mouth
of the Tobique and Woodstock. As many as five suc-
cessive elevations are occasionally visible. Professor
Hitchcock states that, on the Connecticut Eiver, he has
observed in some places as many as eight or nine terraces
at different elevations. He states also tliat they only
exist where traces of ancient basins in the river are
visible, hemmed in by barriers, through which the river
has gradually cut its way — that they are usually not
parallel on the opposite sides of the river — and that they
are not level, but slope downwards in the direction of
the course of the river.* My leisure for observation did
not permit me to ascertain how far these generalisations
of Dr Hitchcock were confirmed by appearances on the
river St John.

Another interesting and beautiful appearance, with
which I afterwards became more familiar, first struck me
in this day's drive. This was the exceeding variety and
brilliancy of the autumnal tints, wdiich, on the branches
of the young maple and poplar trees especially, began
already to exhibit themselves. From a brilliant crimson,
scarlet, purple, orange, or yellow, to a dull brownish red,
all conceivable shades show themselves in these American
forests. And what struck me as most remarkable was,

* Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science tovlSid,!^. 148.

AUTUMNAL TINTS. 83

that a single branch of a young maple would shine out
with its leaves rich in these magnificent colours, while
every other branch and tree around it retained its original
green. And thus, over a hill-side, or along the banks of
a river, patches of brilliant flowers seemed to be arranged
at Intervals among the verdant trees, the breadth of
which varied and the hues changed from day to day.
Yet often these brilliant crimson hues continue perma-
nently, and later in the season drifted heaps of fallen
leaves might be seen, retaining still the brightest tints of
colour. The autumnal landscape of Northern America,
coloured after nature, must appear a gross exaggeration
to a European eye which has never witnessed the Inimit-
able splendour of the reality. The bright gold of the
American elm mingles In these landscapes with the red,
crimson, and orange of the poplar and the maple ; the
unassuming yellow of the birch and beech, the browns of
the basswood and the ash, and the ochrey hues of the
larch, are intermixed with, or surrounded by, the dark
blackish green of the prevailing pines.

23<i August. — On leaving Woodstock this morning
for Frederlcton, we drove along a rich Intervale, four
miles in length, to the ferry, where we crossed the river
and proceeded down the left bank. While waiting for
the boat, I made some inquiries regarding the ferry
farm, on which I saw beautiful crops of oats and Indian
corn. This farm consists of 800 acres, of which from 60
to 70 are rich upper Intervale land, producing 40 bushels
of oats and 50 of Indian corn, and valued by the owner
at £10 an acre. The rest Is upland. The owner bought
the whole two years ago for £700 currency. It used to
be valued at £1500, but it has been long rented to an
exhausting tenant, and the cultivated part has had no
manure for thirty years. The selllng-everything-off
system was followed, and the rent, in consequence, had
gradually fallen from £100 to £40 a-year, when It was

84 TIME CROPS TAKE TO GROW.

sold. This exhausting system has been, and indeed still
is, as I have already remarked, the almost universally
followed one in North America. Ultimate poverty is
the consequence of it to the farmer's family, and finally
a sale of the farm itself to some one who knows how to
restore it. The old occupants then trudge farther west,
buy cheaply in a new country, and again inflict the con-
sequences of evil management on some still virgin spot.

This farm is a very promising one still, to judge by the
crops of Indian corn, oats, potatoes, and turnips I saw
upon it. For money-returns in this quarter the farmer
looks to his butter, cheese, and pork.

The oat and barley harvest is now general on the
river. The usual time of growth of the different crops
in the province of New Brunswick is, for

Spring wheat, ... 3 months and 20 days.

Barley, 3 „ and 6 „

Oats, 3 „ and 20 „

Spring rye, .... 4 „ — ,,

Buckwheat, .... 3 „ and 3 „

Indian corn, .... 3 „ and 32 „

So that, as the oats are sown ten days or a fortnight
earlier than the barley — generally in the last week of
April or the first of May — these crops ripen about the
same time in August.

On descending the left bank of tlie river, we ob-
served a repetition of the same geologico-agricultural
relations as we had observed in ascending. On passing
from the silurian to the older slates, the surface became
more stony and difficult to till and improve. On the
gneiss the stones became still more frequent ; and upon
the granite immense granite boulders, sometimes as large
as cottages, overspread the surface, and occasionally
formed a perfect pavement.

The sumach, Rhus typhina (?) a few trees of which I
had seen of great beauty in Nova Scotia, was particularly

APPLE-ORCHAEDS ON THE ST JOHN. 85

abundant along the base of the hills, and of the rocky
slopes of the older slates and gneiss rocks. In a few-
other places in New Brunswick, and afterwards on the
trap hills near Newhaven in Connecticut, I observed the
same trees growing luxuriantly. Six species of Bhiis
are described by Dr Torry as indigenous to the state of
New York. The greater number of these grow naturally
in rocky and stony places ; but whether the geological,
physical, or chemical relations of these rocks and stones
have any influence in determining the choice of a natural
habitat is not stated by botanists. This department of
vegetable physiology has hitherto been comparatively
little attended to, though, in the interest of agricultural
improvement, it is deserving of especial cultivation.

We travelled thirty miles down the river from Wood-
stock before we escaped from the stony pine-clad
country. As we approached the little river Koak, we
were greeted by a change in the foliage, some hardwood
ridges stretched along the upland, and along the St John
rich intervale appeared. We stopped at Mr Heustie's
farm, on this intervale, chiefly because he is one of the
most extensive apple-growers on the river.

In the orchard of this gentleman were 1550 apple-
trees, for the most part young, but in full bearing. The
fruit was in general small, but of a pleasant agreeable
flavour. The large delicate apples of the Hudson River,
of western New York, and of the Ohio River, are not to
be expected, I suppose, in New Brunswick, though the
summers are hot enough ; yet fruit of good quality may
evidently be raised, and the cultivation for home con-
sumption carried on, with a profit.

It is probable, I think, that the great heat of the sun
is in reality a chief cause of the smallness of the fruit,
hastening the ripening process before the apple has had
time to swell. Its scorching effect was seen upon the
fallen fruit, which was dried and altered, as if by artificial

86 MAPLE HONEY.

heat, on the side which had been exposed to its rays.
The ten o'clock sun has the effect also of scorching the
yoiing trees, burning a stripe all the way down the stem,
and finally killing them. The preventive is to wind a
straw rope round the stem, and to let all the branches
grow till it has got a rough bark. It is an interesting
fact that part of a stem thus protected will thicken
faster than the uncovered portion, and, when the straw is
detached, will be sensibly of a greater girth.

For those who are curious in such recipes, I may state
that Mr Heustie kills caterpillars on his apple-trees by
boring a hole half-way through the stem, filling with
sulphur, and plugging it with wood. The caterpillars
disappear, he says, in twenty-four hours. For lice and
other small vermin, he opens a piece of the bark, intro-
duces a few drops of turpentine, and then ties it up again.
Both remedies he pronounced to be infallible.

I here first used maple sugar to my tea-dinner,
enjoyed the luxury of maple syrup or honey — which with
buckwheat cakes is really excellent — and ate broiled
salmon with apple-sauce. In the little garden were
water and musk melons, as well as cucumbers and
squashes, without any special treatment growing and
ripening, as if native to the spot.

After leaving Mr Heustie's, and proceeding some
miles over a country stony still with granitic boulders,
and then over a patch of grey conglomerate — an outlier
of the great coal measures — we turned to the left, partly
to cut off a large bend of the river, and partly for the
purpose of passing through a cleared and cultivated tract,
known as the Scotch Settlement. Here there was much
cleared land of second-rate quality, but I felt it to be
impossible to form a satisfactory idea of its real agricul-
tural value. The drought had been so excessive that
every grass field was burned up and browned, as I had
seen them in Nova Scotia. It was so melancholy to

BANKS OF THE KESWICK EIVER. 87

look upon the land itself, that I scarcely regretted my
inability to stop and converse with the settlers, from
whose months I could only anticipate a lamentation over
the evils which the long absence of rain had brought
upon them. The reader, however, must not imagine
that such droughts are common in New Brunswick.
Farmers who had been forty years in the country assured
me, as I have already stated, that they had never known
anything like the rainless spring and summer of 1849.

Leaving the Scotch Settlement, we crossed the Mac-
taquac River, and then a ridge of land partially settled
which separates the valley of the Mactaquac from that
of the Keswick River. Along the right bank of this
river, the upland is of good quality in many places. It
lies upon the youngest of the slate rocks which occur in
this part of the province. In descending to the river, we
passed through the first purely beech forest I had yet seen
on my tour. It was very beautiful, entirely free from
underwood, and in many places so open that it would be
easy to ride through it on horseback. The soil of a
beech forest is usually good, but it is shallow, resting on
a hard subsoil, and therefore is not regarded as of first-
rate quality.

In the bottom of the valley, and at the mouth of the
Keswick River, there is much good low intervale and
island land — a sandy loam, light in colour and easy to
work, in favourable seasons yielding good crops, and
valued at present at about £10 currency an acre. The
Keswick passes through a beautiful and somewhat bold
country. For the last eight or ten miles of its course, its
left bank is skirted by an escarpment of grey sandstone,
which here forms the north-western boundary of the coal-
field of New Brunswick, and gives a character both to
the soils and to the scenery. Along the course of this
river grants of land were made, in 1783, to the disbanded
soldiers of the New York Volunteers and Royal Guides,

88 COURSE FOR A NEW SETTLER.

and their descendants have since spread, and cleared
much land towards the interior.

After baiting our horses on the Keswick, darkness
soon overtook us, so that the country became invisible
during the last ten miles of my ride to Fredericton, where
we arrived late at night after an absence of eight days.

On this excursion I had seen many spots upon which a
British farmer, with a little capital, could settle com-
fortably, not with the prospect of becoming rich, but of
obtaining all necessary comforts, and of placing upon
farms of their own any number of sons. But the wise
and prudent course for a new settler to pursue is to
devote a few weeks to an examination of the country in
person, to look at it with an agricultural and practical
eye, to consult prudent persons long resident on the
spot as to the advantages or disadvantages of the various
farms which are to be purchased, and thus, with due
caution and deliberation, and after due inquiry, to come
to a determination. The emigrant and his family
will then easily adapt themselves to their new circum-
stances ; and, instead of a temporary resting-place, as so
many emigrants make of the first place they settle upon,
they will find at once a permanent family freehold and a
happy home.

Aug. 24:th. — I remained at Fredericton only for a
single day, during which I visited, among others, the
farm of a young improver, Mr Beid, who was spending
his money in making land, I may call it, as courage-
ously as if he had been an unencumbered Inverness or
Aberdeenshire laird. The sloping upland along this
part of the river is covered with fragments of sandstone ;
but when these are removed from the surface, a soil
comparatively free from stones is found, for a depth of
from one to three or four feet.

This is ascribed by some to the fact, sufficiently curious
and interesting in itself, that stones and other substances

RISING OF STONES IN WINTER. 89

in the soil have a tendency, during the frosts of winter,
to rise to the surface from depths of three or four feet.
The frost penetrates in many places to three feet, and
sometimes deeper in severe winters ; and it is observed
that stones in this upper layer gradually come up to day ;
so that, if a field be perfectly cleared of stones one year,
a new crop will be found on the land in the course of the
next year, if the soil within three feet contain any. The
stakes of fences are also pushed out by the same agency ;
and this is a source of much trouble to the farmer.
During a visit to Russia some years ago, I was told the
same facts by a large landed proprietor and improver, as
being seen on his estates in the direction of Archangel ;
but I had always doubted their correctness, until the
universal testimony of my New Brunswick friends put
them beyond a doubt.

The effects of the potato failure are likely in this pro-
vince to be ultimately as favourable to agricultural
progress as we hope they may be in Ireland. It has led
to a very considerable extension of the turnip culture,
with its attendant advantages of stock-feeding and
manure-manufacturing, and the benefits are already
found so great, that should the potato come round again,
this green crop will not on that account be abandoned.
The turnip thrives well ; and in the most northerly parts
of the province I have met with crops which would not
have done discredit to a Lothian farmer. The climate
makes it necessary, however, to take them up in Novem-
ber, and to store them in cellars, where they will be
readily accessible during the frosts and snows of winter.

August 26th. — Early in the morning I ferried across
the St John on my way to the Miramichi River, in the
north-east of the province. The road lay along the right
bank of the Nashwauk, though on the upland, and at
some distance from the river. The red and white fire-
weeds, Epilohium coloratum^ and Erichtites Meracifolius^

90 THE FIRE-WEED AND THE CANADA THISTLE.

covered as usual every open space in the woods over
which the fire had run during the previous year ; showing
how grateful the ashes of the burned trees and under-
wood are to the seeds of these plants with which the soil
everywhere must abound.

When land is cleared by burning for agricultural pur-
poses, these plants cover the ground if it is neglected
during the ensuing spring ; but after the land has been
ploughed they disappear, and the Canada thistle and the
hemp-nettle come up, and become troublesome weeds.
Everywhere in the provinces, and in New England, the
Canadian thistle is heard of as the pest of the farm. It is
our common creeping-thistle, Cnicus arvensis^ or Circium
arvense^ which has found a most congenial climate in
North America. The common spear-thistle is a trouble-
some weed, but, being a biennial, can be extirpated with
comparatively little labour ; but the Canada thistle is
perennial, has deep and wide-spreading roots, is very
tenacious of life, and commits its seed annually to the
winds, and thus defies the labours of individual farmers.
Only a general spread of cleanly husbandry will extirpate
it from a district in which it has once established itself.
Even legislation is disregarded by this rebellious plant.
A few years ago (1847) the New Brunswick legislature
passed an act, entitled " An act to prevent the growth of
thistles^^^ which was limited in its application to the
county of Gloucester ; but the refractory weed has since
only spread the more, and given increased annoyance even
in the county the act was intended especially to benefit.

After a couple of hours' drive, we made a detour of
several miles for the purpose of visiting the village of
Stanley, one of the principal settlements of the New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company. We were
hospitably received by Lieut. Colonel Hayne, the resident
agent of the company, who accompanied me over several
of the farms and clearings.

HEAVY WHEAT IN NEW BRUNSWICK. 91

This Company, though to its shareholders it has proved
a failure, has been of considerable service to the colony,
and under its present management, is capable of being of
much use to intending settlers from the mother country.
Incorporated by act of parliament, it bought 550,000
acres from the crown in this county of York, and has
opened roads in various directions, established a resident
clergyman and medical practitioner at Stanley, and pro-
moted the settlement of many respectable emigrant
families in the neighbourhood. Immediately around the
town of Stanley, the land is by no means of first-rate
quality, but it produces 25 bushels of wheat an acre, and
200 to 300 bushels of potatoes. The wheat is thin
skinned ; averages 64 to 68 lb. a bushel ; 68 lb. is com-
mon, and it is said sometimes to weigh as much as 70 lb.
These high weights of wheat have often been given me
in different parts of New Brunswick. I suppose that the
very hot summers dry the grain so much as to give it
superior density.

On one of the farms I visited, I found improvements
proceeding as an Englishman likes to do his work — clear-
ing, stumping, taking off stones, and trenching all at one
operation. This no doubt makes the land pleasanter to
look upon, and gives it a more civilised appearance than
when the stumps are left for seven or eight years to
rot before they are taken out. But it costs £10 cur-
rency an acre to clear it after this manner; so that,
granting this method to be as cheap In the long run, it is
quite beyond the means of the mass of new settlers. The
owner of this farm, himself a new settler, assured me that
it was a great mistake for a person with a little capital to
settle in the wilderness, with the view of clearing himself
a farm, when intervale land can be bought for £10
an acre. I believe there is much truth in this, unless
a very favourably situated grant of good land can be
obtained. The turnips (Aberdeen yellows) were on this

92 RUNNING FIRE IN THE FIELDS.

farm very beautiful. Sown on the 19th of July, they
already covered the ground.

Two farms of 100 acres each, 30 acres cleared on each,
and a small house, were offered me together for £100, or
£50 for each. Another farm of 205 acres, with 120
cleared, and a really nice house on it, was to be had for
£750 currency.

The hop grows well here, as I afterwards saw it in the^
most northern parts of the province. Though there is
little local demand for the produce of this plant, it might
be cultivated for exportation, and would have, in the
English market, at least an equal chance with the hops
now imported in large quantities from the United States.
It was very striking, on one of the farms I visited, to
see how rapidly fire was capable of running along a field,
burning the parched grass, and endangering the crops.
Advantage had been taken of the extreme drought to
burn up some stumps, when, by a sudden freak of the
wind I suppose, the fire took to the grass, and spread so
fast towards a field of oats that it was necessary to turn
out all hands to arrest it by throwing earth on the
advancing line of fire ; and it was finally shut out only
by yoking the horses into a plough, and hastily running
a furrow between the fire and the oats.

Returning from Stanley to the main road, we passed
through some fine hardwood land upon the Company's
grant, well adapted for farming. It was like driving
through a beautiful green lane, the narrow road opened
by the Company being for the most part covered with
verdure, and the shade of the lofty trees affording a grate-
ful shelter from the mid-day sun.

We came upon the Nashwauk where it ceases to be
navigable, and where the ancient Indian portage across
the country to the south-west MiramichiEiver commences.
The Nashwauk, as I have already mentioned, falls into the
St John opposite to Fredericton. Along its banks there

A DISCONTENTED SCOTCHMAN. 93

is much excellent intervale land ; and for upwards of
twenty miles above its mouth, the cleared lands are
occupied by the descendants of old soldiers of the Black
Watch, (42d,) who obtained grants here in 1783, at the
end of the American war. They have among them many
fine farms, but their clearings have as yet extended only
a short distance into the upland.

Across the portage to Boistowm — about twenty miles
— the country is comparatively level, and the soil is light,
sandy, stony, and often poor. Its appearance was injured
by the excessive drought, and the real agricultural
value of the surface has been lessened by the frequent
forest-burnings. At present it is almost naked of trees,
and in many places forms for miles one continued fern
brake.

After leaving the banks of the Nashwauk, we crossed
some miles of a bilberry swamp — in other words, a bog
on which bilberries grow. Half-way, we stopped to bait ;
and, on indifferent land, found, among other settlers, a
Mr Duncan, a Scotchman. His farm consists of two
hundred acres, for w^hich he paid, when he came here,
£100, ten acres being in crop. " I have plenty to eat,"
he said, " but I would rather pay £4 an acre for land in
Aberdeenshire than be here on my own land. A man who
w^ould make his living by clearing land, in this country,
must work more like a slave than a farmer."

Mr Duncan had settled himself on an unfavoured spot,
and was naturally enough dissatisfied. And many such
discontented and disappointed, and therefore restless and
unhappy people, are to be found in all the newly-settled
countries of North America, whether in the British pro-
vinces or in the United States.

Two things, indeed, cannot be too strongly impressed
upon those who are about to emigrate. First^ That those
w^ho wish to get through the world easily — who are not
prepared both for privations and for very hard w^ork — had

94 RASPBERRY HAY.

far better stay at home. America is not a good home for
idlers. Second^ That, if the emigrant has capital, he
ought to spend a little time in looking out for an ehgible
settlement before he fixes on a permanent home. If he
have no capital to spare, let him go to service for a sea-
son, asking moderate wages till he learn where he can
hope, with his small means, most happily to place himself.

In the wilderness, on burned land, besides the fire-
weed, the red wild raspberry, Rubus strigosus^ springs up
in vast abundance, and especially on granite and trap-
pean soils. At Duncan's, I found it was the practice to
eat this raspberry, and store it as hay. It is a kind of
famine feed ; but it is very frequently mixed with the
hay, and the sheep are said to prefer it to common hay.

On the marsh-lands about Gagetown, on the St John,
the smooth swamp horse-tail, salt-rush, or pipe-rush,
Equisetum Umosum^ is largely cut for hay, as I believe is
sometimes done in Great Britain. On the St John,
cattle are said to fatten upon this hay, and to prefer it to
the best English hay. In connection with this fact, I
may mention that the field horse-tail, Equisetum arvense^
according to Professor Torry,* is a favourite and nutri-
tious food for horses towards the passes of the Kooky
Mountains ; though in Great Britain it is not only con-
sidered prejudicial to the land — or rather a sign of some-
thing to be cured in the land — but as injurious to cattle,
which occasionally eat it-t

The flowed intervale lands abound also in the sensitive
fern, Onoclea sensibilts. Upon the Keswick Biver, where
I crossed it in returning from Woodstock, it seemed
literally to cover the soil. It is cut along with the grass,
and must often form a considerable proportion of the
meadow hay.

At the end of the portage we descended a steep hill to

* Botany of Neio YorTc, vol. ii. p. 481. f Hooker.

GLOOM OF THE BURNED LAND. 95

Boistown, on the South-west MiramlchI River, which
runs eastward and falls into Miramichi Bay, an inlet of
the Gulf of St Lawrence. This place was formerly the
seat of a thriving lumber-trade, which has now almost
ceased, owing to the failure of the principal adventurer
by whom it was carried on. A scattering of the popu-
lation has in consequence taken place, and many indi-
vidual losses and social derangements have been occa-
sioned, which it will require a considerable time to repair
and adjust. Thirteen miles farther brought us to Nel-
son's, through virgin forests of pine growing on a poor
sandy soil. The straw of the grain crops was every-
where short, and the rain had not reached the roots of
the potatoes since they were planted. It was no season
forjudging fairly of the capabilities of the soil.

August 26th. — After breakfast, we left Nelson's for
Chatham. The country continued poor, gravelly, sand}^,
or stony, with occasional boulders, sometimes of granite,
but chiefly of the grey sandstone of the coal measures,
which extend across the province from the St John at
Fredericton to the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Throughout the whole of this day's journey, the effects
of the dreadful fire of 1825 were visible in the blackened
stems of the tall upright dead trees, which still stood
undecayed, as far as the eye could see, over the gloomy
hills and flats. On newly burned land the purple Epilo-
hium waved its graceful leaves and purple flowers around
the blackened trunks, and concealed in beauty the
scorched underwood and fallen branches. But on these
old burned lands the desolation was more complete, and
a more sullen gloom still rested over the doomed surface.
The substance of the soil is gone, it is said, where the
burning has been too severe. The vegetable matter, I
suppose, is consumed ; and this, where no living trees are
shedding their annual leaves, it must take many years to
restore. Many striking facts were told us regarding this

96 DANGER OF ORNAMENTAL TREES.

great fire, especially as to the fearful rapidity with which
it hurried on, with the roar of a great sea, before the
sweeping hurricane which propelled it. On our way we
saw fires burning in the woods in many places, which, in
this dry season, only required a little wind to spread in
one blaze over the whole forest. At one spot, where the
road ran along the edge of the forest, separating it from
the cleared land, which lay between the road and the
river, we passed six or eight men employed in watching
for the fall of sparks, and extinguishing any which might
come over from the burning woods, to the imminent
danger of their crops.

In a country like this, one learns to look upon trees in
a new light. Not only are they an obstacle to cultiva-
tion, which must therefore be cut down and burnt ; but, so
long as natural woods are near, it is dangerous to leave
any about the dwelling-house for shelter or ornament.
During this summer's tour, I was shown places where the
spreading of fire from the forest to a few ornamental
trees had caused the destruction of the whole farm build-
ings, to the almost total ruin of the proprietor. Thus a
reason appears for the nakedness wdiich an Englishman
almost feels when in the midst of a large clearing. An
unsheltered house appears, while the stumps of magnifi-
cent trees all around show how well it might have been
protected from wind and sun.

Except upon the immediate banks of the river, there
are few settlements along this road ; and, in general, the
upland is very poor until we descend to within twenty or
thirty miles of the mouth of the Miramichi. About a
dozen miles from Boistown, I had a conversation with a
small farmer, Irish by birth, but resident from his infancy
in this country. lie had been in his farm only three
years. By hiring himself as a working lumberer, he had
saved =£^80, and with this he bought his present farm.
It contains two hundred acres, and had ten acres cleared

PROCEEDINGS OF THE LUMBERER. 97

upon It, and a small log-house, but no barn. He has
built a barn and added to his clearing, and if seasons
come round, he should do well.

We passed houses and clearings, however, which were
altogether deserted. This was partly owing to the fail-
ures in the crops, which have ruined so many of all classes
in Ireland as well as here ; partly to the failure of the
lumber-trade, and to the debts and mortgages in which
the small farmers, by engaging in this trade, had gradu-
ally become involved.

A stranger does not readily comprehend how a depres-
sion in the lumber-trade should seriously affect the inte-
rests of the rural population in any other way than in
lessening the demand for produce, and in lowering prices.
And it was not till I had been longer in the country, and
conversed with many persons on the subject, that I was
enabled clearly to separate, in my own mind, the evils
which this trade had brought upon the rural population
from those which were necessarily attendant upon the
calling of a farmer.

In lumbering, a man goes into the woods in winter,
cuts down trees, and hauls them to a brook, down which,
when the spring freshets come, he can float them to the
main river, and then to the saw-mills of the merchant to
w^hom he sells them. If a man does this upon his own
farm, or at no great distance from it, and by the aid of
his own family only, all he gets for his wood is pure
gain — if, in the mean time, he has been living on the
produce of his own farm.

But if he goes to a distance from his own farm, and
has been obliged to hire labourers, or has done so with
the view of enlarging his operations, he must apply to
the merchant for an advance of stores adequate to the
winter's consumption. The cost of these stores, and the
wages of his men, are deducted from the value of the

VOL. I. a

98 HOW LUMBERING INTERFERES WITH FARMING.

wood lie has obtained ; and if the price of wood be not
veiy low, he mav still have a handsome surplus.

Such circumstances lure him on till an unfavourable
winter comes, and he is not successful in cutting as good
lumber, or in as large a quantity as usual, or in hauling
it to the floating place ; or a very late spring, or very
shallow water, prevents him from getting it to market.
Then his debt to the merchant for stores, and for money
to pay his men, must stand over to another year ; and his
farm is mortgaged as security for the payment.

Meanwhile this farm has been more or less neglected,
and has been every year growing less produce. His
wood must be floated in spring, when his crops ought to
be put into the ground. He has been absent in winter,
when new land might have been cleared. His mind
is occupied with other cares : he does not settle to his
agricultural pursuits, and they are therefore badly con-
ducted, even when he is at home to superintend them.
And, lastly, while living in the woods, both employer and
employed live on the most expensive food. They scorn
anything but the fattest pork from the United States, and
the finest Genessee flour. The more homely food, there-
fore, which their own farms produce, becomes distasteful
to them ^ and thus expensive and sometimes immoral
habits are introduced into their families, which cause
more frequent demands upon the merchant, and a con-
sequent yearly increase of the unpaid bills.

In such a state of things, the foreclosing of mort-
gages, the sale of farms, and the emigration of ruined
families, must necessarily be of occasional occurrence.
But if the price of lumber fall very much at any period,
they must become more frequent ; or, if a merchant who
holds many of these mortgages himself fails, a common
ruin will involve all. Both of these evils have at once
befallen the lumbering farmers on the Miramichi, and
much distress has been the result. To this cause was

FARMERS ALWAYS DO WELL HERE. 99

owing tlie abandonment of farms by persons who, leaving
both debts and mortgages behind, and taking with them
any capital they could secure, had moved west to lumber
on the Aroostook, or to begin life anew In the far off
Wisconsin.

I have been thus detailed in my observations upon
this subject, because I felt myself inclined to be unjust
In my judgment as to the agricultural capabilities of a
district from which so many were emigrating, and In
which land was so little esteemed that its owners
appeared to be abandoning it, with all their Improve-
ments, merely because it refused to support their fami-
lies. A knowledge of all the circumstances, however,
satisfactorily showed that not the land, but the haste of
its owners to become rich, and their discontent with the
slow but certain gains of agriculture, were the causes of
the distress from which so many of the farmers were
suffering.

With the view of obtaining a more general body of
testimony In regard to the agricultural condition of New
Brunswick, I was enabled, through the kind co-opera-
tion of the Provincial Government, to circulate a set of
queries among the owners of the land In every county
of the province. One of these queries referred to the
profits of pure farming ; and the numerous answers I
received were unanimous In declaring — " That^ in every
'part of the 'province^ those who for a series of years had
confined their attention to farming alone^ had all^ loithout
exception^ done iveliy That prosperity, therefore, may
attend the new settler, or may return to the older
farmers of the province. It Is necessary only that they
confine their attention solely to the business of their
farms.

On the Miramichi, at present, owing to failures and
the foreclosing of mortgages, land Is cheaper than It has
been for many years. At Bergoris, twenty miles from

100 THE OAT TAKING THE PLACE OF BUCKWHEAT.

Boistown, where we stopped to bait, the landlord told me
of a farm on the river, containing 1500 acres, having 60
cleared — and of these 20 were intervale land, producing
30 to 35 tons of hay per acre — which could be obtained
for £150 to £200. Five years ago this farm would
have brought £400 or £500.

A few miles farther on, after passing the mouth of the
Renous river, which comes in from the left, the land
became of better quality. Though we were still upon
sandstones of the coal measures, and the surface stones
were chiefly sandstone boulders, sometimes mixed with
frequent masses of granite, yet the soil was more
tenacious and clayey ; and good crops of wheat and
oats were ripening upon many of the wayside farms we
passed.

On the Miramichi we looked in vain for the frequent
fields of buckwheat, which we had seen upon the St
John. The oat here takes its place, and is gradually
assuming an important place as an article of ordinary
diet among the people. Until lately, the humblest people
refused to eat anything but the finest flour. They even
thought they could not live upon anything else. But
the failure of home wheat, and the want of money
to buy that imported from Canada or the United States,
has had the salutary effect of compelling the people to
try the virtues of their own excellent oats ; and it is to be
hoped they will every year become more and more
attached to this most nutritive grain. The Provincial
Legislature have most judiciously aided this alteration
by offering bounties for the erection of oat-meal mills
throughout the province, the want of which had hitherto
been almost a complete bar to the use of the oat as
human food — especially in the newly settled districts,
where the need was most urgent, and the want most
felt. In 1847 the sum of £500 was paid out of the
Provincial Treasury for this purpose ; and as such mills

LOWER PART OF THE RIVER. 101

are not costly, the wants of many districts have been
already fully supplied.

About sunset we reached the ferry across the north-
west, where it joins the main or south-west Miramichi
river, and travelled the remaining ten miles to Douglas
chiefly in the dark. The land is generally of better
quality along this lower part of the river, is more
extensively cleared, and more skilfully cultivated. New-
castle, a considerable village four miles below the junc-
tion of the north-west river, and Douglas, a town six
miles farther down, are supported in part by their
traffic with the country farmers, but chiefly by the
lumber-trade, of which the mouth of the Miramichi has
long been an important centre.

Soon after leaving Newcastle, we met with an accident
by which the pole of our carriage was broken — a circum-
stance of the more importance as we had still some hills
to descend before we could reach Douglas.

But my travelHng companion, Mr Brown, was equal
to any emergency. A spare rope, and a couple of stakes
from the fence, in his hands soon placed us again in
marching order; so that, with a little care, and by
walking on foot down the dark slopes, we reached
Douglastown in safety before midnight.

CHAPTEE IV.

Douglastown.— Great beat.— Value of farms.— Mode of reclaiming forest
land. — Expense of clearing soon repaid. — P]ague of grasshoppers, in
New Brunswick and ISew England. — Legislative grants for the pro-
motion of agriculture. — Average produce, prices and wages in Nor.
thumberland county, — Town of Chatham-. — Golden rod, a trouble-
some weed. — North American oaks.— European weeds on the cleared
lands. — History of an Annandale settler. — Bush-bean. — Provincial
encouragement to elementary and grammar schools. — Bay-du- Viu
schoolmaster. — Eichibucto. — Buctouche river. — Sweet fern soils —
Patience and contentment of the French settlers, and restlessness of
the Anglo-Saxons. — Shediac, famed for its oysters. — The Bend-Bore of
the river Petitcodiac. — Height of high water above that of the Bay. —
Country between the Bend and the city of St John. — •Case of Mr
Nixon, and his opinion of New Brunswick as a poor man's country. —
Use of river mud as an improver of the soil. — Greater industry
among new settlers than among the native-born. — Blighting of buck-
wheat.— Burned Bridge. — Beauty of Sussex Vale. — Mr Evanson's home
farm, its value and produce. — Mr Aiton's farm. — Rent and course of
cropp ing, — Hampton, and its conglomerate soils. — Fine-looking
yeomen of New Brunswick. — Price of farms around Hampton. — A
discontented Ii'ishman. — Dyked marshes of St John and the Atlantic
border. — Farms around St John, their quality and value. — Rate of
wages for agricultural labour in the several counties of the province.

August 27. — Yesterday and to-day have been exces-
sively hot. We found it so as we travelled down the
river in our open carriage, but we had no means of ascer-
taining the temperature. At Douglastown, I am informed
that the thermometer has frequently stood during the
past week as high as 95° Fahr. in the shade.

On this, and a subsequent visit to the Miramichi, I was
much indebted to the hospitality of Mr Rankine, one of

103

the oldest resident merchants, and the representative of a
wealthy firm long connected with the North American
colonial trade. I visited with him to-day the farm of
Mr John Porter, on which I found good land, well cul-
tivated, with fair crops of wheat and oats, and a field of
excellent turnips, (Aberdeen yellows.) The wheat
averages 20 bushels per acre, of 60 to Qd lb., and the
oats 40 bushels of 37 to 40 lb. On the upland, where
the soil is heavier, the oats weigh as high as 48 lb.

This farm is mostly flat land — an extension of the
high intervale on which the town stands. It consists of
80 acres, of which 60 are cleared, and is worth £400,
but would at present sell for £300. He assured me that,
though he has a large family, he could make a living off
this farm.

Above this, the same gentleman possesses another farm
on the upland. It is stronger land, and produces better
oats ; but it is more difficult to work, and is later in
spring. It consists of 150 acres, of which 50 are cleared,
yields 15 tons of hay, lets for a money-rent of £33, and
is valued at £400, all currency.* Ten years ago, this
farm was let for £50. The tenants have never done
anything else but farm, and they have been enabled to
support their families and pay their rents — though, as I
have already remarked, the renting of farms is not a
popular or much practised mode in this country. It is
an excellent plan, however, for a new beginner, who
wishes to know something of the country before he fixes
upon a spot for his permanent residence. Much of the
moving, and of the want of local attachment which is
seen in North America, is probably to be ascribed to the
hasty settlement which circumstances compel so many
emigrants to make on their arrival in America.

The course of cropping adopted by a skilful man like

* £20 sterling make £25 provincial currency.

104 TKEATMENT OF NEWLY CLEARED LAND.

Mr Porter, on clearing new land from the forest, will
give the reader an idea of the general character of the
treatment to which less prudent men subject their land.
He cuts down the wood and burns it, then takes a crop
of potatoes, followed by one of wheat with grass seeds.
Nine successive crops of hay follow in as many years ;
after which the stumps are taken up, the land is ploughed,
a crop of wheat is taken ; it is then manured for the first
time, or limed, and laid down again for a similar succes-
sion of crops of hay. This treatment is hard enough ;
but the unskilful man, after burning and spreading the
ashes, takes two or three or more crops of grain, leaves
it to sow itself with grass, then cuts hay as long as it
bears a crop which is worth the cutting — after all which
he either stumps and ploughs it, or leaves it to run again
into the wilderness state.

In clearing land in this district, it is calculated that the
first three crops, which are merely harrowed in, will pay
all the expense of cutting the timber, burning, and culti-
vating. If the settler then abandon it, he is no loser :
everything he cuts off it afterwards is gain, or any sum for
which he can sell his cleared land. This is a great induce-
ment to the exhausting system, which clears annually new
land for grain, cuts for hay all which the old cropped land
will yield, till it is again overrun with a young growth
of wood, and neither saves, collects, nor values manure.

This system is barbarous, reprehensible, and wasteful
to the country — and yet it is probably the method which
yields a ready sustenance to the settler's family at the
smallest expense of mental and bodily labour. Our con-
demnation of the pioneers of civilisation in a new country
ought not, therefore, to be too severe or indiscriminate.
With all our skill, we English farmers and teachers of
agricultural science should, in the same circumstances,
probably do just the same, so long as land was plenty,
labour scarce and dear, markets few and distant, and

PLAGUE OF GRASSHOPPEES. 105

prices of produce low. As population increases, a higher
class will come in, will purchase the exhausted farms, and
for their skill and manure will obtain from the soil new
returns, as large, and perhaps as profitable as those which
rewarded the men who first penetrated the bush. Or if
such men do not come in, and the land still continues in
the hands of the original clearers, or their sons, the good
of the country will demand that steps should be taken
to instruct and enlighten them in regard to the principles
of agriculture, and by degrees to wean them from an
agricultural routine which is no longer either the most
profitable to the individual, or adapted to the altered
circumstances of the country.

In walking over Mr Porter's farm, my attention was
drawn to the vast number of grasshoppers which were
jumping about, not only in his grass, but in his turnip
fields. I had observed them previously in considerable
numbers at various places on the St John Eiver, but here
the land seemed almost alive with them. They appear
during the hot weather of midsummer and autumn, and
attack the turnip crops as well as the grass, sometimes
entirely stripping them of their leaves. If the young-
turnips are not sufficiently forward by the middle or end
of July, when the grasshoppers begin to swarm, they are
sometimes entirely destroyed. This is a pest of which
our British turnip-growers, so far as I am aware, have
no cause to complain.

In New England, five or six difi'erent grasshoppers,
besides as many species of locust, appear in their warm
summers. In Massachusetts, the grass in the meadows
and moist fields is filled with myriads of small grass-
hoppers, of a light green colour, which do much injury
to the grass. But, in New England, grasshoppers
are not generally distinguished from the small varieties
of locusts which are common in that country. One of
these, the small red-legged locust, about an inch in

106 ENCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

length, infests the salt marshes in such numbers as almost
entirely to consume the grass ; and when the scanty-
crop of hay is gathered, it is so tainted with the putres-
cent bodies of the dead locusts contained in it that it is
rejected by cattle and horses.* It is some small return
for their ravages that the bodies of these creatures
manure the fields they have infested, and that poultry
thrive upon them. Young turkeys, in the summer, live
almost entirely upon these grasshoppers in parts of Mas-
sachusetts, and become fat.

The Northumberland Agricultural Society, which has
its headquarters at Douglas, has hitherto been the most
influential in the province, and has received the largest
share of the legislative grant for the encouragement of
agriculture. A method of promoting improvement
among the rural population, which is common to the
provincial and to the New England state legislatures, is
to give from the public funds to every society a sum of
money, bearing a fixed proportion to the amount raised
among its own members. In New Brunswick, for every
pound subscribed in a district for the promotion of agri-
culture, the Legislature formerly gave £2, and now give
as much as £3, from the Provincial Treasury, thus
stimulating at once and rewarding the local subscribers.
For this purpose, £6150 were voted by the New Bruns-
wick Legislature in 1848.

In this district I found some of the best farming and
best farmers in the province, and some of the warmest
friends of agricultural improvement. As there are at
present many farms to be disposed of upon the Miramichi
Kiver, for which persons who know something of agricul-
ture are eagerly desired from the Old Country, I
shall insert the average produce, price, and weight per
bushel, of the usually cultivated crops in the county of

* Harris's Insects of Massac] uisetts Injurious to Agriculture, p. 136.

AVERAGE PRODUCE, PRICES, AND WAGES. 107

Northumberland, which embraces most of the good land
on the Miramichi and its tributary waters.

Average produce

Average price

Average weight

per acre.

per bushel.

per bushel.

Wheat,

17

7s. 6d.

62 pounds.

Barley,

32

5s. 3d.

54 ...

Oats,

32

2s. Id.

38 ...

Buckwheat,

40

5s.

45 ...

Maize,

50

4s. 6d.

58 ...

Potatoes,

200

Is. lOd.

Turnips,

350

Is. 4d.

Hay,

2 tons.

The average price of cheese is 5^d. a pound, and of
butter 9d. The average w^ages paid for agricultural
labour are, in summer, from 50s. to 60s. a month, or, by
the whole year, £27, 10s. currency, in addition to board,
washing, and lodging. Day-labourers receive from one-
half to three-quarters of a dollar, with provisions.

After a hasty survey of the neighbourhood of Douglas,
we drove down to the river, and crossed to the town of
Chatham, on the right bank. Near the ferry we found
a large encampment of Indians, who are about two hun-
dred strong, on the ]*Iiramichi River, and own reserves of
about 22,000 acres, some of which consist of excellent
land. It was amusing to see the little papooses, only a
few Aveeks old, swaddled up tight, tied fast to a bit of
board, and set on end against the outside of the wigwams,
apparently unheeded by anybody. No movement was
made by any of the females, nor a sound uttered by the
infant, w^ien I took up one of them and affected to carry
it off with me to the boat.

The town of Chatham is about equal in size to Douglas,
and, like it, is dependent partly upon the lumber-trade
and partly upon the agricultural traffic. On this occa-
sion I merely drove through it with the view of reaching
Eichibucto, a distance of forty miles south, before night-
fall.

108 GOLDEN EOD, A TROUBLESOME WEED.

Half-an-hour brought us to the Napan Eiver, a stream
which widens as it descends, and falls into Miramichi Bay.
On this river there is much good strong land, a stiff clay,
the first I had seen in the settlement, for the improve-
ment of which I was satisfied, notwithstanding the
drought — which even here had reduced the hay-crop to
one-third of its usual amount — that the system of tho-
rough drainage might, even in this climate, be unhesi-
tatingly recommended. This clay is specially infected
with two species of golden rod, [Solidago canadensis
and S. altissima^ which are troublesome weeds, and the
former especially difficult to extirpate.

Neither of these species of golden rod is known as a
weed in Europe. The only European species is the
SoUdago virgo aurea^ which is also a native of America.
It is not known as yet how many species of golden rod are
to be found in New Brunswick ; but in the state of New
York no less than twenty-two species are known. It Is
very interesting to the botanist and physiologist to observe
such differences in the flora of countries so closely allied
as Great Britain and Northern America now are ; but, as
practical Indications of the qualities of soils, this new
flora Is a source of difficulty to the visitor or settler from
the Old Country, who is accustomed from early observa-
tion to connect in his mind the qualities of a soil with
the weeds which grow upon it. It Is a matter of regret
that botanical collectors do not describe more particularly
both the kind of soil on which plants usually occur —
which, when troublesome weeds, they infest — and the geo*
logical formations on which they are most frequently found.
A practical value would thus be given to botanical descrip-
tions, which hitherto they have seldom possessed.

To the English traveller, who is less Interested about
the indications of the humbler vegetable tribes, the
numerous new species of familiar kinds of trees he meets
with In Northern America are more striking. Thus In

EUROPEAN PLANTS IN AMERICA. 109

Great Britain, and in central Europe generally, there
are seen only two kinds of oak, the common British and
the sessile-fruited oak, Quercus rohur and Q. sessiliflora.
In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick he does not find
these oak trees, but in their stead two others, the red and
grey oaks, Q. rubra and Q. horealis. If he goes soutli,
the number of species increases. In Massachusetts he
already meets with eleven, and in New York fifteen
species of oak, among which the northern or grey oak is
not included. In the whole United States, no less than
forty species of oak are already known.

But probably the most generally interesting fact in
regard to American plants is the influence which the
introduction of European races and manners, and the
frequency of intercourse with European countries, is said
to have had upon the prevailing weeds, especially of the
Atlantic coasts and river borders of North America.
The common plantain, Plantago major ^ was called by the
Indians the White-man's-foot. The Canadian, or creep-
ing thistle, Cnicus arvensis^ or Cirsium arvense^ the pest
of North American farmers, and therefore often called
the cursed thistle, Is an importation from Europe. Not
only have most of the cultivated plants and grasses been
brought from Europe, but, according to Agassiz, all the
plants growing by the road-sides are exotics.

" And the wheat came up, and the bearded rye,
Beneath the breath of an unknown sky."

" Everywhere in the track of the white man we find
European plants ; the native weeds have disappeared
before him like the Indian. Even along the railroads we
find few indigenous species. On the road between Boston
and Salem, although the ground is uncultivated, all the
plants along the track and In the ditches are foreign."*

How curious are the reflections which such facts sug-
gest ! Would It be irrational in an Indian to suppose

* Lalce Superior, its Physical Character, &c. p. 10. Boston, 1850.

110 JOHN M'lEAN FEOM AXNAXDALE.

that these European weeds in the ditches of the Salem
raih'oad had actually followed the footsteps of the Irish
emigrants who dug them ? May not the seeds of them
have been actually shaken from the shoes of the newly-
arrived immigrants ?

On the Xapan River there are many settlers from
Dumfriesshire, chiefly from Annandale. This has arisen
from the circumstance that a traffic in timber has long
existed between the Miramichi River and the town of
Annan, the ships engaged in which afforded an easy
passage to intending emigrants. Their sons are noted
as the best ploughmen, and themselves as among the best
farmers in the province.

With one of these settlers, John M'Lean, I had an
interesting conversation ; and as his history may interest
some of my readers also, as an example of the way in
which steady industry overcomes difficulties, and secures
comparative prosperity in a new country, 1 shall state
the leading facts I gathered from him. He came over
in the year 1822. He has 250 acres in his farm, of
which 150 are cleared ; but he has not force to keep all
this land in crop. He works it with the aid of three of
his sons, two daughters, and three horses — keeps eleven
cows, eight or nine young cattle, and a few sheep. He
bought his land in the wild state, cleared it all himself
without hired labour, and has raised eleven children. He
has four sons settled on farms, one of whom paid .£^150
for his farm ; two of them worked as carpenters till they
had saved money to buy their farms. Neither he nor
any of his children ever lumbered, nor should any of
them if he could help it. Not one in twenty makes any-
thing by lumbering ; and by sticking to their farms, men
in the long run always make a better living, and are more
independent, than by anything else. jNlany others who
came out with him, and since he came, have stuck to
tlieir farms, and have done as well as himself. Though

MONEY A SETTLER SHOULD HAVE. Ill

the crops have failed so many years, few in this settle-
ment are in debt. Oatmeal porridge and milk twice
a-day, and oatmeal cakes, are the prevailing diet. Odds
and ends, as he called sugar, tea, ^c, are obtained by
the sale of butter and cheese.

Since the failure of the potato, the bush-bean — a pro-
lific French or kidney bean, of which many varieties are
cultivated in the United States — has been much grown
in this district. It comes a fortnight earlier than the
potato, is very prolific, and, when green, is an excellent
substitute for the potato. The dry bean is usually baked
with pork. This vegetable would probably succeed Avell
in our climate, and as a substitute for the potato, if only
in part, is well deserving of a trial among us.

Mr M'Lean thinks a man would do well in Northum-
berland, who could come over with £50 in his pocket,
and better with £100. But he ought not to have too
much, if he is to labour contentedly, and to prosper. He
had himself only £5 when he settled, besides three carts
and a year's provisions.

If these statements of Mr M'Lean are got by heart by
the intending emigrant to the wilderness parts of North
America, he will require little other guidance to comfort,
prosperity, and contentment.

Three miles farther, over a flat coal sandstone country,
brought us to the Black River, which also empties itself
into the Miramichi Bay, has good heavy land along its
banks, and a prosperous agricultural settlement. The
next twelve miles to the Bay-du-Vin Biver, is over a
poor sandy country, with occasional patches of cold clay
and of peat bog, resting on the flat impervious sand-
stones.

The Bay-du-Vin Settlement consists of about a dozen
Irish families, who have a school and Catholic chapel.
The schoolmaster said he had forty boys at school, but
the parents were poor, and paid little ; so that his chief

112 ENCOURAGEMENT TO ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

support was the provincial grant of £20 which he annually
received. In regard to their elementary schools, the Pro-
vincial Legislature has lately adopted important means
of improvement in the establishment of training schools
at St John and Fredericton. Every settlement in the
province has its school. The settlers build a school-
house, and select a master. This master must then — if
not a pupil of the training school, or if he has not been
previously examined — undergo an examination by the
master of the training school, and, according to his pro-
ficiency, he receives a certificate, which entitles him to
an annual stipend of =^10, <£'20, or ^30. As yet, the
training schools have not been able to supply instructed
masters for all the schools ; houses are not in most places
built for the masters, and the schools are usually shut up
in the summer months. This is very much the case also
with the schools in the newer states of the Union, and as
the population becomes more dense, these evils will dis-
appear. In the principal town of each county a gram-
mar-school is established, to which larger grants are given.
In 1848, the grants to parish and Madras schools
amounted to .^13,882.

The schoolmaster teaches the religious catechism which
the parents of his pupils wish their children to learn.
Thus the same master sometimes teaches in the same
school the Church of England Catechism, the Assembly's
Catechism, and that of the Romish Church. The school-
master at Bay du Vin was surprised that I should think
there was anything remarkable in his being required to
teach all the three, though he said he had once before
heard some one make remarks regarding it. He was
himself a Roman Catholic ; but it was enough for him
that he had been ordered to do it.

We drove rapidly over the remaining twenty-two
miles to Richibucto. This tract of country presented the
common level surface, and the sandy, often thin, poor.

SWEET FERN SOILS. 113

and stony soils which distinguish so much of the coal
measures of New Brunswick. We crossed on our way
the Kouchlbouguac, the Kouchibouguasis, and the Aldou-
ane rivers, flowing from the west ; and for some distance
on each side of these rivers, good land and fine settle-
ments were almost universally to be seen. On the flat
country, the clearings are feW and thinly scattered.
Hardwood ridges of land now and then rose above the
flat country, and on these were more valuable farms and
settlements. But, as I came over this ground again in
the ensuing October, I omit any further observations in
this place.

28^A. — I left Richlbucto at eight in the morning. It
was at first misty, but by degrees became excessively
hot. After a few miles of better land, the soil and
country became very similar to that we passed over
yesterday — flat, poor, pine-clad, sandy soils, except
where rivulets and armlets of the sea occurred. Here
better land, and a few settlers, as usual, occurred.
Fifteen miles brought us to the Big Buctouche River,
near its mouth, where it expands into an arm of the sea,
and falls into Northumberland Strait, opposite to Prince
Edward's Island. Tide-water here extends six or eight
miles above the bridge and harbour; and along the
inland bay there is much cleared land, and some good
farms.

On the sandy soils of the county of Kent, north and
south of Eichibucto, I saw, for the first time in New
Brunswick, the sweet fern [Comptonia asplemfolia^)
which had previously arrested my attention in the great
sandy plain of Aylesford, in the Annapolis Valley between
Windsor and Bridgetown. I afterwards saw it on
many other of the more barren sandy portions of the
north-eastern part of this province. It is a saying In
some of our ov/n rural districts, that, where the common

VOL. I. H

114 PATIENT TEMPER OF THE HABLTANTS.

fern grows naturally, something more valuable may be
made to grow by art — and so it was remarked to me of
the sweet fern in Nova Scotia ; but except for rye or
buckwheat, or the horse-chesnut, or some similar sand-
loving plants, the soils on which the Comptonia abounded
have generally appeared to me very little adapted to the
economical production of vegetable forms likely to
minister to the sustenance of man.

Eleven miles farther brought us to the Cocagne River,
in the neighbourhood of wliich there are extensive
clearings, and much improved land, but generally light
and sandy. A shade of red had begun some time ago
to appear in the soil, as if a portion of red drift from the
old red sandstones of Prince Edward's Island had been
transported, and mixed up with the natural debris of the
coal measures of the country.

We saw a few patches of Indian corn on our route
to-day, generally poor crops, unlike what we had seen
upon the St John, and on the farms of the old French
settlers. Along this coast the French are numerous.
They have suffered much from the failures of the crops
during the last two or three years, but few have left the
country. They are a much more patient and contented
race than the Anglo-Saxon settlers, who are always
painting in brighter colours the beauty and fertility of
places they have never seen, and shading more deeply
the evils that surround them. Six miles beyond Cocagne
I stopped at a farm of 500 acres, bought by its owner
thirty years ago for £14, and now valued, with the
stock upon it, to the poor-rate at £1000. Yet this man,
who had so prospered, wished to sell his farm, that he
might start for Indiana. He had no good reason to
give for going but the same failure of crops which the
humbler habitants so patiently bear. It is to be hoped
that, both for Europe and America, these visitations are
now for a period overpast.

CANADIAN OYSTER. 115

From Cocagne Is nine miles to Sbedlac, a village of
some twenty houses, with a little-frequented harbour,
which, among the New Brunswick gourmands, Is famed
for Its oysters. The oysters of this coast, and of the
shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence generally, are very
different In size and appearance from our comparatively
small English oysters. They are of a species known as
the Canadian oyster [Ostrea canadensis^) are very large,
and Inhabit a shell which Is long, narrow, massive,
somewhat curved, and often attains a length of eight
inches. The heavy shells are frequently burned into
lime, and are occasionally seen in large heaps on the
road-sides, collected for this purpose. I don't know to
what extent It actually takes place, but I was told that
the New Brunswick pigs have learned to open and relish
the oysters, and that they frequent the sea- shore and
contrive to feed upon them !

We had arrived at Shedlac in good time for dinner ;
but as I wished to accomplish the remaining thirteen
miles of my day's journey while it was still light, I left
my provincial friends to enjoy their oyster feast, mounted
a single horse car, with a young habitant for my guide,
and drove on to the Bend, as it is called, on the river
Petltcodiac. There were many fires to be seen raging
in the woods, and the evening came on early In conse-
quence of the smoke with which the air was everywhere
tilled.

The Bend is a village which derives its name from
being situated at the point where the river Petltcodiac,
which had been flowing north-east, bends suddenly
almost at a right angle, and flows south-east towards
Shepody Bay, one of the head forks of the Bay of
Fundy. The tide flows up from this bay a distance of
20 miles, and rises at common tides 22 feet 8 inches, and
at the highest tides 28 feet 8 inches. It rushes up with
a bore which at spring-tides is 5 or six feet high, and to

116 RISE OF THE TIDE AT THE BEND.

boatmen and shipmasters who are unacquainted with the
river is sometimes a source of danger. Dr Gesner states
that it is three hours' flood at the mouth of the river
before the tide reaches the Bend, that it flows in and
ebbs off in six hours, and, though the rise of the tide in
feet is not so great as at places near its mouth, yet that
the level of high water at the Bend is in reality several
feet higher than that of high water at the head of She-
pody Bay.*

Thus, at Dorchester Island, in the open bay, and at the
Bend, the height of high water above the level of low
water at the former place is as follows : —

At Dorchester Island. At the Bend. Difference.

Common tides, . . 36 feet. 45 feet 4 in. ) qi f +
Highest tides, ... 48 feet. 57 feet 4 in. J ^

The level of the river at high water is therefore 9 feet
higher than it is at the mouth of the river. Above the
level of high water on the Atlantic coast, it is pi'obably
several feet higher still. Could the outfalls of the river be
improved, therefore, as has been the case in our north
of England river Wear, a much more perfect drainage
of the river-side intervale land might be effected, and
the level of high water so much reduced as to render
securely dry many tracts now liable to periodical
overflow.

It is to the former prevalence of such phenomena as
this, and not to a real elevation of the land, that some of
the discoveries of animal remains embedded in alluvial
soils, now considerably above the existing level of adjoin-
ing waters, is to be ascribed.

At high water, the river at the Bend is broad, deep,
and beautiful. Vessels of 100 tons can then come up to
the town, which is thus enabled to carry on a direct
trade with Boston in the United States. In the summer
months a steamer also plies between the town and the
* Dr Gesneb's Neio Brunswick, p. 90.

CHANaE IN THE SCENERY AND SOIL. 117

city of St John. At low water the river narrows
exceedingly, and deep, muddy, and sandy flats appear.
Along the immediate banks of the stream there Is much
fine land, and the mud, which is copiously deposited
between high and low water marks. Is very rich, and is
extensively employed for manuring purposes.

29^A August. — We drove tv/elve miles up the Petitco-
diac Hivei' this morning to breakfast. From the Bend to
St John, a distance of ninety-four miles, the country is
more or less settled all the way. Much of the land is of
inferior quality, light, sandy, and gravelly ; but there is
much good land also, and the country generally along the
road is more undulating, abounds more in the picturesque,
and has more the air of a civilised old settled region
than almost any other tract of equal extent in the pro-
vince. This superiority arises. In great measure, from a
change In the prevailing geological formation. Before
reaching the Bend, we pass from the grey coal measure
sandstones on to red marls, red sandstones, and red con-
glomerates, with subordinate beds of limestone and gyp-
sum, which extend to within a few miles of St John.
The round hills of our English Monmouthshire appear in
this region In Mount PIsgah, Piccadilly Mountain, and
other striking elevations which are still unnamed. Soils
like some of those In South AYales, " which eat up all the
manure, and drink up all the water," are formed in many
spots from the drift of these red rocks, while In not a few
places red soils like those of the Lothlans are produced,
over which extend rich and fertile farms. Over all this
red district the land is absorbent of moisture, easy to till,
and early ready for the seed In spring, or for the sickle
in autumn. The subordinate beds of lime and gypsum
also contribute to improve the soils which rest upon this
formation ; while the salt with which it is impregnated,
as shown by its salt springs, is probably not without its
influence on the general vegetation. Along this line of

118 MR NIXON'S experience.

country, wheat used to be grown in large quantity,
for the supply of other parts of the province ; but the
ravages of the wheat-fly, for the last five years, have
made it necessary to substitute oats and buckwheat in
its place, even for local consumption.

Our landlord, Mr Mxon, with whom we breakfasted,
had a comfortable house, a nice family, and certainly the
very cleanest and tidiest kitchen I have seen in New
Brunswick. He came from home, and settled here in the
wilderness, eighteen years ago. For liis farm of 275
acres, he paid £50. A hundred acres of it are now cleared,
twenty-five of them being still in stump. Over and above
the price they paid for the land, he and his two brothers had
only £60 to begin with ; but at the end of ten years the
farm and stock were valued at £1000, and he bought
his brothers out. The land and buildings are now, in the
depressed state of things, worth about £800. He con-
siders New Brunswick a good poor marl's country — an
expression which briefly includes all the main recommen-
dations of North America generally to the inhabitants of
Europe. " Those who are comfortable at home," as
another settler said to me, " had better stay there."

The land on this farm is somewhat light and sandy ;
but it is greatly enriched by a covering of the river mud.
Of this, one hundred loads are applied to the acre — being
dug up dry during the frosts of winter, when other work
is scarce, and spread over the surface either of the tillage
or grass land — and its good efl'ects last for twenty years.
From his upland, by this treatment, he cuts two and
a-half tons of hay an acre, obtains 300 or 400 bushels of
potatoes, and as much as 1200 bushels of turnips.

It is a subject of almost universal remark throughout
the province that, as a general rule, British-born settlers
succeed better than the provincial-born or natives. They
are steadier, more persevering, and more industrious.
And I could not help remarknig myself, that, in New

GREATER ENERGY OF NEW SETTLERS. 119

BruDSwIck as a whole, the regularly settled inhabitants did
not appear to work so hard as the same classes do at home.
From that fact, however, I did not feel myself justified,
as some did, in concluding that the native-born are natu-
rally or absolutely indolent ; my conclusion was rather
that a living was easier got in the province than in the
home islands, and that, therefore, they did not require to
work so hard to obtain it as we do at home.

At the same time, the absence of the strong spur of
necessity does tempt poor human nature to indolence in
America as it does in Europe. It is remarked among the
free Blacks in the middle states of the Union, that those
who have bought their own freedom are far more energetic
and industrious men than the coloured people who have
inherited their freedom. In Boston, it is observed that
the sons of rich men rarely succeed as merchants ; and no
doubt there must be some truth in the statement, that
the sons and grandsons of British settlers do not display
the same energy as their emigrant fathers.

Whether such differences are greater or more obser-
vable in America than they are in Europe is at least open
to question, though it is a point of much interest in con-
nection with the impossibility, alleged by some, of the
Anglo-Saxon race ever becoming permanently fixed and
acclimatised in the New World.

The excessive heat of the season was here injuring the
buckwheat, blighting what was not set, and ripening too
fast that which had begun to fill. To this evil, buckwheat
is subject occasionally all over Northern America. In
the State of New York, I obtained a sample of a variety,
the excellence of which v»^as said to consist in its not
being subject to blight from the midsummer sun.

Leaving Nixon's after breakfast, we were about to enter
the forest again at the distance of about a mile, when we
were brought up by a burned bridge, the embers of
which were still smoking. The fire had communicated

120 A BURNED BRIDGE.

to it from the burning woods, and consumed it probably
during the night. But we were not long detained.
Doffing our coats, and obeying the directions of our
companion, Mr Brown, we rigged up beams, along
which we guided the carriage across the brook ; and then,
yoking the horses anew, were under weigh after little
more than an hour's agreeable amusement. Twelve miles
farther brought us to Steeves's, through narrow clearings
on each side of the road, comfortable-looking farms and
farm-houses, and occasional good land.

While our horses were resting, I engaged a light wag-
gon, and drove three miles off the main road to the banks
of the North E,iver, to inspect an outcrop of limestone at
a short distance from which gypsum was said to occur ;
while, within about a mile, salt springs also were known.
We found some good farms along this part of the North
River, and good land derived from the mixed calcareous
and sandstone debris. The limestone was hard, destitute
of apparent fossils, and, as subsequent analyses showed,
very pure, and admirably fitted for agricultural purposes.
It had been quarried for building, but the application of
lime to the land was in this district scarcely known.

The bed of limestone was in contact with, and appa-
rently overlying a coarse red sandstone, which effervesced
strongly with acids, and which I afterwards found to
contain as much as seventeen and a-half per cent of
carbonate of lime, and half a per cent of gypsum. The
presence of so large a portion of lime in a sandstone, in
the states of carbonate and sulphate, must add very much
to the capabilities of any soil that is formed from it.

At Steeves's, where we had stopped to rest our horses,
the Petitcodiac ceased to be navigable for canoes, and an
Indian portage commenced of twelve or thirteen miles to
the navigable waters of the Salmon River, which flows
south-westward, and, joining the Kenebecasis, ultimately
falls into the River St John. Thirteen miles brought us

BEAUTY OF THE VALE OF SUSSEX. 121

to Macleod's at the end of the portage, and as many
more to Sheck's in the Yale of Sussex, along the bottom
of which the Salmon Biver flows. The country through
Tvhich the road ran was very parched ; the soil sandy
and gravelly, as red sandstone soils often are, but
mixed with frequent tracts of more useful land. Ex-
tensive flats occurred also, upon which, as w^e passed
over them, a wilderness of scrub and other pines pre-
vailed; while the high lands in the distance were covered
with the cheering broad-leaved foliage of hardwood
trees.

The ridges which on either hand border the Salmon
River open out as we approach Sussex Vale, and aff'ord
space for a broad valley, into which the traveller looks
down as he approaches by the high road, and is at once
struck with the scenery as among the finest of its kind
anywhere to be seen in the province of New Brunswick.
The whole valley is cleared and under culture. It is stud-
ded with rounded knolls and ridges of drifted sand and
gravel, the wrecks of the sandstones out of which the
valley has been scooped. On either hand the ground rises
into wooded hills and low mountains, rounded, as such
red rocks usually are ; while the river flowing through
the bottom of the valley, among scattered farms and
villages, and churches, and receiving tributaries from
every gorge, completes a picture which, when the crops
are ripe, as they now were, is very cheering and home-
like to look upon in an unsubdued country like this. On
the present, as well as on a subsequent occasion, when I
visited the Yale of Sussex, my impression was, that I
had seen few parts of the province which I should prefer
as a place of permanent settlement to the neighbourhood
of this beautiful valley.

The air was thick with smoke as we drove down the
valley towards our intended quarters ; fires were burning
in the woods in every direction, and from one spot I

122 MR EVANSON S HOME FAKM.

counted no less than five-and-twenty burnings visible at
the same time in the primeval forest.

SOth August. — Early in the morning, I drove over to
visit Mr Evanson, an Old Country settler, who owns a
fine estate in one of the richest parts of the valley. The
intervale land through which the river flows, produces
2^ tons of hay an acre, and is valued at £10 an acre.
The undulating slightly elevated land on which Mr
Evanson's home farm rests is a red loamy clay, is valued
at £7, 10s. an acre, and produces 25 bushels of wheat,
35 of oats, 40 of buckwheat, and 250 to 300 of potatoes.
This farm of 400 acres — 200 acres still in wood, 30 in
crop, and the rest in grass, with a house for a gentleman
to live in, and other buildings — he valued at £3000.
This is high for the country, however, being at the rate
of £7, 10s. an acre for cleared and uncleared land
together.

In this district some farms are let on a money-rent;
though, as I have already said, this kind of farming is
not popular in North America. It prev^ails more here, I
believe, because this Sussex Vale is an eligible spot,
likely to attract by its appearance a settler from the
Old Ooimtry, and because it is easily accessible from the
port of St John, where most of the emigrants land.

I walked over the farm of Andrew Alton, a Scotch-
man, which consists of 100 acres of good land of different
qualities, lying between the true flat intervale and the
upland. It is valued at £7 an acre, and he pays £44
a-year of rent for the whole — or 9s. an acre — which in
other parts of the province would be considered a high
rent. He had 12 acres in oats, 3^ in buckwheat, 4J-
in potatoes, 3^ in turnips, cuts 30 acres for hay, and has
the rest in pasture. He keeps 16 cows in milk, 7
young cattle, makes 30 cwt. of cheese, and works his
land with one pair of horses. His farm is held on a lease
of seven years; he thinks his rent moderate, has no

EXHAUSTING MODE OF CROPPlNa. 123

difficulty in paying it, and finds a market at St John.
Ayrshire and Durham cattle, he assured me, stood the
winter admirably.

Tenant-farming, as I have said, is rare ; but the agri-
cultural reader will judge whether landlord or tenant is
likely to benefit most by the course of cropping which
is followed. On Mr Alton's farm, some of the oats
were the third crop without manure ; and eight crops in
succession, without manure, are common. Though a
Scotch farmer, and keeping so many cattle, Alton only
manured the little patch of turnips he raised. Clover,
when sown for the first time, grows three feet high the
first year — as it used to do in more virgin days on the
Carse of Gowrie in Scotland ; but the New Brunswick
farmers contrive to take the proud luxuriance out of the
land as eifectually as any Perthshire farmer, even of the
old war times, could do. Red clover and Timothy grass
are sown on the wheat. The first year, 2 tons of hay
are cut, nearly all clover — the second year, little clover —
the third year, all Timothy. After this it is cut eight
or ten years, or as long as it yields one-half or three-
fourths of a ton per acre. It is then ploughed out for
oats, and after potatoes and wheat is laid down again for
a similar exhausting treatment by means of hay.

It is evident, therefore, that the tenant-farmer In New
Brunswick, if he can only content himself to remain a
tenant, has the best of the bargain. He takes the
cream off the land and leaves it ; and as tenants are in
request, he can easily shift to another farm, or can take
any good opportunity which may present itself of buying
for himself.

An adjoining farm to this of Mr Alton's is let to an
English tenant, for a rent of £90. It consists of 120
acres of rich land, chiefly rich intervale, yielding 2 J to
3 tons of hay an acre, and, with buildings, is valued at
£2000. In proportion to the supposed value of the

124 TOWN OF HAMPTON.

farm, the rent appears lower in tlils case than In that
of Alton.

A drive of twelve miles down the Salmon River,
through similar red land, generally light, but often good,
brought us to Baxter's. Within about four miles, two
considerable streams join the Salmon River from the
west ; beyond which the united streams are called the
Kenebecasis ; and, the river valley narrowing, we leave
Sussex Yale behind.

Near the mouth of the lowest of these streams I saw
a farm of 500 acres, of which 150 were cleared, includ-
ing a portion of intervale land. The owner on this
farm supports a large family, raises nearly all they re-
quire for home consumption, such as grain, flax, &c.,
and realises from £50 to £150 a-year.

After twelve miles more of a beautiful drive down the
Kenebecasis, we arrived at the town of Hampton, where
we crossed the river on our way to St John. On leaving
Sussex Yale, we found ourselves upon a coarse red sand-
stone conglomerate, which accompanied us for some miles
below Hampton, and formed a surface naturally much
more difficult to improve, and therefore less valuable to
the purchaser, than the red land we had left behind us.
Rocks and stones were strewed plentifully over the
slopes. Masses of the hard conglomerate protruded
from the soil, and deterred the poorer, less adventurous,
or less persevering cultivators. Still, much labour had
here and there been expended upon this forbidding-
surface. Good soils had rewarded those who found
courage enough to clear them of trees and stones, and
the beautiful landscape gave, in a stranger's eye, a double
value to homes established in spite of obstacles in this
portion of the county of King's.

At the town of Hampton, I had the pleasure of meeting
some of the most intelligent members of the agricultural
society of this county. They assured me that an indus-

INFERIOR ENERGY OF THE PROVINCIAL BORN. 125

trious emigrant, without capital, will thrive even in this
more stony part of their district; and that, though he
must bear privations, yet they never knew a failure.
Here, too, the praise of superior industry and perse-
verance was awarded to the emigrant in comparison
with the provincial-born native. This opinion from the
mouths of natives is certainly very provoking, since I
can sincerely say, after a very long tour in the province,
that, In my opinion, a finer-looking body of yeomanry is
not to be seen In any part of the world. The first pro-
vincial-born generation shoots up tall and handsome
men and women, pleasant to look upon. It maybe that
the more slender form Is inclined less to steady labour,
and that, with the bodily figure, the habits and tempers of
the descendants of Industrious settlers change also. But
where men are submitted to so many new Influences,
as they are In this new country, it Is very difficult to
specify or distinguish how much of any observed change
of habits is due to each.

The Kenebecasis, below Hampton, widens into a series
of lakes, which, at the distance of about twenty miles,
open out into the St John River a few miles above its
mouth. Along the borders of this expanded river, inter-
vale and marsh lands occur. Every old upland farm
possesses more or less of each of these varieties, which
are especially esteemed for the quantity of hay they
yield. In wet seasons, when the river Is high, the
intervale and upland give abundance of fodder; while
in dry seasons, when the upland is parched, the water
sinks below the level of the marsh lands, which then
become accessible, and yield a coarse and rushy, but
nutritive hay.

One farm of this kind, now on sale, seven miles
below Hampton, consisting of 200 acres in all — of which
30 acres are marsh and intervale, and 80 cleared upland,
and which cuts 40 tons of hay — Is valued at £600

126 A DISCONTENTED lEISHMAN.

currency. Another, containing 100 acres of upland, of
which about 60 are cleared, and as much marsh as cuts
20 tons of hay, is offered for £400. Men of small
capital, therefore, would find at once in this district a
comfortable provision, not of luxuries, but of necessaries
for their families, by the purchase of such farms as these.

From Hampton to Hammond Bridge the drive was
very beautiful. The low marsh and river on our right,
the picturesque trap ridges and isolated hills, the rounded
conglomerate masses, covered with hardwood timber,
and the distant mountain ranges, were all finely brought
out and blended together by the sinking sun. The road
lay along the upturned edges of conglomerate rocks,
dipping at a high angle towards the river ; and the
surface, as before, was covered with detached masses of
the rock, and with drifted sand and gravel. Though the
removal of the stones from such land must be very
laborious, yet we passed by the way several fine farm-
houses, with much completely cleared and apparently
good land.

From this point (eleven miles to St John) a change
came over the country. We entered a region of more
or less metamorphic intermingled slate and trap rocks,
on which lay poor, sandy, and gravelly soils. Here and
there scattered clearings were seen, but the greater part
of the surface is still covered with forests of native pine.

About a mile after we had crossed the Hammond
Bridge, I entered the log-hut of a poor Irishman upon a
small clearing. Though he had been many years in the
province, and was still in the prime of life, he was
miserably poor and discontented. He was almost the
only one of his countrymen whom I had met with, up to
this time, in New Brunswick, who had nothing but com-
plaints to make of the country, and of the hard work he
was doomed to. He had landed near the place, and had
never moved farther, because he had no one to depend

DYKED MARSH OF ST JOHN. 127

upon hut liwiself. He was a kind of squatter, supported
himself as a day-labourer, and was evidently one of
those inconsiderate, idly-disposed, discontented men, of
whom too many, unfortunately for Ireland, love to
linger and complain on our own side of the Atlantic.

We reached St John at nine P.M., after travelling
three hundred and eighty-two miles with the same pair
of horses, in very hot weather, and at the rate of about
fifty miles a-day.

\st Sept. — In the neighbourhood of St John there is a
large tract of dyked marsh, containing upwards of a
thousand acres. This consists of a black, spongy, vege-
table mould, very different from, and inferior in quality
to, the rich, alluvial, dyked land of the head-waters of
the Bay of Fundy, hereafter to be described. At the
mouths of nearly all the rivers which empty themselves
into the Atlantic, along the shores of New England and
New Brunswick, such inferior marsh lands are met with.
They abound in vegetable matter, yield large crops of
hay in favourable seasons ; but when dyked round and
defended from the sea, rarely form rich and productive
corn-bearing land. Like our peaty or fenny soils at
home, they are propitious to green crops and the growth
of straw, but do not generally fill the ear.

The marsh land of St John lies in a narrow valley,
bordered by high ground on each side, but itself very
little elevated above the sea. The upper end of the flat
is only two feet above high-water mark ; but as the tide
rises here twenty-seven feet, its height is considerable
above mean-water level, and the entrance of high tides
is prevented by a sluice at the mouth of the valley.

I visited what is considered one of the best farms on
this flat. It consists of 120 acres of marsh, and 100 of
upland. The upland is partially cleared, and affords
pasture and firewood, but the marsh alone is under
arable culture. The whole is rented for i'150 a-year

128 PEICE OF FARMS NEAR ST JOHN.

currency. It requires high manuring ; but when well
cultivated, any part of it, the tenant said, would produce
four tons, and I was assured that five tons of hay was
occasionally reaped from such land. About St John,
and generally along the Bay of Fundy, fogs occasionally
prevail. St John has about a month of summer fogs,
which are not considered prejudicial to health ; and
though unfavourable to Indian corn, they encourage the
growth of grass. Turnip culture has extended very
much during the last three or four years in the province ;
and upon this dyked land farm, and on those of Dr
Peters and Mr Davidson, both within a mile or two of
St John, I saw excellent crops of this root.

That of Dr Peters is an upland farm, the soil a light
granitic sand, and gravel, naturally poor, and exhausted
by previous tenants. The practice of tenants hitherto,
in this neighbourhood, had been the same in principle as
I had already seen in so many other places — to take a
crop of oats, lay down to grass, and cut as long as any-
thing was to be got, then to try oats again, followed by
grass as before ; and when to such alternations it would
yield nothing more, to give it up to the landlord. It
contains 160 acres, of which 50 were cleared when he
bought it for £320, or at the rate of £10 an acre all
over. By manuring heavily with cowfeeders' and
slaughter-house manure, which is here got for sixpence
sterling a cart, he is compelling the exhausted land to
yield beautiful crops.

The adjoining farms, containing 120 acres of upland,
similar to that of Dr Peters, and 40 acres of marsh,
capable of growing ninety tons of hay, with house and
barns, was on sale at the price of £600.

These farms are near a good market, but they are on
an old slate country, distinguished for thin, cold, poor,
and gravelly soils, over which, with the exception of a
few more favoured spots, only scattered clearings and a

RATES OF WAGES IN NEW BRUNSWICK.

129

sparse population extend nearly all the way along the
northern shores of the Bay of Fundy, from St John to
St Andrews, a distance of sixty-five miles. It is repul-
sive, therefore, to the emigrant, and will be occupied and
tilled much more slowly than some of those inland parts
of the province of which I have already spoken,

Dr Peters had two farm-servants, to each of whom he
paid £40 a-year without board. Mr Macarthy, on the
dyked land, gave his head-man £30 currency in money,
with a house, fuel, potatoes, and a cow ; and to his other
men from £15 to £25, besides their board. But in St
John, and the adjoining counties, wages are lower than
in any other part of the province, because so many
(especially of the Irish) emigrants linger here — as they
do elsewhere — near the port they arrive at, and work
for smaller wages rather than proceed into the interior,
where better land and better wages are to be obtained.

The following table exhibits the average rate of wages
for agricultural labour in the several counties of the
province, in addition to board, washing, and lodging, in
sterling money : —

COCNTIES.

By the Day.

By the Month.

For the
whole Year.

Summer.

Hay-time
and

Summer.

Hay-time
and

Harvest.

Harvest.

A*

s. d.

i- s. d.

£ s.

d.

£ s. d.

£ s. d.

Saint John,

...

2 0

0

19 10 0

Charlotte, . .

0

2 3

0 2* 8

2 7

8

3 b 0

22 0 0

Westmoreland,

0

1 9

0 3 0

1 12

6

3 5 0

20 13 9

King's, . . .

0

2 6

0 4 3

1 15

0

3 6 8

18 12 6

Queen's, . .

...

2 3

4

3 3 4

18 17 6

Suubury, . .

1 10

0

2 10 0

22 3 4

York, . . .

0

Tio

0 3 0

2 3

4

3 0 4

24 0 0

Castleton, . .

...

2 0

0

3 0 0

25 0 0

Albert, . . .

...

2 5

0

25 0 0

Kent, . . .

25 0 0

Northumberland,

2 10

0

3 0 0

27 0 0

The wages at the present time in Berwickshire (Scot-

VOL. I.

130 PROSPECTS OF THE LABOUREE.

land) for an able-bodied man, who can manage a pair
of horses, is £14 to £16 a-year, with board and lodging.
The wages in New Brunswick, therefore, even in the
depressed state of home agriculture, are not so much
greater as to induce the farm-labourer, who can obtain
employment, to emigrate to this colony for the purpose
of working as a labourer. But the prospective advan-
tage to him is, that he can obtain land for himself at
so cheap a rate, when — after working a year or two for
wages, (which I would recommend him contentedly to
do,) till he has obtained so much acquaintance with
the country and its customs as to enable him judiciously
to select a location for himself — he has saved money
enough to pay the first instalment for his land, and
keep his family during the first winter season.

CHAPTER Y

By steamboat from St John to Portland, in Maine, and thence by rail-
way to Newhaven, in Connecticut. — Alleged I'udeness of American
manners. — Country houses along the approach to Boston. — Drought
in New England. — Farming in Connecticut and Massachusetts. —
Diffusion of agricultural periodicals. — Cider-making in Connecticut. —
Yale College. — Number of Students. — Expense of residence. — Inferior
position of professional men. — Salaries of clergymen. — Estimation of
lawyers and medical men. — Favouring of quacks in the majority of
the States. — Medical schools in the United States. — Opening for
European medical practitioners. — Elm-trees of Newhaven. — Tree-
toad.— Fairhaven ; its oyster-trade. — Two species of American oysters
of large size. — Consumption of oysters in Massachusetts. — Railway to
Albany up the Housatonic valley. — Light soils and Indian corn of
this valley. — Post-tertiary clays and sands of the upper valley of the
Hudson River and of Lake Champlain. — Natural forests which grow
upon them.— Power of their soils to resist drought. — Exhalation from
the leaves of plants.—Relation of the porosity of a soil to this exhala-
tion.-— Why di-ained and mellowed clay is moister in a hot summer
than undrained.— Schenectady. — Valley of the Mohawk.— Chai'acter
of its soils and produce. — Rich bottoms of the Mohawk resting on
the Utica slate. — Broom corn, {Sorghum saccharatum,) its extensive
cultivation in this valley.— German flats. — Utica a thriving manufac-
turing town. — German population.— Change in the meaning of familiar
words. — Importance of keeping the English language pure. — Choice
of judges by popular election. — Apparent danger of this practice. —
Titular judges and generals. — Popped corn. — Structure of Indian
corn. — Extraction of oil from this grain in the Western States. — Flour
of Indian corn; varieties in its colour; used in the adulteration of
wheaten flour. — Digestive powers of animals. — City of Rome. — Mr
Clay. — Verona. — Change in the character of the countiy. — Arrival at
Syracuse.

Sept. 4. — At eight In tlie morning, I went on board
the small steamer which plied between St John and

132 ALLEGED KUDENESS OF THE PEOPLE.

the town of Eastport, in Maine, on my way to the state
of New York. Steaming in the Bay of Fundy is not
always agreeable, even in large boats. The day was
fine, however, and we made the distance of seventy
miles to Eastport in about eight hours. There we were
received on board of a larger steamer, which conveyed
us to Portland, in Maine, by half-past eight on the fol-
lowing morning, in time for a railway train about to
start for Boston. At 2 p.m. I arrived in Boston, being
five and a half hours for a hundred and eleven miles, five
hours being the usual time. Starting again at 4 P.M.
from Boston by the New York line, I reached Newhaven,
in Connecticut, at 11 P.M., being a hundred and sixty
miles in seven hours, or about twenty-three miles an
hour.

In this rapid run through New England, only three
things made a permanent impression on my mind. These
were, first, that the general rudeness of the people which
travellers speak of is not perceptible in New England
generally. It may be more striking in the Western
States ; but if, on our home railways, all classes were
indiscriminately mixed up in large carriages — cars, as
they call them here — containing fifty or sixty people, I
doubt if Old England passengers would, as a whole,
behave as well as those of New England do. The
second thing was the numerous country boxes or cot-
tages, of all fashions and sizes, with their white painted
walls and green jalousies, which skirted the railway
during the last twenty miles of our ride to Boston.
This is a peculiarly English feature, and indicates the
existence among our Transatlantic kindred of that love
of green fields, and of a quiet country life, which char-
acterises so much our island-home. By the operation
of this feeling, as is the case around our own great
cities, the wealth of the growing commercial city of
Boston is carried out to the country residences of its

GROWTH OF TOBACCO. 133

merchants^ and Is on a thousand spots in course of being
expended in clearing and improving the stony and In
fertilising the gravelly and sandy soils of which a large
portion of the surface of Massachusetts consists. And
my third observation was, that though the drought of
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had extended into
Maine, its effects became less perceptible as I advanced
westward into the other New England States, till, in
Connecticut, the fields looked as beautifully green as I
had seen them last at the mouth of the Mersey; and
the after-grass was abundant.

Along the Connecticut Elver, which runs through the
centre of this state, there is much good land, and tobacco
in considerable quantity is grown. upon it. The produce
per acre is from 1500 to 2500 pounds of marketable
tobacco. This is a very exhausting crop, as all leaf
crops are ; and land must be generously used which is to
continue long to yield crops such as these.

The farming of Connecticut is said to have greatly
improved during the last fifteen years, and this is ascribed
in part, and probably with some truth, to the extensive
circulation and perusal of agricultural papers. In the
small country town of Farmlngton, (of two thousand
inhabitants,) for example, a friend of mine assured me
that not less that fifty agricultural papers were taken in
by the inhabitants. And most of these papers — the
American Agriculturist and American Cultivator^ for
example — are really well and usefully got up, and filled
with valuable information.

A similar Improving character Is ascribed to the farm-
ing of Massachusetts, but less is said in favour of New
Hampshire and other parts of New England. Of the
first settlers in Connecticut and Massachusetts, many
were from the west and south-west of England, from
which places they naturally brought some parts of their
old home husbandry, as that of apple-growing and cider-

134 YALE COLLEGE.

making. The quantity of cider formerly made and
drunk in this state is said to have been immense. It is,
I suppose, from this being a staple branch of husbandry,
that our home saying, " Great cry and little wool," ori-
ginating in the noise made at the scraping of a pig, has
here assumed the form of " More cry than cider."

9th Sept. — Newhaven in Connecticut is known in
Europe chiefly as the seat of Yale College, one of the
oldest and most respected of the academical institutions
in the United States. It was founded in 1700, has at
present 531 resident students, of whom 386 are under-
graduates, 52 students in its theological, 33 in its law,
and 41 in its medical school.* The Orthodox Congre-
gational body are the prevailing denomination in the
state of Connecticut; and Yale College, though in no
way exclusive, and having no tests, is under the manage-
ment of trustees and instructors, who are for the most
part of this denomination. Rooms are provided in the
college buildings for about one-half of the under-gra-
duates, the rest living in lodgings in the town, and all
dining in private houses or clubs, as is the custom
in the German universities. The total annual expense
of a residence at college is about 150 dollars, or a
little more than thirty pounds, made up as follows, —

Tuition fees, . . . . . 33 dollars.

Room-rent, &c., . . . . 21 —

Board (forty weeks,) . . 64 to 90 —

Wood, lights, washing, furniture, \ ^

stationery, &c., . . . /

Total, . . . . 150 to 215 —

So that about 200 dollars, or £42 sterling, will, on a
liberal scale, defray all the necessary residence expenses
of under-graduates. The medical institution in connec-

* The above was in session '49-50. In the present of '50-51, the
number of under-graduates is 432, and the whole number of i-esident
students, 555.

POSITION OF PROFESSIONAL MEN. 135

tlon with Yale College was established in 1810, and the
theological department as late as 1822. The former has
six and the latter four professors. I do not know whether
the expense of the purely professional education is greater
than that of students in arts. A step has recently been
taken towards a provision of special education for the
agricultural and higher industrial classes, by the estab-
lishment of chairs of chemistry in its application to the
arts, and of chemistry in its relations to agriculture and
physiology. These departments have been placed respec-
tively under the charge of Benjamin Silliman, jun.,
whose father has so long enjoyed a European reputation,
and, by his writings, made his college known where
otherwise it would never have been heard of; and of
my friend, and former pupil, Professor Norton, who is
already favourably known in this country, as well as in
his own.

A circumstance which early strikes the European tra-
veller in the United States, is the comparatively small
consideration in which professional men are held, and
the small salaries they in general receive. The former
may be supposed to arise from the more universal dif-
fusion of a certain amount of instruction than is the case
in most European countries — and this is no doubt in part
the cause. But it is partly due also to the theoretical and
practical political equality of all citizens, which appears
to induce, among the masses of ordinarily educated men,
an impression that higher intellectual gifts or attainments
are, generally speaking, no sufficient reasons for social
distinctions or higher consideration. Every man you
meet thinks himself capable of giving an opinion upon
questions of the most difficult kind ; and, for the most
part, the masses seem, by their choice at public elections,
to prefer to be guided by the less rather than by the more
educated of their fellow-citizens.

In the country districts, five to eight hundred dollars

136 MEDICAL QUACKERY IN THE STATES.

are considered a fair salary for a clergyman. In tlie
cities, from eight to twelve hundred are given, and, in
rare cases, or to especial favourites, fifteen hundred.*

Of professional men, the lawyers succeed best, as the
same theoretical equality which makes a man think his
own opinion as good as his neighbour's naturally pro-
motes litigation, and makes the lawyer necessary, and
the clever lawyer sought after and honoured.

Medical men are perhaps the worst off, as, in most of
the States, the educated physician has no defence against
the quack. In only six out of the thirty-three States are
there any laws making licenses necessary to the practice
of medicine, or which place the educated physician in
any respect in a better position than the pretender : these
are New Jersey, Delaw^are, the district of Columbia,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Michigan. In the other States,
any man may call himself a doctor, may practise, and
may sue for his fees ; and, in many cases, a discerning
public prefers the self-taught genius to the man of edu-
cation.

In the United States there are at present thirty-five
medical schools, with 4566 students, w^hich send out on
an average about 1300 graduates annually ; but it is cal-
culated that, to supply fully the demand of the growing
country, 2500 graduates should leave these schools every
year. Under such circumstances, quackery must abound,
unless the schools of Europe aid largely in adding to the
stock of home-made surgeons and physicians.

The salaries paid to the clergy may be taken as a fair
measure of their status among a Protestant people.
Hence, if £100 to £160 a-year be the usual stipends paid
to the clergy as a body, in a country where the labouring
man and the mechanic obtains a considerably higher
w^age than with us, the estimation in which he is held

* A hundred dollars are about £21 sterling.

THE TREE-TOAD. 137

must also be less elevated above that of the working
classes than it is in the Old Country. But things will
probably alter as age creeps upon the young States, and
as men of leisure arise, who shall really have time, not
merely to skim the surface of the various departments of
knowledge, but to sound their depths, and bring up from
below some of those rarer pearls, which long intellectual
labour alone secures, but which even unintellectual men
can admire, and are willing both to praise and purchase.

Newhaven stands on a broad sandy and gravelly flat,
which extends along the head of one of those numerous
bays which, at short distances, indent nearly the whole
of the Atlantic border of the New England States.
The town is regular, well built, and increasing, but
presents nothing so worthy of remark as the numerous
rows of elm-trees with which its public square and some
of the more private streets are ornamented. Of the
beauty of the American elm I have already spoken ;
but though it appears to thrive well here, I saw none
possessed of that rare beauty which has so often struck
me in single specimens, groups, or rows of these trees
in their native forests, or by the sides of streams,
where art had not yet interfered to alter the arrange-
ments of nature.

A novelty which early arrested my attention at New-
haven was the chirping or whistling of the tree-toad,
Hyla versicolor^ which, from the noise one hears filling
the whole air as evening approaches, must live in great
numbers among the branches of the elm-trees. Of
toads possessing a peculiar prehensile apparatus resem-
bling claws, which enables them to cling to the under
side of smooth branches, which devour insects, and are
usually found upon trees, there are at least two species
in the United States — the northern tree-toad and the
squirrel tree-toad. The former is the only one generally
known in New England and New York. It is about

138 ABUNDANCE OF OYSTERS.

two inches in length, is broad across the head and shoul-
ders, has an irregular dusky cross on its back, and varies
in colour at will, from grey to green. This variation in
colour makes it difficult to be seen upon trees. During
damp weather it is peculiarly clamorous, especially in
the fall of the year. It is here considered, along with
the fall of the leaf, as one of the sensible harbingers of
winter. As evening approached, these animals began
to chirp in the trees opposite my window ; and from
that time till I fell asleep in bed, the air was filled with
a low whistling or whispering sound, somewhat resem-
bling a sharp rustling of the wind among the leaves.
The tree-toad is rarely heard in the morning, when
a perfect stillness prevails. It is difficult to convey an
exact idea of the sound this animal emits, as it is some-
thing of a ventriloquist, and often deceives the most
attentive observers, who are looking for and endea-
vouring to catch it. The southern or squirrel tree-toad
is brown in colour, and has a length of only an inch
and a quarter. I have not heard its note, if it has any.

Opposite to Newhaven, on the other side of the
bay, stands Fairhaven, a town with three conspicuous
churches, which is supported entirely by its trade in
oysters. All along this coast, from the Gulf of St Law-
rence to the Delaware and the Chesapeake, oysters
abound, either naturally or in consequence of artificial
importation, and are an article of extensive consumption
and large traffic. They are a constant dish at table,
sometimes as often as twice a-day. They are shelled,
and, with the liquor contained in the shells, are sold at
about a dollar a gallon. In winter, these shelled oysters,
frozen in their own juice, are sent by the railways in ton
loads, and are greatly prized in the interior.

It would appear that the oyster abounded in most of
the New England bays when the country was first
colonised ; but the supply for the markets of all the large

OYSTER-TRADE OF BOSTON. 139

towns is now obtained from the south,* — from the bays
of New York chiefly, and from the Delaware and the
Chesapeake. Two species of oyster are known on this
coast — the Ostrea horealis and the Ostrea virginiana^
commonly distinguished as the northern and southern
oysters. Both grow to a large size compared with our
English and Scotch oysters. A common size of shell in
the northern species is five and six inches, though some
arrive at twelve inches in length and six in breadth : the
southern shell often measures twelve to fifteen inches in
length, by not more than three inches in breadth.

The fishermen of New England and New York import
the oysters from their native beds, on the mud banks of
the southern shores, in a young state, and plant them in
layers near their own homes, where they increase in size
and flavour, and grow in numbers, though not fast
enough to supply the home demand. I had no opportu-
nity of obtaining accurate information in regard to the
oyster-trade which supports the town of Fairhaven ; but
its extent may in some measure be judged of by what
Dr Augustus A. Gould has stated in regard to the same
trade in Boston. The oysters consumed in Massachu-
setts, he says, amount to about 100,000 bushels a-year,
and they are sold wholesale at a dollar a bushel. The
beds — or scalps^ as they are called in Scotland — are
chiefly situated at Wellfleet, near Cape Cod. About
40,000 bushels of small young oysters are annually
imported, and planted in this place. Thirty vessels, of
about forty tons each, are engaged in the trade, employ-
ing one hundred and twenty men for three months in the
year. In the autumn the oysters are taken up again,
and those are selected which have grown to a proper size
for market. The vast quantities of oyster-shells one sees
employed as rubbish to fill up hollows in the outskirts of

* Dr Goiildj Invertelrata of Massachusetts, p. 358.

140 LARGE HOTELS.

Boston, are proof enough to a stranger of the vast con-
sumption of this fish which must there take place.

In the bay of Newhaven there are certain public layers
or beds, which are open to every comer at certain pre-
scribed seasons of the year ; but there are also numerous
private layers, which are the property of individuals,
whose rights are strictly preserved by law. They form,
in fact, their stock in trade.

10th Sept. — After spending four days at Newhaven,
I started this morning early for Syracuse, in Western
New York, in company with Professor Norton. The
annual fair or show of the New York State Agricul-
tural Society was to be held at that place in a few
days, and I had, at the request of the Council of the
Society, agreed to deliver the Annual address. For the
first eighteen miles we skirted Long Island Sound, on
the New York line. At Bridgeport we took the Housa-
tonic line, which runs inland along the river of the same
name for ninety-seven miles, when we joined the western
line, which carried us to Albany, a further distance of
thirty-eight miles. The train was heavy, the number of
passengers large, and the delay caused by the luggage
considerable ; so that we did not arrive at our hotel in
Albany till about eight o'clock in the evening. In this
city there are several good hotels. We went to Dela-
van's, which, like several of the others, is a temperance
house, and is particularly convenient for railway travel-
lers. About a hundred and fifty of our fellow-passengers
by the railway came to the same house, and were all
accommodated. About an hour after our arrival, tea
was announced, and we all sat down together in the
dining-hall. On the following morning, all who were
going west were called an hour and a quarter before the
train started ; in half-an-hour after this, breakfast was
on the table ; in another quarter, carts were at the door
for the luggage ; and at six A. M. we were again steam-

CLAYS AND PINE-BARRENS AROUND ALBANY. 141

Ing from Albany, along the railway, towards Western
New York.

The day was fine as we came np the Housatonic
Valley. Soon after leaving Newhaven, we passed
from the new red sandstone of Connecticut to the old
slate and metamorphic rocks, and along these we con-
tinued most of the way to Albany. The soil in general
was light and stony, resting for the most part on gravelly
and sandy drift. Such light soils are adapted to the
culture of Indian corn, and we saw many fields of this
grain as we came along. It was indeed the only bread-
stuff we saw during the day, with the exception of an
occasional field of buckwheat, where the soil was espe-
cially poor. The rolling upper valley of the Hudson
Eiver, towards which we descend on approaching Albany,
contains much strong yellow clay, the same post-tertiary
clay which borders Lake Champlain, and thence stretches
north and east along the banks of the St Lawrence.

This formation is a hundred feet thick upon Lake
Champlain, and it forms high banks along the Hudson
Kiver in the neighbourhood of Albany. It consists, in
the under part, of stiff blue clay, resting upon the grooved
rocks or upon beds of drift; above this, of a lighter
coloured clay, pale brown or drab, containing shells of
existing species ; and, over all, a deposit of yellow sand,
sometimes loamy and fertile, but often barren, and
sustaining only stunted pines. The soils, the natural
vegetation, and the agricultural capabilities of the dis-
trict over which this formation extends, vary according
as the upper sand remains on the surface, or has been
more or less completely removed by natural causes.
The stiff clays bear natural forests of hardwood trees of
various kinds ; but when cleared, and put under crop,
the clay hardens, cracks, and becomes parched under the
hot suns of summer. The sandy loams which rest upon
the clay nourish numerous pines stretching along the

142 ABSORBENT POWER OF THE SOIL.

country as broad pine-barrens, on which the beautiful
white pine is the predominating and characteristic tree ;
wliile the pure sands, which form the uppermost layer,
are covered by the yellow pine [Pinus mitis.) Of these
latter, when brought into cultivation, experience has
shown that the loamy sands are less affected by the
heat than the stiff clays, but that the apparently purer
sands bear the drought better than either. The mecha-
nical porosity of a soil, in fact, has almost as much to
do with its power of resisting scorching heats in sum-
mer, as any other of its properties, either physical or
chemical.

This will appear very plain by a reference to one
consideration only. The leaves of plants exhale watery
vapour in large quantity, and this quantity increases
with the intensity of the summer heat. No experiments
have been made on this subject in America, I believe ;
but in the cooler climate of England, an acre of our
cultivated crops has been estimated to exhale from its
leaves, during the four months of summer, about three
million pounds of water 5* while in the same time there
falls, of available rain, not more than eight hundred
thousand pounds — little more than a fourth of the
exhalation. The soil and the plant, therefore, must
inhale from the air during the cool night far more water
than they derive from the rain that falls, however grate-
ful and refreshing to plants this may be.

Now, the more porous a given soil is made, the more
absorbent it is of moisture from the air, and hence one
reason why light soils suffer less from drought than
heavy soils — why heavy clay soils are so much improved

* Mr Lawes, in some recently published experiments, found the
quantity of water exhaled to be less than it was estimated to be from
the experiments referred to in the text. But his results also show that
plants must derive moisture from some other source than the rain-water
that sinks into the soil.

VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK EIVER. 143

by under drainage, whicli prevents the sun from baking,
hardening, and making them compact and non-absor-
bent— why drained land is in reality moister in summer,
because more porous than the undrained — and why even
in our tropical, sun-burned, sugar colonies, thorough-
drainage has been found to promote the growth of the
cane on stiff clay soils, and to increase the yield of
sugar.

llfh Sept. — On leaving Albany, we climbed a steep
gradient of one in eighty, till we reached the upper level
of the Hudson Valley. We then crossed about sixteen
miles of a rolling country — as a surface of rounded hills
and ridges succeeding each other is here graphically
called — of pale yellow post-tertiary sand, to Schenectady,
a town of eight thousand inhabitants, situated in the
valley of the ]\rohawk. This sandy tract forms a part
of the pine-barren of which I have spoken, as overlying
the post-tertiary clays of the Champlain and Hudson
River valleys.

The Mohawk is a river of considerable size, which
falls into the Hudson from the west, nearly opposite to
the city of Troy, and about eight miles above Albany.
The valley through which it flows, and which the rail-
way follows, occupies a distinguished place in the early
history of the State of New York. It was the site of
many of the earliest settlements in this western country,
and the scene of many interesting passages with the
native Indians. It is still the first fine valley which
attracts the longing regards of the European emigrants,
whom the Erie canal and the railroad carry in thousands
along the banks of the Mohawk Eiver towards new homes
in a still farther west.

As we rushed up the left bank of the river, the Erie
canal accompanied us on a higher level on the right or
opposite bank. It was crowded with vessels going and
coming, some laden with piles of casks filled already

144 CULTURE OF BROOl^I CORN.

with the flour of the present season. On the uplands
and slopes, sand and gravel prevailed, and there buck-
wheat and Indian corn were cultivated. The low allu-
vial flats or intervales, of which many occurred in the
bottom of the valley, bore heavy crops of Indian corn,
(maize,) and of broom corn — a crop unknown to our
home farmers.

The valley of the Mohawk, when compared with the
more western parts of the State, is distinguished agri-
culturally by its production of these two kinds of com ;
while the western counties, from the Oswego Hiver to the
Genesee River, and onwards even to Buffalo, form the
wheat region which, under the name of the Genesee
country, attracted so much attention as an eligible place
of settlement towards the close of the last century.

Sixteen miles above Schenectady we passed the town
of Amsterdam, above which the Mohawk River runs for
a great many miles through the Utica slate. This slate,
an upper part of the lower Silurian rocks, is calcareous,
crumbles very readily under the influence of the weather,
and forms a rich, clayey, yet free and open soil. It is
when flowing over this formation that the Mohawk Val-
ley expands into extensive flats of great beauty, now
on this side of the river and now on that, where apple
orchards abound, and fields of Indian and broom corn
cover the rich alluvial soils.

Of these two crops, the broom corn [Sorghum saccha-
ratum) was the most abundant for ten miles above and
below the Little Falls of the Mohawk. To the eye of
a stranger, who sees it for the first time, it resembles
a crop of Indian corn ; it is nearly of the same height
and strength of stem, but it has a narrower leaf and
a branching head. This head or top is the only part
which is collected. When the fruit first appears, this
long head, which bears the seed, is bent down at a
right angle about two, or two and a half, feet from the

GERMAN FLATS AND SETTLEMENTS. 145

top, SO as to break the stem and arrest the flow of the
sap. This upper part is then left a few days to dry,
when it is cut off with a knife, leaving a high stubble
of one or two feet, which is afterwards ploughed in.
The seed is beat out of the tops, which are trimmed and
sorted, and are then ready for sale or for manufacture
into brooms on the spot. Brooms of this material are
of almost universal use in North America, and in favour-
able localities it generally proves a profitable crop.

Above Little Falls, where thriving w^oollen mills are
moved by the w^ater power, Indian corn alone, ripe, cut,
and standing in sheaves, covered the cultivated fields.
Such fields, along with extensive meadows, on which
large droves of milk-cows cropped the aftermath, filled
the entire bottom of the valley. About Herkimer, which
is eighty miles from Albany, the flat lands expand into
a beautiful broad valley, called the German Flats, on
which the quantity of Indian corn raised appeared quite
immense.

The name German Flats indicates the native home of
the settlers who first colonised this part of the Mohawk
Valley. Indeed, places with German names abound in
this quarter. Along the river lie the townships of Min-
den, Oppenheim, Manheim, Danube, and Frankfort;
and the mixed English and German sign-boards in the
villages, show that there are numbers of the inhabitants
to whom German is still the more familiar tongue.

The city of Utica, fifteen miles farther, stands on the
right bank of the river, in the midst of a broad expan-
sion of the valley, resembling the bed of a great lake.
It is a clean thriving place, of about fifteen thousand
inhabitants, has a striking main street — is the seat of
flourishing manufactories — is distinguished especially for
its woollen mills, but is adding rapidly also to the number
of its cotton factories. It is admirably situated for the

VOL. I. • K

146 USE OF TOWN FOR TOWNSHIP.

trade of the Western States. That it Is surrounded by
a large German population is shown by the Gasthaus,
Buchhandlung, and other German announcements which
are to be read in abundance on the fronts of the houses,
and over the shop-windows.

Winter rye appears to be sown very early in this
State. I had seen a field already sown upon the sandy
pine plain between Albany and Schenectady ; but near
Herkimer, on the banks of the Mohawk, I passed one
already above ground, {11th Sept.) and forming a beauti-
ful green braird.

Fourteen miles, chiefly through sandy, gravelly, and
swampy barrens, brought us to Rome, an aspiring vil-
lage in a town (ship) of the same name — remarkable
chiefly for its large hotels, and for the outlines of fine
streets which are hereafter to be built up.

Among the new meanings attached to old words which
one observes in this State of New York, is the sense in
which the word town is used even in legal phraseology.
For brevity's sake, I suppose, the word township has
gone out. of use, and town has taken Its place. A county
is divided into so many towns; and in a town, so many
villages, or even a city may spring up. This change in
the meaning of a familiar word perplexes very much
the stranger, is productive of inconvenience here, and is
much more injurious to the maintenance of a pure com-
mon speech between the Old Country and the New, than
any introduction of absolutely new words can ever be.

Thus, a town in western New York may be a square
of land, without a house or an inhabitant upon it ; and in
some places a street is merely a road through a partially
cleared township. Then all collections of houses are
necessarily called either villages or cities. Where places
are Incorporated, they become corporate villages ; and if
the aspirations of the inhabitants make them discontented
with this inferior title, they make Influence with the

MANY VILLAGES IN A TOWN. 147

legislature, and, by means of a little log-rolling^'^ get
themselves separated from the town, and raised at once
to the dignity of a city. The introduction of new Avords
enriches a language, but to give an old word a new
signification not only perplexes the hearer, but makes
the language poorer.

In a township, a village springs up which naturally
assumes the same name — in the town of Pompey or
Cassar, the villages of Pompey or Caesar spring up.
Then a second village, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and
these are called respectively, Pompey East, Pompey
West, North, and South. And, finally, at the cross roads
which lead to these several villages another springs up,
and this becomes Pompey four Corners^ and all these in
the town of Pompey.

Of course, the attaching of a new meaning to a few

* In Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, we have the follo'wdng
explanation of Log-o-olUng .•— " In the himber regions of Maine, it is cus-
tomaiy for men of different logging camps to appoint days for helping
each other in rolling the logs to the river, after they are felled and trim-
med— this rolling being about the hardest work incident to the business.
Thus the men of three or four camps will unite, say on Monday, to roll
for the camp No. 1— on Tuesday for camp No. 2— on Wednesday for
camp No. 3— and; so on through the whole number of camps within
convenient distance of each other.

" The term has been adopted in legislation to signify a like system of
mutual co-operation. For instance, a member from St Lawrence has a
pet bill for a plank road which he wants pushed through ; he accord-
ingly makes a bargain with a member from Onondaga who is coaxing
along a charter for a bank, by which St Lawrence agrees to vote for
Onondaga's bank, provided Onondaga will vote in turn for St Law-
rence's plank road.

" This is legislative log-rolling ; and there is abundance of it carried
on at Albany every winter.

" Generally speaking, the subject of the log-rolling is some merely
local project, interesting only to the people of a certain district ; but
sometimes there is party log-rolhng, where the Whigs, for instance, will
come to an understanding with the Democrats, that the former shall
not oppose a certain Democratic measure merely on party grounds,
provided the Democrats will be equally tender to some Whig measure
in return. J- Inman."

148 IMPOETANCE OF PUEITY IN THE ENGLISH TONGUE.

0

single words is of no great consequence in itself ; but I
mention this instance for the purpose of illustrating the
way in which changes may insensibly be induced in our
mother tongue, while the words in use remain the same.
Where two countries speaking the same language have
different literary and courtly centres, the gradual growth
of differences in the speech can scarcely be avoided.
Such causes of diversity between the older forms of
speech which prevailed at the same period in London and
Edinburgh anciently existed in the rival courts of those
cities ; diversities of a similar origin have given rise to
the now distinct dialects, almost distinct languages, of
Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland; and if the German
tongue remains still common and intelHgible over the
whole Fatherland, it is because a common literature still
binds the people of the various governments together,
and a common theatre and drama mould the speech of
Vienna, Berlin, and Hanover, in spite of the peculiarities
of fashion which give a special character to the pronun-
ciation and choice of words in each of the several courts.
No language, probably, ever existed which it is of so
much importance to mankind to preserve pure as the
English. It is now spread over so vast a portion of the
civilised globe that in it we may almost hope to see
realised, for the intercommunion of the people, what the
Latin tongue was to the learned of former centuries. It
is, emphatically, the language of constitutional freedom
and of civilised progress. If the community of speech
puts within the reach of the most ignorant and ill-
intentioned editor of the meanest periodical, in either
country, the foolish or ill-natured sayings of his
brethren of the craft in England, America, Africa, or
Australia, and thus enables bad men to excite evil pas-
sions, to create enmities, and to awaken national bitter-
ness, which, for the welfare of the Anglo-Saxon race and
the general good of mankind, it is desirable rather to

JUDGES ELECTED BY POPULAR SUFFEAGE. 149

soothe down and suppress — It forms a bond of union also
which makes the intellect of this vast population, and all
its triumphs, the almost instantaneous property of its
remotest members ; which makes countless hearts beat,
and pulses throb in common sympathy, and which opens
no less readily to the accents of peace than to those of
war an entrance to many ears — as the sound of the
ancient tongue of his country is said to command an
immediate and easy admission for the peace-bearing
doctrines of the gospel to the heart of the Irish moun-
taineer.

Among the advertisements contained in the New York
papers of to-day, I was struck with one which referred
to the elections to be held in that city on the first Tues-
day of November, and which specified, among other
ofiicers to be elected by the suffrage of '^all male citizens
of twenty-one years of age," —

A Justice of the Supreme Court.

A Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

A Judge of the Superior Court.

This practice of electing Judges by popular suffrage,
and for a limited number of years, appeared to me, with
my home opinions and historical recollections, one of the
most suspicious of the novelties which have lately been
introduced into the New England States.

This practice is of recent origin In the State of New
York. The constitution of this State, as amended by the
State Convention of 1846, enacted that all Judges should
be chosen by the suffrages of the electors of the district,
great or small, over which their functions were to be
exercised, and that their tenure of office should not
exceed eight years. Justices of the Peace are chosen by
the electors of the several town (ships,) at their annual
town meetings, and hold office for four years ; and they
are paid a 'per diem allowance for their services in ses-
sions, and fees for other services. The Judges of the

150 INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDGES IN DANGER.

Supreme Court are chosen by the electors of the Judicial
district over which they preside, and the Judges of the
Court of Appeals by the electors of the whole State.
These Judges have fixed salaries, are elected for eight
years — going out by rotation — and may be removed by a
concurrent resolution of two-thirds of the Assembly and
of a majority of the Senate of the State.

There are, in all, thirty-six Judges of the Supreme
Courts. Four sit in the Court of Appeals, and four in each
of the Supreme Courts located in the eight judicial dis-
tricts of the State. The professional rank of all is equal,
and their salaries alike — 2500 dollars a-year. This
salary for an uncertain period only, and the liability to be
thrown out of office without a retiring allowance, at the
popular will, will scarcely enable the bench of the State
to secure the highest talent of the bar, in a litigation-
loving country like this.

To those, also, who are as sensitive in regard to the
purity and independence of the Judges of their country,
as to the perfection of its political institutions — especially
to persons born in Europe, or who are familiar with the
history even of English courts of justice — this mode of
election by popular suffrage appears by no means void
of danger. It was deservedly considered a great triumph
when the appointment of Judges for life liberated the
English bench from the influence of the Crown, and
when public opinion became strong enough to enforce
the selection of the most learned in the law for the
highest judicial offices. Now, passing over the objection
which some will strongly urge, that the popular electors
are not the best judges of the qualifications of those who
aspire to the bench, and that the most popular legal
demagogue may expect to obtain from them the highest
official appointment,* it may be reasonably asked,

* In the estimation of the Barnburner section of the democratic
party, this objection has no weight — one of theii' principles being " to

POPPED COEN. 151

whether popular influence in seasons of excitement, and
upon questions of great moment, may not bias the minds
of Judges whose appointment is in the hands of the
people — whether the fear of a coming election may not
deter them from unpopular decisions. The influence of
a popular majority may here as profoundly pollute the
fountains of justice as the influence of the Crown ever
did among us at home. It is not wise to expose good
men to such temptations.

The practice is consistent with the theory that all
power is in the people, and that all patronage ought to
be exercised by them. And it may be that ignorance
and passion may not more frequently interfere w4th the
appointments of the people, than favouritism and political
influence do with those made by sovereigns and their
ministers. At all events, it is said that hitherto the
system has worked well, and that good selections have
been made ; though I have heard it distinctly acknow-
ledged that certahi Judges had been excluded at recent
elections in this State of New York, because of their
known opinions in reference to important public ques-
tions which were likely to come before the courts.

As there are no retiring pensions, the want of success
at a re-election necessarily sends a man back to the Bar.
And as in Scotland '' ance a bailie, aye a bailie" is the
rule, so once a judge or general, always a judge or
general, in the United States. Hence the numerous
titular judges to be met with among the lawyers,
and of generals and colonels among all classes of the
people.

Popped corn is a novelty which the European travelling

fill all offices with men taken from among the people, and not to con-
fine them to those who live by office and make politics a trade." Those
who are themselves fit to be taken from the counter or the plough to
fill the highest political offices, cannot be unfit merely to select those
who are to fill the highest judicial offices.

152 VARIETIES OF INDIAN CORN.

towards the west will, in this maize-growing region, pro-
bably meet with for the first time. Boys with baskets
attend upon the cars at the stopping-places, selling it at
so much a quart. Indian corn, beneath a thin but double
epidermis, consists of a semi-transparent, hard, horny, or
flinty part of a yellow colour ; within this, of a white, soft,
opaque, starchy part 5 and within all, at the base of the
seed, of the germ or cTdt^ as it is called in America. The
horny part consists of starch, of oil, which under the
microscope can be seen in globules, and of a proportion
of vegetable albumen.* The soft white opaque part is
chiefly starch, and the chit almost entirely albumen.
This is prettily shown by cutting off with a knife the
outer part of a grain of Indian corn, and applying to the
pared surface a drop of a solution of Iodine: the soft
white part will become entirely deep blue ; the horny
part blue only in streaks or patches, while the chit will
be scarcely affected. The substance thus turned blue is
starch. If another grain of corn be touched in the same
manner with a solution of verdigris, (acetate of copper,)
or of blue vitriol, (sulphate of copper,) only the chit will
be coloured blue — showing that, as a whole, it differs
entirely from either of the other parts.

But the cutting of the seed across, and especially if
the cut surface be coloured by the application of any of
these solutions, shows that the relative size and position
of these several parts varies very much with the variety
of corn we examine. In some the horny part is large, as
in the varieties known by the names of brown, Canada,
rice, and pop corns ; while In others, as in the flat
southern and in the Tuscarora, the white starchy part
predominates. In some, as in the pop and Canada corn,
the horny part entirely surrounds the soft starchy
portion ; in others, as in the flat southern, it forms an

* Nearly the same thing as the white of egg.

USE OF INDIAN CORN OIL. 153

irregulo^ layer round the side only of tlie seed ;
while in others again, as in the rice-corn, the seed
consists almost entirely of a large horny part and a
large chit.

As the oil exists in this horny part, it is obvious that
those varieties in which this part is large ought generally
to contain most oil ; and such is found to be the case. It
was an ignorance of these diiferences among the varieties
of Indian corn which a few years ago caused the violent
dispute between Liebig and Dumas, or rather the hasty
contradiction by Liebig of the statement of Dumas, as to
the large quantity of oil contained in this grain. From
2 to 9 per cent of oil can be extracted from it, according
to the variety employed.

In the distilleries of the Western States, where corn-
brandy is made, the oil is extracted and sold as a product
of the manufacture. A hundred bushels of the large
southern or western corn, in which the horny part is not
very large, yields fifteen or sixteen gallons of oil, which
is at the rate of about 2J- per cent of the weight of the
grain as it comes to market. Previous to distillation, the
Indian corn is fermented with malt, and, during the fer-
mentation, the oil rises to the surface and is skimmed off.
It is a bright pale yellow agreeable- smelKng oil, and
sells for about a dollar a gallon. It is used for burning
in lamps in western New York, in Ohio, in Michigan,
and upon Lake Superior.

The popping of corn is owing to the presence of this
oil, but only those varieties will pop in which the horny
part is large, and surrounds completely the internal
starchy part. The varieties called pop-corn and rice-
corn possess this property in the highest degree. When
they are heated in a close iron vessel — hke a coffee-
roaster — to about 600° Fahr., the oil contained in the
horny part expands — perhaps in part decomposes — tears
asunder every little cell in which it is contained, bursts

154 DIGESTIVE POWERS OF THE HORSE AND PIG.

the epidermis of the top or side of the seed witli"ix slight
report, like that of a popgun — and forces back, in fact
turns outside in, the swollen and now white and spongy
mass into which the horny part is changed. In this
state the corn is soft and agreeable to eat, more easy of
digestion, and is largely consumed. The increase of bulk
by this heating process is' so great that one barrel of
pop-corn will produce sixteen, and of rice-corn, which is
a small seed, thirty-two barrels of poppet? corn.

It will occur to the reader, from what I have said of
the internal structure of Indian corn, that the flour
which is obtained from the several varieties will be more
or less yellow, according as the proportion of the coloured
horny part is greater or less. Hence the white Tusca-
rora corn, which contains scarcely any horny matter,
gives a whiter flour than almost any other variety.
This is the variety, therefore, which is principally made
use of for the manufacture of starch, and for the adul-
teration of wh eaten flour.

As the direct fattening property of seeds is believed to
be intimately connected with the quantity of oil they
contain, I may mention in this place an interesting
physiological fact, communicated to me by Dr Charles
Jackson of Boston, which is susceptible of an important
practical application. The horny part of the corn, he
informs me, is not digested by the horse, though it is
readily digested by the pig and by fowls. The econo-
mical value of a food, therefore, as I have elsewhere
explained, cannot be judged of solely from its chemical
composition.*

On our arrival at Rome, the neighbourhood of the
station was crowded with people who were waiting to
get a peep of Mr Clay, whom we had picked up at Utica
on his way to Syracuse. Our train had now swelled to

* See the Author's Lectures on A(jricultural Chemistry and Geology,
2d edition, p. 1045.^

CHANGE IN THE SURFACE. 155

a line of fifteen large cars, containing each from forty
to sixty passengers, so that we proceeded very slowly,
and had become somewhat impatient of delay. A few
cheers from the assembled crowd, rather faint compared
with those which afterwards bm'st forth at some of the
succeeding stations, were the only demonstrations of
affection towards Mr Clay which I observed among the
western Romans.

On leaving Rome, we forsook the valley of the Mohawk,
and, in a south-westerly direction, crossed the Clinton
group of green, sandy, ferruginous and calcareous shales,
which, from their softness, have been much washed away,
when the old sea-currents swept over them, and now
form a flat, uninteresting, somewhat swampy country,
stretching in a narrow zone along the whole of western
New York, as far as the Falls of Niagara, and thence
into Upper Canada. The largest and deepest depression
in this belt of country is occupied by Lake Oneida,
which we passed a few miles to our right, and by the
marshes of the town (ship) of Cicero, which extend
farther towards the south.

Nine miles from Rome we passed Verona, another
memento of Italy ; and a few miles farther, Oneida
station, where we rapidly crossed a narrow belt of the
Niagara group, the first of the upper Silurian system,
and entered upon the Onondaga salt group, the most
economically and agriculturally valuable of all the rocks
of western New York. The natural softness of these
groups of rocks in this locality, and the level character
of the whole country, may be judged of from the fact
that the Erie canal runs through it for sixty miles
without a single lock.

A single glance at this country, from the time we left
Verona, showed into how different a region we had come
since we had left the Mohawk Valley. A flat forest
country of mixed wood, with few clearings, resting chiefly

156 GENESEE COUNTRY.

on beds of gravel, accompanied us for some miles from
the river ; but before we reached Oneida we were upon
soft shales, which crumbled into a tenacious soil. Rich
red soils and red marly rocks succeeded ; the country-
became cleared, was cultivated to the hill- tops, and
appeared in a state of nature only where the flat and
swampy surface and the clayey character of the soils
rendered previous drainage necessary to successful cul-
tivation.

From Oneida to Syracuse is twenty-four miles. Dur-
ing the latter half of it, and especially in the town (ship) of
Jianlius, we passed through much low, flat, sandy soil,
still under forest. In some of the hollows, thick layers
of peat rested on, or alternated with, the white drift
sand ; but where knolls and gravel hills occurred, Indian
com grew well ; while the slopes of red land which skirted
the valley on our left were covered with Indian com,
or with rich green herbage, to their very summits. We
were now entering upon the wheat region, the old
Genesee country, the ancient inheritance of the Six
Nations. We reached Syracuse at half-past three,
having come from Albany, 178 miles, with a constantly
increasing train. Great crowds thronged the station and
streets, and the city was a scene of much bustle and
excitement.

CHAPTEE VI.

The city of Syracuse.— Its rapid growth. — Popularity of Mr Clay. — His
reputed chance, and that of Mr Webster, of the Presidentship. — Show
of the New York State Agricultural Society. — Agricultural implements.
— What they teach. — Forks, corn-shellers, and reaping-machines. —
Extensive use of the latter in the Noi'th- Western States. — Argument
against thorough drainage in western New York. — Want of local
attachment, — Law against long leases in the state of New York. —
Prevalence of the Devon breed of stock in New England, and of the
Teeswater in the Western States. — Merino sheep. — Fast-trotting
horses. — Over-lightness of the horses for heavy farm-labour. — General
impression as to the condition of New York agriculture. — Crowds
who visited the Show-yard. — Fruit Show. — Fruit region of Western
New York. — Comparative mildness of its climate. — Rapid extension
of apple-orchards. — Profits of apple-growing.. — Quantity of fruit
exported. — Pomological Convention. — Varieties of apples in the
United States and in Normandy. — Mode of causing apples to produce
a crop every year. — Influence of crops of rye on the apple-tree. —
Influence of geological structure on the flavour of the apple, and of
the cider made from it.— Gout de terrain.— Mr Geddes's farm,— Rich
soils of the Onondaga salt group of rocks. — Soil of the crumbling
green shale.— Rotation followed upon it. — Gradual exhausting efiects
of this rotation. — Average produce of the whole State of New York
and of the richest western county.— Competition of the Western
States. — Profits of farming in New York.—Property confers no politi-
cal privilege. — Indian-coi-n hay — Experiments with plaster or gj^psum
upon Indian corn and potatoes. — Gypsum acts best on calcareous
soils and in droughty seasons. — Wages of farm-servants. — Escarp-
ment of the Helderberg limestone.— Onondaga salt group. — Rich belt
of land formed by it.— Section of the wheat region of western New
York. — Beautiful relation of the soils to the nature of the rocks of
which this undulating plain consists. — Soils of the Medina sandstone,
of the Clinton, Niagara, Onondaga, Helderberg, Hamilton, Genesee,
and Portage groups.— Influence of overlying drift.— Salt springs. —

158 CITY OF SYRACUSE.

Connection of gypsum and common salt. — Strength of the Brine
Springs at Syracuse. — Quantity of water pumped up and of salt
manufactured. — Alleged consumption of salt in the United States. —
Individual consumption in Great Britain. — State revenue from the
Salt Springs. — Methods of extracting the salt at Syracuse. — Probable
presence of bromine in the Syracuse brines.

Syracuse, l^th Sept. — The village of Syracuse, erected
into a city in 1848, occupies an important local position,
and is a remarkable place in many respects. It is situated
at the junction of the Oswego canal (of thirty-eight miles
in length) with the main trunk of the Erie canal, and is
thus on the great lines of communication between Canada
and western New York on the one hand, and between
the Atlantic and the Western lakes and States on the
other. It is also close to the site of the salt springs, and
is the seat of the extensive salt manufacture by which
western New York, the Canadas, and the Western States
are principally supplied with this necessary article of
consumption. It stands also in a fertile district, and in
a comparatively genial climate, where grapes ripen in
the open air, and can even be left uncovered all the year
through. Thirty years ago, Syracuse was the name of
a few houses in the wilderness, now it is a city of 16,000
inhabitants, taxing themselves for local purposes during
the present year (1849) to the extent of 35,000 dollars.
It has the large hotels common to towns in this country,
numerous churches, the spires of several of which are
now in process of erection, and many skeleton streets,
which, if its prosperity continue, will soon be built up.
The last ten years have added greatly to its size ; and,
so late as six years ago, the wilderness still surrounded
the residence of the mayor — to whose hospitality I was
indebted during my stay at Syracuse — where his garden
now extends, and plum and peach trees and vines are in
full and luxuriant bearing.

All was excitement in the town, in consequence of the

POPULARITY OF MR CLAY. 159

arrival of Mr Clay ; and complaints were not unjustly
made by those engaged in preparing for the Agricultural
Show that his presence, as a politician, seriously inter-
fered with the objects for which so many thousands had
assembled at Syracuse. To me, as a stranger, it was
interesting to observe how very popular Mr Clay
appeared to be, and how, in their liking for the individual,
so many seemed willing to forget the shade of politics he
represented. One of his political opponents observed to
me, that, since the days of Washington, probably no man
had so generally carried with him the hearts of the whole
people of the United States. He is also a man of great
ability, and has played a large part in the public affairs
of his day ; and it therefore appears remarkable to those
who are unaware of the small matters by which great
questions are decided, that he has never attained the
dignity of President of the United States. He is now
advancing in years, but is still fresh in intellect and full
of energy, as is shown by his recent action upon the
slavery question ; and his friends are not without hope
of seeing him still attain to that distinguished office
before his intellectual strength is gone.

Of the able and ambitious men who now aspire to the
office of President, there are many who think Mr Clay's
chance all the better that the State of Kentucky has not
hitherto had the honour of giving a President to the
United States. It is a striking circumstance, that, of the
twelve Presidents whom the Union has had, no less than
five have been Virginia men ; while Massachusetts and
Tennessee have each sent two, and New York, Ohio,
and Louisiana each one, to the Presidential chair. The
principle of an equal division of office, or turn and turn
about, is a very popular one in some of the States ; and
it has been gravely urged to me, by a person of much
intelligence, in reference to Mr Daniel Webster, that the
circumstance of his being from Massachusetts — a State

160 TALENT AND THE PRESIDENCY.

which has already given tv/o Presidents to the Union —
is certain for ever to exclude him from that high position.
But it is one of the benefits and boasts of a large federal
republic, that a wider field exists from which to select
great men to manage great affairs, and that it opens a
wider field of ambition to the noble minds which may
spring up in every part of the Union. Even in republics,
however, the most excellent theory cannot be made to
coexist with perfectibility in practice; and the alleged
wider field for great talents becomes null, if the great
offices are to be equally divided among the several States
as their turn comes round.

13th Sept. — This morning I visited the show-yard,
along with my friend Professor Norton of Yale College,
who had thus far accompanied me in my tour through
his native country. The show was held in a large
inclosed area, quite as spacious as those usually devoted
to this purpose by the Poyal Agricultural Society of
England. The two main divisions of implements and
stock occupied the chief place, as with us ; farm and
dairy produce, however, and fruits, receive much atten-
tion from the New York State Society, and had an
appropriate place assigned to them under the tents and
sheds which were scattered over the grounds.

The general cliaracter of the implements was economy
in construction and in price, and the exhibition was large
and interesting. I know of no more instructive lesson,
in regard to the practical condition of the husbandry of
a country, than that which a man gets in surveying a
collection of implements — actually in use, or coming
into use — such as these exhibitions supply. Our English
chaff'-cutters and food-crushers, and drill and thrashing
and tile machines, and cultivators and subsoil-ploughs
and clod-crushers, tell more of what is going on in the
country than months of travelling would make known to
the most active agricultural inquirer. It is not so much

USE OF REAPING-MACHINES. 161

the constraction and cost and usefulness of a machine,
as the number and variety of each seen on the ground,
which shows what Implements are In most request, and In
what direction the practice of the farmer Is progressing.

Ploughs, hay-rakes, forks, scythes, and cooking-stoves,
were very abundant, and many of them well and beauti-
fully made. American ploughs are now exported In
considerable numbers. At a subsequent period, a dealer
in Boston Informed me he had this season sold a hundred
of one of the varieties made In Massachusetts to a single
individual for sale In London. The potato grips and
forks, of various kinds, cut out of sheet-steel, were very
elastic, light, strong, and cheap. They seemed to leave
nothing In these articles to be desired. The cradle-scjthes
were also excellent : an active man was said to be able
to cut four to six acres of wheat a-day with them. That,
of course, would depend something upon the quantity of
straw upon the ground.

Among the more novel instruments to me were the
corn-shellers and crushers. The former were very pretty
implements, and the larger kinds were said to be capable
of shelling two hundred bushels of Indian corn an hour.

Of reaping-machines there were several varieties on
the ground, and several are actually in use in the West-
ern States. Hussey's, which I saw on the ground, was
said to cut twenty-five acres of wheat a-day. My friend,
Mr Stevens, who went round the yard with me, assured
me he had seen one of them cut sixteen acres. M'Cor-
mlck's machine, I suppose, must be a good one, from tlie
information here given me that as many as fifteen hun-
dred of them have been made at Chicago, in Illinois, this
last year, and sold for cutting wheat on the prairies of
the North-Western States, Of course, it is only on flat
lands that they can be advantageously employed. But
where labour is scarce, and unwooded prairie plenty, the

VOL. I. L

162 OBJECTION TO THOROUGH -DRAINAGE.

owner of a reaping and a threshing machine may culti-
vate as much land as he can scratch with the plough and
sprinkle with seed.

A great breadth of this western New York is wet,
flat, and marshy ; but drainage is yet unknown. A
single sample of pipe-tiles was exhibited — as a curiosity,
I suppose. But the Society is now alive to the impor-
tance of drainage, not only for the purpose of drying flat
and obviously wet and marshy land, but of rendering
more productive such heavy soils as with us are so
generally improved by thorough-drainage ; and already
several tile-machines have been imported from England
under their auspices, and premiums offered for experi-
ments in thorough-draining.

An objection to drainage Is made In this country which,
though sometimes urged with us, is by no means of such
force in England as It Is in America. The cost of this
improvement, even at the cheapest rate — say four pounds
or twenty dollars an acre — is equal to a large proportion
of the present price of the best land in this rich district
of western New York. From fifty to sixty dollars an
acre is the highest price which farms bring here ; and if
twenty-five dollars an acre were expended upon any of
it, the price In the market would not rise In proportion.
Or if forty-dollar land should actually be improved one-
fourth by thorough-drainage, it would still, It Is said, not
be more valuable than that which now sells at fifty dol-
lars ; so that the Improver would be a loser to the extent
of fifteen dollars an acre.

This argument will appear to have greater force when
it is understood that there is as yet In New England and
New York scarcely any such thing as local attachment
— the love of a place, because it Is a man's own — because
he has hewed It out of the wilderness, and made it what
it is ; or because his father did so, and he and his family
have been born and brought up, and spent their happy

WANT OF LOCAL ATTACHMENT. 163

youthful days upon it. Speaking generally, every farm
from Eastport in Maine, to Buffalo on Lake Erie, is for
sale. The owner has already fixed a price in his mind
for which he would be willing, and even hopes to sell,
believing that, with the same money, he could do better
for himself and his family by going still farther west.
Thus, to lay out money in improvements is actually to
bury what he does not hope to be able to get out of his
land again, when the opportunity for selling presents itself.

With us the mode of looking at improvement questions
is diiferent. A proprietor says, this is my own residence;
I will make it as comfortable as I can — as valuable as I
can — improve it as much as my means will allow — make
it equal, if possible, to the best land of my neighbours.
If I should spend a good deal of money upon it, I am
depositing it in a sure bank, if I go prudently and skil-
fully to work ; and my children, at all events, will reap
the benefit.

Or, if he is a tenant holding the land on a lease for so
many years certain, he balances the cost of drainage
against the increase of produce, and the diminution of
expense in working his land, taken together, during the
term for w^hich the holding is secured to him ; and he
drains, or the contrary, as this balance proves encou-
raging or otherwise. The owner in New York, who also
farms his land, should consider the question of improve-
ment as the English or Scottish leaseholder does, were
it not that he is in reality a less fixed being than the
tenant-farmers are in our island. I do not know whether
we^ ought to consider that the moral force which origin-
ally projected them or their fathers from Europe is still
partially unexpended, and thus tends, at any unwary
moment, to bear them still farther off; or whether, as
some think, the climate of North America creates in the
Anglo-Saxon race a nervous restlessness which conti-
nually incites to change ; — but certainly " forwards," in a

164 LAW REaAEDING LEASES.

physical at least as much as in a moral sense, is the cha-
racteristic of our respected Yankee cousins.

I am reminded, by my allusion to the leasehold tenure,
of a singular provision in the New York State Constitu-
tion in reference to leases. The 14th section of the 1st
article says : — " No lease or grant of agricultural land,
for a longer period than twelve years, hereafter made,
in which shall be reserved any rent or service of any
kind, shall be valid." This section owes its origin to
the existence in this State of certain old leases, by which
a small quit-rent was reserved, and which leases the pre-
sent leaseholders have been anxious to convert into free-
holds, not by buying out the manorial rights, but by
refusing any longer to pay the quit-rent — as if it were
really a hardship to fulfil honestly the terms on which
their lands are held. The clamour and excitement to
which this struggle gave rise was, no doubt, the main
cause of the insertion of this restriction into the Consti-
tution as to the length of future leases. The time may
come when, if not altered, this law will operate as a bar
to agricultural improvement. In Scotland, a shorter
lease than nineteen years is not considered to give suffi-
cient security or inducement to the tenant to make those
expensive improvements which his landlord does not find
it expedient to make with his own capital. The time is
no doubt approaching, in this commercial State, when
the letting of farms, on money or grain rents, will be
both more general and more popular than it is at present ;
and then, to secure good farmers, capable of expending
the necessary capital, a change in this article of the-
Constitution may facilitate that advancement in agri-
culture which, as far as circumstances admit, so many
parties are already eagerly striving to make.

In the New England States and in New York the
Devon blood prevails. Most of the stock are grades^ as
they are called, or crosses of the pure Devon bull with

CATTLE AND HORSES. 1G5

the older stock of the country, which is originally of
mixed English and Dutch of various kinds. The cows
exhibited were nearly all Devons, and there was a
beautiful Devon bull in the yard which had been bred in
Canada. In the Western and South-Western States
the short-horn blood predominates, and of this blood
there were some good specimens exhibited.

The Merino sheep are great favourites, and in the
Rembouiilet stock the carcass has been much improved.
If they have dry lying, they stand the winter well in
open sheds.

Of horses there was a large show. Of that fast- trot-
ting horse which is so much fancied in this country there
were many exhibited. It is in the exigencies of a new
country, where few horses could be kept by the small
farmers, and the necessity for having them of a kind
which could both work in the field and go fast to market,
that we find the origin of that general lightness of body
which distinguishes the Canadian and other North Ame-
rican horses. They are, in reality, too light for heavy
farm-work ; and when the period arrives for deep-
ploughing, and more extensive cultivation of heavy land,
a heavier and stronger stock of horses, still preserving a
quick step, will gradually take the place both of the
oxen, which, in many of the States, are now extensively
employed, and of the limber-horses, with which they are
sometimes yoked in the same team.

On the whole, the opinion I formed of the actual con-
dition of New York agriculture, from the show of imple-
ments and stock on this occasion, was a very favourable
one. That the practical agriculture of the State is far
behind that of the best parts of England and Scotland
no one can deny ; but that there are good farmers in the
State, that progress is making generally, that a desire
for progress is very widely diffusing itself, and that there
are men of skill and energy at work in exciting and

166 FRUIT OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

directing that progress, the occurrences of this meeting
sufficiently testified.

The premiums offered by the Society on this occasion
amounted to the sum of £1600, and the number of per-
sons who visited the show-yard was immense. Thirty
thousand entrance tickets (sixpence each) were sold on
the first day of the show, besides three thousand mem-
bers' tickets, (one dollar each,) which admitted the mem-
ber and his family.

At three P. M. I delivered my address, in a large open
tent, to an audience of several thousand people, by whom
it was warmly and kindly received.

The fruit-show was not so fine as was anticipated,
owing to the season having proved an unfavourable one
for fruit in the Northern States generally. By the resi-
dents of western New York this is regarded as the finest
fruit-country in the world. The mollifying influence of
Lake Ontario — which has an area of 6300 square miles,
an average depth of 500 feet, and never freezes as Lake
Erie does — extends, more or less, over the whole level
or slightly undulating region occupied by the lower por-
tion of the upper Silurian rocks, on which the rich soils
of this part of the State rest, and from which they are
generally formed. From Oswego, near the east end of
Lake Ontario, to Niagara, on the Canadian borders, this
region forms a belt about 40 miles wide by 150 miles
long, and over it the early frosts of autumn, which are
so injurious to fruit-trees, are comparatively unfelt. It
is on the eastern part of the Lake Ontario shore, towards
Oswego, however, that the grape and peach ripen the
most surely, and produce the finest fruit.

The old apple-country of the United States — the home
of the Newtown pippin, the Spitzeraberg, and other
highly prized varieties — is on the Atlantic border,
between Massachusetts Bay and the Delaware. But
western New York and northern Ohio have now entered

IMPORTANCE OF THIS CULTURE. 167

into earnest competition with these old orchard countries.
Their rich soils produce larger and more beautiful fruit,
but inferior, it is said, in that high flavour which distin-
guishes the Atlantic apples. This inferiority, however,
is not conceded by the western cultivators, among whom
orchard-planting is rapidly extending, and who estimate
the average profit of fruit cultivation at 100 to 150 dol-
lars an acre, (£20 to £30.)

In Oneida County, at the eastern extremity of Lake
Oneida, part of four townships shipped on the canal, in
1848, as many as 18,000 barrels, at from 62J to 100
cents per barrel. This is a low price for good apples.
But in New York the best apples sell for three or four,
and in London for nine dollars a barrel. In Wayne
County, about the middle of this belt of land, the mer-
chants of Palmyra, a shipping village on the Erie Canal,
sent oif 50,000 barrels of green or fresh, and 10,000 of
dried apples in the same year, and along with them 1000
bushels of dried peaches.

These facts show that the fruit-culture is becoming
one of considerable importance, and the number of per-
sons now interested in it has caused the formation of
what is called the Pomological Convention, which held
its meeting at Syracuse on the occasion of the State
agricultural fair. Everything connected with the cul-
ture of the apple, and, I believe, of the other more com-
mon and more important fruits, such as the pear, the
peach, and the grape, form subjects of inquiry, consider-
ation, and discussion ; and from the proceedings of this
Society good can scarcely fail to arise to this growing
branch of practical agriculture.

Nearly 200 recognised varieties of apples are
already cultivated in the States, of which 186 are
described by Mr Downing.* One important object

* Fruits and Fruit-trees of America. New York, 1849.

168 CIDER- HUSBANDRY OF NORMANDY.

which the American Pomological ConventioD may use-
fully keep in view is the purification of the nomenclature
of fruits. In Normandy, where the apple-culture for
the manufacture of cider is an important source of
revenue upon every farm, there are upwards of 5000
differently named varieties of the acid or bitter apple,
which yield the cider. These have all been collected
and examined by Professor Girardin of Rouen, grafted
on stocks, grown, figured, and analysed, and he informed
me that the same apple was sometimes known by as
many as eighteen different names in different parts of
that country. I was struck, during a tour in Normandy
two years ago, w^lth the little skill and the antique and
rude tools which appear to be there devoted to a branch
of industry which is of much economical value to the
farmers of the province. There are no hedgerows upon
the farms, but the divisions of the fields are marked out
by rows of apple-trees; and the crop of fruit, which
there, as in so many other countries, is good only every
second year, is expected to pay the whole rent of the
land. In behalf of an industry of so much consequence
to the rural population of a large province in France, to
Avhole counties in England, and to large portions of other
countries of Europe, and which is likely to be extensively
prosecuted in America, it is time to ask whether the
sciences of botany, meteorology, chemistry, and physi-
ology cannot now be made to render them more direct
economical aid than they have hitherto done.

In the United States only the finest apples are sent to
market — the waste or refuse are generally made into
cider. But those varieties which are best for the table
are unfit alone to make a palatable cider. The culture,
growth, and selection of cider apples, the proper ad-
mixture of varieties In the crushing-mill, &c., is a branch
of special husbandry requiring special knowledge, the
acquisition and diffusion of which may be greatly

169

promoted by a judiciously conducted association of
growers.

In the United States also, as elsewhere, the trees
naturally yield a heavy crop only every second year.
But Mr Pell, the owner of one of the finest orchards in
America — that of Pelham farm, at Esopus, on the river
Hudson — to whom I was subsequently indebted for
much kind attention at New York, has recently been
making experiments with the view of ascertaining
whether, by proper manuring applications to the roots,
an annual crop might not be secured from his valuable
Newtown pippin trees, of which he has two thousand in
full bearing. His experiments, he informed me, had
been perfectly successful, only he had begun to think, or
apprehend, that the life of his trees might be shortened
by this course, and that he might have to replace them
so many years sooner. But should this prove the result,
it might still be profitable, as it is with the peach
orchards of New Jersey, to have a succession of new
trees coming up to replace the old — and experiments on
the subject are deserving of encouragement.

An interesting observation made by Mr Pell in regard
to the influence of crops of rye upon an apple-orchard is
deserving of a place among important physiological facts
as yet incapable of explanation. He cultivates his
orchard grounds as if there were no trees upon them, and
raises grain of every kind except rye — which crop he
finds so injurious that he believes three successive crops
of it would destroy any orchard which is less than
twenty years old. We in Europe, who think it bad
and exhausting husbandry to take three successive corn
crops of any kind from the same land without the
addition of manure, might be inclined to attribute the
ruin of an orchard, under these circumstances, to bad
husbandry only, were it not that similar successive crops
of other kinds of grain do not produce a like effect.

170 GOUT-DE-TERKAIN.

How interesting it would be to follow out the practical
physiological experiments which this observation of Mr
Pell suggests !

It is a curious illustration of the connection of geology
even with this branch of rural industry, that the nature
of the rock over which the apples grow affects the
flavour of the cider which is made from the fruit. The
cider of the chalk soils in Normandy differs in flavour
from that of sandy, and both from that of clay soils — the
variety of fruit and the management being the same.
Hence the gout-de-terrain spoken of by French con-
noisseurs is a correct expression for this recognisable
difference. Among the varied geological deposits of
western New York, similar differences must likewise be
observed both in the fruit and in the cider made from
it, which will give peculiar characters and recommenda-
tions to the productions of the several districts.

lAth Sept. — This morning early, the Honourable Mr
Geddes, one of the State senators for Onondaga County,
drove me out to breakfast at his farm of Fairmount, a
few miles from Syracuse. He is the owner of 300 acres
of the best land on the rocks of the Onondaga salt-
group, and, like nearly all the owners in this country,
lives upon and farms it himself. The soil is a light-
coloured calcareous clay, which crumbles readily, and
never bakes. It is generally shallow, and rests on a
green shaly rock, which readily crumbles in the air,
and by exposure becomes paler in colour, forming the
light-coloured soil of which the farm consists.

This district is more like a part of Old England than of
a newly cleared country. Of Mr Geddes's 300 acres 270
are in arable culture, and comfortable houses and other
buildings are seen upon most of the farms. The land is
generally divided- into farms of one or three hundred
acres ; and these, with the buildings upon them, usually
sell at from fifty to sixty dollars an acre. At this price

AVEEAGE PRODUCE IN THIS COUNTY. 171

Mr Geddes considers it the cheapest land in the States —
for those of course who have the money to buy it. By
men whose capital is in their bodily strength and indus-
trious habits, the wilderness land of more western
districts is alone attainable.

The land is of a very useful kind, producing all sorts
of grain crops well, though not of equal quality. Thus
the produce per acre was stated by Mr Geddes to be, of —

Wheat, .

18 to 35 bushels of 60 pounds.

Barley, .

20 ^ 55 ... of 48 ...

Oats,

40^100 ... of 32 ...

Indian corn,

50 ^ 80 ... of 56 to 60 pounds

Potatoes, .

. 100 ^ 300 bushels.

It is least adapted, he said, to the growth of potatoes ;
and turnips are as yet but little grown, as the raising of
fat stock is not much attended to. An average weight
of 32 lb. does not indicate a soil or climate well suited
to the oat crop.

This land has been in many places ploughed for fifty
years without receiving any manure. I walked over
two large fields which have never been manured for the
fifty years which have elapsed since the present owner's
father cleared them ; and he thinks the land still as good
as ever it was. He reaps from it 50 to 60 bushels of
corn ; and, last year, ( 1848,) 30 bushels an acre of
wheat. The soil consists, for the most part, of crumbling
fragments of the green shale. When the older land
appears to become exhausted, the plough is put in a
little deeper, so as to bring up a little of the crumbling
rock, (green shale,) when it is said to produce wheat as
before.

The rotation is Indian corn after lea, with manure — ■
if any is applied — then oats, followed by barley or pease,
and finally, winter wheat, with seeds in spring. It is
kept in grass two years ; in one of which two crops of
hay are cut, and in the other it is pastured, as 250 sheep

172 AVERAGE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

and 16 milk-cows are kept. If the land be foul, it is
now summer fallowed, and sown with wheat, followed
by seeds as before, after which Indian corn comes again.
If it is not foul, the rotation commences with Indian
corn after the first two years' grass.

On land like this extraordinary green shale land, such
severe — what we should call scourging — treatment may
be continued a great many years with apparent
impunity ; although it tells very soon on land of inferior
quality. But even on such land it tells at last. Hence
it is that this celebrated wheat-region, as a wJiole^ is
gradually approaching the exhausted condition to which
the more easterly wheat-growing, naturally poorer
districts, had earlier arrived. They are ceasing, in
many places, to be remunerative in the culture of this
crop with the present system of farming, are becoming
unable to compete with the cheap wheat-growing virgin
soils of the West, and are therefore in such places — as I
was informed on the spot — gradually being laid down
to grass, or turned to other more promising agricultural
uses.

The average produce per acre of the whole State of
New York, as published by the State Agricultural
Society,* is, for —

Wheat, 14 bushels, i Oats, 26 bushels.

Barley, 16 ... | Indian corn, 25

Potatoes, 90 bushels, or about 1^ tons an acre.

The averages for Monroe County, in the middle of
this western district, are the highest ; and they are as
follow : —

Wheat, \^\ bushels. 1 Indian corn, 30 bushels.

Barley, 19 " ... | Potatoes, 110 ...

Oats, . . 32 bushels.

For a highly lauded, fertile, wheat-growing district,

* Transactions of the State Agricultural Society , for 1845.

PROFITS OF FARMING. 173

the pride of the State of New York, the happy home to
which the longing eyes of British and Irish agri-
culturists ha^^e long been directed, these are but low
averages. Either the land is not so good as it has been
called, or it is and has been badly treated. The
treatment has certainly been bad ; but, as surely, large
portions of the land are naturally very good, and may
still be made very productive. But these farmers of
western New York are exposed to the competition of
their more western brethren — a still nearer competition
than that under which our British farmers are suffering ;
and it is doubtful whether, with all their naturally rich
soils and low-priced lands, they can, on the longer
cultivated and more exhausted tracts, successfully
struggle with them in the raising of wheat. If they
can, it must be as with us at home, by the application of
more skill and prudence than has hitherto been applied
to rural affiiirs.*

According to Mr Geddes, farming is so profitable in
this part of the State, that a person can buy 100 or 150
acres of land, can pay a part of the price in ready money,
give a mortgage for the remainder at 7 per cent, can
pay this interest, and gradually clear off the debt.
This, he said, was a very common practice ; and that
hence many of the farmers had mortgages on their land.
This may be true of Mr Geddes's neighbourhood ; but
all I have heard from others of the general condition of
the existing rural population north and east of the
Delaware, and of Lake Erie, is in confirmation of the
opinion that money is not to be made by farming, at
least in these parts of the States. I do not speak at

* " What, I ask, is to meet this competition of the west, but greater
skill and greater care in the mode of agriculture 1 " These words,
addressed at the close of 1850 to the Oswego Agricultural Society by
their president, are a re-echo of what has been so often said among us
at home.

174 PROPERTY GIVES NO INFLUENCE.

present of the more western States, which I have not
myself visited. A comfortable livehhood and adequate
support for a family may be obtained by ordinary
industry, but money is accumulated with difficulty ; and
this is the test of prosperity which all classes apply to
their pursuits. Hence those who wish to add to their
capital more readily, or more speedily, betake them-
selves to traffic, or to some other more promising
employment. Hence, also, one reason why so many
farms are in the market. The price of land rises as a
district becomes settled; so that, when a man's sons
grow up, and are ready for farms of their own, he is
unable to provide for them by purchasing land in his
own neighbourhood ; but by selling his own clearing at
the increased value it has acquired, he can proceed
further west, and, with the price he receives, provide
farms in the wilderness for them all.

The renting or hiring of land, especially for a money
rent, is not more popular in this district than elsewhere,
even on a lease. Farmers do not like to be tenants ;
and when land falls into the hands of mortgagees, and
must be let, it is usually let on shares, sometimes on
halves, as it is called ; sometimes at two-thirds of the
produce, as the agreement may be, which is special
for almost every case.

The usual size of farms is from 100 to 150 acres.
Some farms are as large as 1000 acres ; and a family of
Monroes was mentioned to me in this neighbourhood
who have farms of this size which they cultivate and
manage themselves. A large landholder, unless he
farms all his land himself, is looked upon with dislike
as an aristocrat. Property, according to the con-
stitution, confers no political rights, except upon
coloured men ;* and there is a jealousy lest a man, hy

* A free coloured man, in the State of New York, must possess a
freehold of 250 dollars before he is allowed to vote as a citizen.

INDIAN CORN FOR FODDER. 175

having others under his Influence as a landlord, should
acquire a proportionate increase of individual political
power. Hence, If a man does not wish to cultivate any
part of his land, or cannot do so, he sells it, and invests
the proceeds at 7 per cent, which is readily obtained.
He Is, then, whatever his wealth may be, no longer
exposed to odium or dislike.

I went into a fine field of Indian corn on Mr Geddes's
farm, upon which his men were at work reaping.
The stalks are grasped in the left hand, and cut down
near the ground by means of a heavy sharp hook,
resembling a bill-hook. They are then tied together in
sheaves and set up to dry ; after which the sheaves are
carried to the barn, and the head of corn separated by
the hand. The corn-sheller then quickly separates the
grain from the cob or internal head-stalk.

The very wasteful practice exists in many parts of
North America of reaping the Indian corn very high, so
as to leave as much as two feet of the stalks in the
ground ; and In others, of altogether rejecting the stalks
wdien reaped, using them neither for food nor In making
manure. But cattle eat the corn-stalks very willingly :
they are said by some to be equal to the best hay In
feeding, and to produce more milk than hay does. Thus,
in addition to the grain, an acre of land yields three tons
of fodder, which saves much other food ; and when cut
by means of a chaff-cutter, may be made the means of
procuring a large supply of manure. Wherever the
exhausting system has nearly done its work, and the
value of manure has begun at last to be appreciated,
attention will, by degrees, as is now in some measure the
case in New England and New York, be drawn to the
great value of the hitherto neglected corn-stalk. Of
course, the degree of ripeness to which the corn is
allowed to attain, the variety sown, the soil on which it
grows, the fierceness of the sun beneath which It ripens.

176 PLASTERING MAIZE AND POTATOES

and other circumstances, will affect its value as a
nutritive fodder, and will, in different districts, modify
the way in which it can be most usefully or most
profitably employed.

Much has been said at different times about the
introduction- of Indian corn as a field -culture into
England — an object which, I fear, our feeble summer
heats, cloudy days, and early frosts, will prevent us
from ever extensively attaining ; but as a green food to
be cut in its unripe state, and given green or dried for
winter, it might be introduced with a chance of profitable
success.

Plaster or gypsum is extensively used in this neigh-
bourhood, being almost the only manuring which a large
portion of the land receives. It is obtained abundantly
among the beds of the Onondaga salt-group, and is
applied in the unburned state. It is crushed in mills,
where it is sold in the state of powder at 3d. a bushel,
or a dollar and a half a ton of 25 bushels.

The maize is plastered either once broadcast, at the
rate of 3 bushels an acre, or twice with the hand, upon
each hill after each hoeing, at the rate of 1 bushel an
acre. I saw four rows in the fine field of Indian corn
I walked through which had not been plastered, while
all the rest had — once only at the rate of a bushel an
acre ; and the difference in favour of the plastered part
was very striking to the eye. Oats are also much
benefited by plaster, especially in a dry season like this ;
and it brings away clover, and makes it very tall. It
is likewise believed to improve the potatoes which are
planted without manure. I caused a number of plants
of the potatoes to which gypsum had and had not been
applied to be dug up, and certainly the number and
size of the potatoes found at the roots, as well as the
height of the stems, were greatly in favour of the plas-
tered part. It was applied before hoeing, and then

MOST BENEFICIAL IN DRY SEASONS. 177

drawn up around them. It is usual to put it in with
the sets ; but it was put around the young plants this
year, " only because," said Mr Geddes, " the drought
was such that I saw if something was not done I should
have no crop at all." An English farmer would hardly
believe he had done anything towards saving a crop of
potatoes if he had only sprinkled a bushel of gypsum over
an acre of the land in which his potatoes were growing.

This beneficial action of gypsum, notwithstanding
all that has been written upon the subject, is still very
wonderful, and not the less so that in so many places,
and in so many circumstances, it fails to produce any
sensible effect. Mr Ruffin, states that in the Carolinas
it is found to produce the best effects upon land which
has been already limed ; and here, where its beneficial
influence is so manifest, the land is naturally rich in
lime. I have caused an analysis of a portion of the
green shale from which the soil on Mr Geddes's farm is
formed to be subsequently made, and have found it to
contain as much as 23 per cent of carbonate of lime,
and 13 per cent of carbonate of magnesia.* It may be,
therefore, that while this marly and magnesian charac-
ter of its soil certainly makes the district more favour-
able to the growth of wheat, that it has some influence
also in disposing it to be beneficially acted upon by
gypsum. This substance does not appear to require
rain to aid its effects, since it is applied especially in

* The composition of this slaty rock from Mr Geddes's fai'm at
Fairmount, near Syracuse, was as follows : —

Water of combination, . . . 3.02

Alumina, ..... 9.85

Oxide of iron, .... 2.87

Carbonate of lime, .... 23.22

Carbonate of magnesia, . . . 13.81

Carbonate of iron, . . . 1.45

Insoluble siliceous matter or silicates, . 46.13

100.35
The presence of phosphoi'ic acid in this sample was not appreciable.
VOL. I. M

178 WAGES OF LABOURERS.

droughty seasons. A calcareous soil and a hot sun may
possibly, therefore, be instrumental towards its success.

This view is further supported by the prevalent
opinion among farmers " that the great use of plaster
is to draw water from the air ;^^ which means, as I take it,
that its action is more apparent in dry than in wet seasons.

A very extreme view of its influence upon the
weather was entertained by some of the old Dutch
farmers in the United States — one of whom, according
to Judge Peters, objected to the use of it because " it
attracted thunder.''''

Mr Geddes works his farm with four pairs of horses
and seven men, on an average, all the year through.
His head-man has 313 dollars a-year. Other men
have f dollar (3s. English) a-day, except in harvest,
when they have IJ to 1^ dollars a-day. A good man,
taken into the house, has 150 dollars (^^31, 10s.) a-year
and his board. They are hired by the month.

Behind Mr Geddes's farm, at a short distance towards
the south, rises the escarpment of the Helderberg lime-
stone, the outcrop of which, more or less distinct and
elevated, runs east to the Hudson River, and west as far
as Lake Erie, and forms the southern limit of the belt of
low rich land of which this wheat-region consists. He
drove me in an open carriage for some miles along this
escarpment, and thus enabled me to obtain a general
idea of the whole country, and gave me an opportunity
of picturing to myself what this broad plain will ulti-
mately become when arterial and thorough drainage
have done their work, and the axe of the clearer has
laid open the broad patches of wilderness which still
stretch, with occasional wide breaks, on almost every
side as far as the eye can reach.

The Onondaga salt-group, on which Mr Geddes's
farm reposes, consists on the surface of green shales
richly calcareous, sometimes impure shaly limestones, to

SOILS OF THE ONONDAGA SALT -GROUP. 179

wlilch succeed similar shales containing deposits or
rounded nests of gjpsum. These rest on a porous
limestone, beneath which again occur green and red
shales, calcareous and crumbliug like those above, and
like them forming rich wheat-soils. It has an average
thickness of about 1200 feet, and forms a belt of gene-
rally level and undulating land, running east from
Syracuse nearly a hundred miles, and west as far as
Buffalo, and again beyond the Niagara River, far into
Upper Canada. The breadth of this belt at Syracuse is
about ten or twelve miles, and it rapidly tapers off
to nothing as we go east towards the Hudson River.
But westward it first expands, in Seneca and Wayne
counties, to a breadth of between twenty and thirty
miles, and afterwards continues from sixteen to twenty
miles wide for nearly one hundred miles, after which
it contracts to about twelve miles, which is its width
on the river Niagara. This formation alone, there-
fore, forms a large area of rich land. But the coun-
try to the north of it, as far as Lake Erie, is also
underlaid by rocks which crumble readily, and yield
soils of good quality, and generally rich in lime ; while
to the south the nature of the rocks, and the agency
of those causes to which the spread of drift is owing,
have both in p^'t contributed to the production of good
grain-growing land. Hence, in the so-called wheat-
district of western New York, is included the broad
belt of about forty miles in width — from the shores of
Lake Ontario, southwards to and including a large por-
tion of the Hamilton shales of the New York geologists.
As this country presents a really interesting Illustration
of the Influence of geological causes on agricultural
capabilities, I subjoin a section across this wheat-district
at its broadest part, where It Includes the eastern por-
tion of the county of Wayne, and a portion of the
county of Seneca.

180

SECTION OF WESTERN NEW YOEK.

^ ^

imit

O to

il

'^

S= \

EXTENT OF THE WHEAT -REGION. 181

From the lake to the beginning of the Marcellus shale
— No. 6 on this section, at a height of 216 feet, the level
of Seneca Lake — is about thirty miles. The rise of the
country, therefore, is very gradual ; indeed, it is com-
paratively level after the first ascent over the Niagara
limestone till v/e reach the Marcellus shale. Beyond this
shale it rises more rapidly ; and at Ovid there is a bold
escarpment where the two bands of limestone occur.
In other parts of the country there are also bolder escarp-
ments along the out-crop of the Niagara and Helderberg
limestones than the section shows, forming marked and
successive steps as we advance into the interior.

From the lake to the Marcellus shale is the proper
wheat-district, though in some places it extends to the
Genesee slate, and may ultimately, under a better system
of culture, be generally extended thus far. But the
rapid rise of the land, by altering the climate, will always
make this higher region less propitious to vegetation,
supposing the soil as good as those of the Onondaga and
more northern formations.

No. 1. The Medina sandstone consists of layers of
brownish sandstone intermixed with shales. It presents
an interesting illustration of a fact of much importance
in agricultural geology, that the same formation at dif-
ferent parts of its extent may produce soils very different
in their natui'e. Towards the east, the sandstone greatly
predominates, forming sandy soils comparatively poor in
agricultural value. But towards the west, the shaley or
clay beds increase in number or thickness ; so that sandy
loams, and finally clay loams, and excellent wheat-soils,
are produced from it.

No. 2. The Clinton group consists of green and blue
shales and limestones, the admixture of the fragments of
which forms an excellent wheat-soil.

No. 3. The Niagara formation consists of the soft shales
below, and of the thick impure limestone beds above,

182 SOILS OF THE NIAGARA EOCKS.

which give their character to the Niagara Falls, and to
the outline of the landscape. The shale alone forms
stiff clays, which, from the sloping nature of the surface,
are generally dry and susceptible of culture ; while the
limestone alone, where it is sufficiently crumbled, pro-
duces a surface adapted for wheat or Indian corn. But
where, from the washing away of the Clinton beds,
which are only 60 or 80 feet in thickness, the Niagara
shales come in contact with, or are mixed with the debris
of the Medina sandstone, soils are produced which are of
"unequalled fertility" — illustrating another important
principle, of which we have many examples in England,
that, at the junction of beds of different kinds of rock,
the soils are often much superior to those which are
produced by the fragments of either rock alone.

No. 4. The Onondaga salt-group consists, as I have
already said, of red and green shales below, succeeded
by porous limestones, and these by beds of shale, includ-
ing irregular but larger deposits of gypsum, the whole
surmounted by other green shales or thin beds of impure
light-coloured limestone, containing much magnesia.
Calcareous matter abounds through the whole of this
fertile formation — and generally the soils are rich, free,
and easily worked.

No. 5. The Helderberg limestones and sandstones,
where the surface is hard and rocky, are often covered
with a thin soil of less value ; but where the soil is deep,
it is of excellent quality. Here, however, as a wheat-
region, the natural quality of the surface begins to fall off.

No. 6. The Marcellus shale is thin, varying from a
few feet to 60 or 80, so that its effect on the surface is
seen chiefly by its improving the Helderberg series at
the point of junction, and by forming occasional stripes
and patches of stiff clay.

No. 7. The Hamilton group, when alone, forms stiff
dark-coloured clays, which are less rich in calcareous

POETAGE AND CHEMUNG SOILS. 183

matter than the Onondaga soils, and therefore less free
and more difficult and expensive to work, but capable of
producing excellent wheat. A large portion of the
celebrated Genesee Valley rests upon this formation ;
but its natural soil is there covered or modified by the
drifted fragments of the Niagara and other more north-
erly limestones. This group is of great thickness, and
forms an extensive belt of country, the soils of which in
some places are rich in lime, and are submitted to
arable culture. They are everywhere difficult to keep
clean, however, and are especially infected with the
pigeon-weed [Lithospermwn.) They are, for the most
part, therefore — like our own stiff clays of the lias and
other formations — left to perpetual grass, which they
produce of excellent quality. Here, therefore, the graz-
ing and dairy country of western New York commences.

No. 8. The black Gene.see slate is too thin to form
an important agricultural feature in the country. It
crumbles more slowly than the Hamilton shale, but
where it mixes with the thin limestones and calcareous
shales beneath it, good soils are produced.

No. 9. The Portage and Chemung groups consist of
alternations of shales, poor in lime below, with flag-
stones and massive sandstones. They extend to the
borders of Pennsylvania, where they reach the height of
1000 feet above Lake Ontario. The district occupied
by these groups presents a complete contrast to the
wheat-region. When first cleared, it produces crops of
wheat 5 but after the first crops — as is the case in many
parts of New Brunswick, which rest upon similar rocks
— wheat-becomes uncertain, and spring grain only can
be sown. It is therefore poorer, less cleared and culti-
vated, and possesses a poorer race of cultivators. The
farmers devote their attention chiefly to the rearing of
stock, and to the dairy husbandry.

To teach a man the close relation of natural agricul-

184 INFLUENCE OF DEIFT.

tural capabilities and early agricultural prosperity with
the nature of the rocks of a country, it is only neces-
sary to ascend from the valley of the Onondaga shales
to the hills of the Portage sandstones.

But another interesting and instructive feature pre-
sents itself in this wheat-growing belt. The waters
which in former times descended this region came from
the north, and have drifted the materials of the more
northerly over the edges of the more southernly rocks.
Thus the materials of the Medina sandstone are made
to overlap the Clinton and Niagara clays, and so to
mingle with, lighten, and improve the soils formed from
them. The Niagara shale, again, bas overlapped the
overlying Niagara limestone, mixed with it, and deepened
its naturally tliln and more slowly crumbling debris.
So the various soft beds of the Onondaga salt-group
have been Intermingled, and a comparatively low, level,
and undulating surface been given to the whole. The
abundant materials derived from this easily crumbling
group, again, have been spread over the Helderberg
limestones, and the fragments of these over the Mar-
cellus and Hamilton shales, adding to the calcareous
matter of these latter rocks, and thus widening the belt
of wheat-growing country beyond its natural limits.

This widening is especially visible along the north
and south valleys, which penetrate far into the Hamilton
and Portage groups of rocks, and Into which the frag-
ments of the Onondaga group were naturally carried by
the rushing water. Up the valley of the Genesee Kiver,
and into the outlets of the Seneca and Cayuga lakes,
this drift has penetrated farthest ; and to Its presence is
due the peculiar agricultural excellence for which the
soils of these localities are known, and which the rocks
on which they rest could not alone have imparted to
them.

The first freshness of nearly all these naturally fertile

SALT- SPRINGS OF THIS DISTRICT. 185

lands, which have been long under cultivation, has been
rubbed off them by ignorant and improvident culture ;
but skill, the child of greater knowledge, can restore
them again to great productiveness. How far it will
pay to improve even this country, for the growth of
wheat — as our best English and Scotch farmers would
like to improve it — while the still uncleared lands of the
north-west are competitors in the wheat-market, I do not
possess sufficient knowledge of local circumstances to
enable me to decide.

With Mr Geddes I afterwards visited the salt-works
for which this district is so celebrated, and to which
the city of Syracuse is so much indebted for its rapid
prosperity.

Salt-springs occur over the whole of this belt of
country, from the Medina sandstone to the Portage
group inclusive ; and salt has been, or still is, more or
less extensively manufactured from them. But they
are most abundant, and yield most copious supplies of
water, in the Onondaga salt-group, which derives its
name from them. In this group they are generally
richer also in saline matter, and yield a purer salt.

As in so many other localities, the gypsum appears to
be connected in its mode of deposition with that of
mineral salt. There occurs, indeed, in this locality —
upon Mr Geddes's farm among other places — a very
interesting proof of the close connection of these two
mineral deposits. In the green shale-beds are found
numerous pseudo-morphous masses, sometimes as much
as six or eight inches in diameter, which appear to
be casts of the interior of large hollow crystals of
common salt, such as are formed, of a smaller size, on
the surface of salt-pans, or of bodies of salt-water which
are evaporated in the open air. Such hopper-shaped
casts, as they are called, were very numerous in the
locality in which I saw them, throughout the entire body

186 STRENGTH OF THE BRINE.

of the shale, and seemed to show that when this shale
was deposited in the state of a fine mud, it was impreg-
nated with salt — probably was at the bottom of a salt
lake, liable to be dried up or concentrated by evapora-
tion, and that, when so concentrated, the salt crystallised
among the mud in large crystals, as impure salts usually
do, and impressed the shapes now seen upon the plastic
mud. No solid salt, however, has ever been found in
connection with these pseudo-morphic masses. It has no
doubt been long dissolved out by rain and spring waters
sinking through from above. But while the salt-springs
which occur throw light on their formation, these crys-
tals, on the other hand, explain in what way the upper
Silurian strata of western New York have in so many
places become impregnated with salt.

The wells or borings from which the brine is obtained
are sunk in the marshy ground which borders the Onon-
daga Lake. This lake, which is about five miles long
and one mile broad, rests on a bed of impervious marl,
beneath which lies a thick deposit of drift, occupying a
valley hollowed out of the shales of the salt-group.
Into this drift the borings have been carried to a depth
of nearly 350 feet; and the supply has generally been
more copious, and the water more strongly impregnated
with salt, the deeper the boring has penetrated.

If the quantity of salt contained in water which is
saturated be represented by 100, that contained in the
strongest springs near Syracuse is 76. A hundred-
weight of salt is obtained from about 700 gallons of sea-
water ; but of the water from these springs 80 gallons, on
an average, yield an equal weight — or 100 pounds of
the water yield from 15 to 18 pounds of salt.

It is found, however, that, by constant pumping, the
water gradually becomes weaker in salt, and unfit for
profitable use ; when either the water in that well must
be allowed to rest for a time, or new borings must be

SALT MANUFACTURED. 187

put down. Tills shows that the comparatively fresh-
water from above, in percolating through the strata of
the salt-group to the bottom of the valley in which the
drift lies, becomes impregnated with salt contained in
these strata ; but no facts have yet been observed which
justify any confident opinion as to the actual existence
of beds of solid rock-salt in this formation.

The quantity of water pumped up and consumed in
the summer and autumn, when the salt-manufacture is
most active, amounts to about 2,000,000 of gallons a-day,
yielding about 35,000 bushels of salt, weighing 56 pounds
each. The total annual production of salt in 1848 was
4,700,000 bushels. The Importance of this production
of salt, in reference to the consumption and wants, not
only of the State of New York, but of the whole United
States, will appear, on comparing the above quantity
with the importations of foreign salt into the port of
New York, and into those of the whole Union respec-
tively, in 1848 — and with the whole quantity consumed
in the State of New York and by the inhabitants of the
United States. Thus there was

Manufactured at Syracuse, . 4,737,126 bushels.
Imported at Xew York, . 1,882,473

Imported into the United States, 8,967,600 ...

so that the manufacture at Syracuse is equal to one-half
of the entire foreign Importation into the States.

As to the relation of the quantity manufactured to
the actual wants of the State, it was shown some years
ago by Mr Meriam, that the quantity of salt consumed
in the United States was at the rate of three pecks (42
lbs.) to each individual. Assuming the population of the
State of New York to be 3,000,000, and that of the
whole Union 20,000,000, In round numbers, the whole
consumption will be —

For the State of New York, . 2,250,000 bushels.
For the United States, . 15,000,000 ...

188 CONSUMPTION OF SALT IN THE STATES.

Hence the State of New York makes much more salt
than is necessary for its own wants ; so that, while it im-
ports at New York nearly one-half of its own consumption,
it on the other hand exports, by way of the lakes, to
Canada and the Western States, about 3,500,000 bushels.

The large alleged individual consumption of salt in
the United States is worthy of attention. In ordinary
families in Great Britain the quantity of salt used for
domestic purposes is about 12 lb. for each individual ;
and if as much more be used for all other purposes, the
consumption ought to amount to 24 lb. a-head, or, in all,
to less than 10,000,000 of bushels. But in the United
States the consumption is estimated at three pecks, or
42 lb., for each individual — which large allowance, con-
sidering there are few chemical manufactories to eat it
up, and little is employed for agricultural purposes,
appears to imply either a large waste, or an outlet for it
which does not exist in this country. It is possible that
the large quantities of salt provision which are prepared
for home consumption and for export — " the immense
packing business of the West,"* as it is called —may be
a main cause of the increased proportional use of salt in
North America, if the estimate be a correct one.

The salt-springs of Onondaga are the property of the
State ; and by an article of the Constitution, they and the
lands necessary for the manufacture of the salt can never
be alienated. The wells are sunk and the water pumped
up into reservoirs at the expense of the State, and thence
distributed to the various manufactories, for a charge of
one cent upon each bushel of salt manufactured. Until
the year 1846, the duty levied as a charge for the water
amounted to six cents per bushel, and a clear annual
revenue Avas obtained from the springs of about 200,000
dollars.

* In 1848, 34,000,000 of pounds of salted meats, and neai-ly 3,000,000
of pounds of butter, were exported from the States.

MODES OF MANUFACTURE. 189

In that year, however, the duty was reduced to one
cent, and they now yield a net revenue of about 30,000
dollars a-year. But the production has been largely
increased, and the State is greatly benefited in other
ways by the reduction. About twelve cents a bushel is
now the market price of the Syracuse salt.

The salt is manufactured in three ways : First, by
solar evaporation. This is conducted in large wooden
vats 18 J feet square, and about 12 inches deep, provided
with movable lids, by which they can be easily covered
in rainy weather. These vats are arranged in long rows
communicating with each, and at different levels, so that
the water which is put in at one end can be made to flow
forward as its concentration advances. The iron is the
first constituent of the water which is deposited ; after that
the gypsum, which forms beautiful small crystals on the
bottom and sides of the vats ; and then the common salt, in
large coarse crystals like those of bay salt — the deli-
quescent magnesia and lime salts remaining in the
waste mother liquors.

The second mode is similar to that followed on our
coasts in extracting salt from sea-water, by evaporation
in large shallow iron pans. The third method is by
boiling the water in deep iron pots, or kettles, as they are
called, of which forty, built up in two parallel rows, form
what is called a block. These kettles are supplied with
water from the private cistern of the establishment in
which the brine has been purified, by standing some time,
or by the addition of quicklime, which carries down the
iron, magnesia, and some other impurities. As the water
boils away, gypsum first falls in the kettle, and is con-
tinually ladled out as it collects at the bottom ; and as the
liquor concentrates, the salt falls in the form of a fine
white powder, which is lifted out, set to drain, and dried.
It Is then ready for market. This is the favourite and
quickest mode ; but it makes a less pure salt. About

190 ORDER OF DEPOSITION OF THE

300 acres are covered with vats for solar evaporation ;
and these, in 1848, yielded 713,000 bushels, while only
75 acres are occupied by the blocks^ which manufactured
upwards of 4,000,000 bushels of fine salt. About one
half of the coarse salt is crushed or ground, and sold
under the name of dairy salt, being preferred for dairy
purposes.

In the order of deposition of the several ingredients of
the natural brine in the solar vats, Mr Vanuxem finds a
resemblance to, and an explanation of, the mode and
order of deposition of the several members of the Onon-
daga salt-group. '^ This group shows first a thick mass
coloured red w^ith iron, being its red shale." This cor-
responds w4th the oxide of iron first deposited in the vats.
" Above the red shales are the gypseous masses, towards
the upper part of which are the salt cavities " — (that is,
the hopper-shaped cavities in which crystals of salt are
supposed formerly to have existed.) " Above the whole
of these deposits is the sulphate of magnesia, its (former)
existence there being manifested by the needle-form cavi-
ties " in the rock.* This explanation is very natural,
and not void of beauty. It may require some modifica-
tions to adapt it to the local phenomena in detail — such as
the occurrence of the green and blue shales, the limestones,
and the calcareous marls. It is, however, neither an
unnatural nor unlikely general representation of the pro-
bable cause of some of the special chemical characters
exhibited by the several successive beds.

A more refined examination of the salts successively
deposited in the open wooden troughs in which the water
is exposed to spontaneous evaporation might lead to inte-
resting results of another kind. The brine most probably
contains both iodine and bromine ; and it is possible that, at
a certain stage of the evaporation, the saline compounds of

* Geology of the Third Dutrict, p. 109.

INGREDIENTS OF THE WATER. 191

these substances (iodides and bromides) may either be
deposited more abundantly, or retained in solution in
larger proportion than the common salt, and might in
consequence, in such large operations, be largely, easily,
and profitably extracted. I suggest the examination
of this point to my chemical friends in the State of New
York especially, as a very likely source of abundant
supplies of bromine.

CHAPTEE VII.

Eailway to Buflfalo, — The Americans a clever people. — Incorrectness of
speech on both sides of the Atlantic. — Joe Smith, founder of the
Mormons. — Outline of his history while in the State of New York. —
His removal to Missouri, to Ohio, and Illinois successively. His
imprisonment and death. — Rapid progress of his sect. — New State of
Utah, on the Salt Lake. — Outline and character of the book of Mor-
mon.— Its claims as an American revelation. — Canandagua. — City of
Rochester; its rapid rise. — Genesee flour. — Money -value of farms
on the Genesee River. — Profits of farming in this valley. — Mr Wads-
woi-th's farms and farming. — Rent, and rotation on his land. — Capital
of farmers on this estate. — Inducements to invest money in land in
New York State. — Sowing and reaping of wheat. — Relative values of
rural produce and of human labour. — Average produce of the Genesee
country. — New York does not produce wheat enough for its own
consumption. — North-east America not a dangerous competitor in
the English wheat market. — Upper Canada might for a time success-
fully compete with the English farmer. — Duty upon Canadian wheat
in the United States ports. — Expected effects of a repeal of this duty.
— Made an argument for annexation. — Impoi"tance of the direct trade
to Europe by the St LawTence. — Erie Canal ; its length, and that of its
branches. — Amount of traffic and revenue. — Number of emigrants
from different countries. — Cost of passage from New York to Lake
Erie. — Influence of the New England States on the development of
the new States. — Democratic party in the United States. — Principles
of the Old Hunkers and the Barnburners. — Forest and half cleared
land on approaching Buffalo. — Speculator's in land.

Sept. 15. — At seven In the morning I was at the rail-
way station to take my departure for Buffalo. I here
encountered one of those embarrassing mes-entendres
which are unavoidable when travelling among people who
will use old words in new senses. I was introduced to

USE OF THE WORD '' CLEVER." 193

a gentlemanly-looking physician, who followed up his
question of how I liked the country, with tlie question,
" Don't you find us a very clever people?" This was a
thrust so decidedly home that I could not believe he
meant what he asked. He looked also perfectly inno-
cent, but evidently expecting an answer. As I could
not conscientiously say yes, I hesitatingly said wdiat had
more than once occurred to me in passing through the
States — " At least you think yourselves so." But the
instant the words had escaped me, 1 apologised for my
rude speech, recollecting that, only two or three days
before, an American lady had remarked to me that this
word, in the States, is often used in the sense of " good-
natured, or ready to oblige." That the people of the
United States, wherever I have been, are clever in this
sense, I can honestly say. I added, therefore, avec
empressement^ " I understood your question wrongly ;
in your sense of the word, you are a clever people."
My new acquaintance felt the situation as much as I
did, and explained his question as a bit of local slang.
A stranger ought not willingly to give offence to a
people among whom he is travelling, nor to say what is
likely to hurt their feelings ; but this was a case where
the fault was on the side of those who are not careful to
maintain the fountains of speech in their primitive
purity.

Were we, however, to criticise the home speech of
the midddle classes among ourselves, as we feel inclined
to notice peculiarities abroad, we should find many
more instances of incorrectness than we are generally
avv^are of. Just before I left home, a lady of my
acquaintance, the daughter and sister of a clergymnn,
being asked of her sister's health, answered that " she
was very shabby;" and here, in this western Isew
York, I have been talking to an Englishman, on his

VOL. I. N

194

travels like myself, who tells me that the boat on Lake
Ontario does not sail whilst to-morrow. Though these
expressions are quite intelligible, yet they afford some
ground for the opinion w^hich a Yankee will occasionally
express, that his countrymen talk English quite as well
as ourselves.

Of course, I do not allude to provincial dialects, which
have not yet had time to spring up in the States, but
which, as with us, will gradually arise out of the dif-
ferent nationalities settled in different districts.

The distance by rail to Buffalo is 180 miles, which
we took fully twelve hours to accomplish. The whole
day's ride was along the belt of wheat-country of which
I have already spoken, though by no means in a straight
line, or always on its richest and most improved parts.

In the future history of mankind, if present appear-
ances are to be trusted, the counties of Wayne and
Ontario, through which we passed in the early part of
the day, are likely to derive an interest and impor-
tance, in the eyes of a numerous body of people, from a
circumstance wholly unconnected either with their social
progress, or with their natural productions or capabilities.
In these counties lie the scenes of the early passages in
the life of Joe Smith, the founder of the sect of the
Mormons.

Born in December 1805, in Sharon, Windsor County,
State of Vermont, he removed with his father, about
1815, to a small farm in Palmyra, Wayne County, New
York, and assisted him on the farm till 1826. He
received little education, read indifferently, wrote and
spelt badly, knew little of arithmetic, and, in all other
branches of learning he was, to the day of his death,
exceedingly ignorant.

His own account of his religious progress is, that as
early as fifteen years of age he began to have serious
ideas regarding the future state, that he got into occa-

HIS DISCOVERY OF THE PLATES. 195

slonal ecstasieSj and that in 1823, during one of these
ecstasies, he was visited by an angel, who told him that
his sins were forgiven — that the time was at hand when
the gospel in its fulness was to be preached to all
nations — that the American Indians were a remnant of
Israel, who, when they first emigrated to America, were
an enlightened people, possessing a knowledge of the
true God, and enjoying his favour — that the prophets
and inspired writers among them had kept a history
or record of their proceedings — that these records were
safely deposited — and that, if faithful, he was to be the
favoured instrument for bringing them to light.

On the following day, according to instructions from
the angel, he went to a hill which he calls Cumorah, in
Palmyra township, Wayne County, and there, in a stone
chest, after a little digging, he saw the records ; but it
was not till four years after, in September 1827, that
" the angel of the Lord delivered the records into his
hands."

" These records were engraved on plates which had
the appearance of gold, were seven by eight inches in
size, and thinner than common tin, and were covered on
both sides with Egyptian characters, small and beauti-
fully engraved. They were bound together in a volume
like the leaves of a book, and were fastened at one edge
with three rings running through the whole. The
volume was about six inches in thickness, bore many
marks of antiquity, and part of it was sealed. AVith the
records was found a curious instrument, called by the
ancients Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two
transparent stones, clear as crystal, and set in two rims
of a bow " — a pair of pebble spectacles, in other words,
or " helps to read" unknown tongues.

The report of his discovery having got abroad, his
house was beset, he was mobbed, and his life was endan-
gered by persons who wished to possess themselves of

19fi CHURCH OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

the plates. He therefore packed up his goods, concealed
the plates in a barrel of beans^ and proceeded across the
country to the northern part of Pennsylvania, near the
Susquehannah River, where his father-in-law resided.
Here, " by the gift and power of God, through the
means of the Urim and Thummira, he began to translate
the record, and, being a poor writer, he employed a
scribe to write the translation as it came from his mouth."
In 1830 a large edition of the Booh of Morjiion was
published. It professes to be an abridgment of the
records made by the prophet Mormon of the people of
the Nephites, and left to his son Moroni to finish. It
is regarded by the Latter-day Saints with the same
veneration as the New Testament is among Christians.

The Church of the Latter-day Saints was organised
on the 6th of April 1830, at Manchester, in Ontario
County, New York. Its numbers at first were few^ but
they rapidly increased, and in 1833 removed to the State
of Missouri, and purchased a large tract of land in
Jackson County. Here their neighbours tarred and
feathered some, killed others, and compelled the whole
to remove. They then established themselves in Clay
County, in the same State, but on the opposite side of
the river. From this place again, in 1835, they removed
eastward to the State of Ohio, settled at Kirtland, in
Gauga County, about twenty miles from Cleveland, and
began to build a temple, upon which sixty-thousand
dollars were expended. At Kirtland a bank was incor-
porated by Joe and his friends, property was bought with
its notes, and settled upon the Saints, after which the bank
failed — as many others did about the same time — and Ohio
became too hot for the Mormons. Again, therefore, the
Prophet, his apostles, and a great body of the Saints, left
their home and temple, went westward a second time to
the State of Missouri, purchased a large tract of land in
Caldwell County, in Missouri, and built the city of the

CITY AND TEMPLE OF NAUVOO. 197

" Far West." Here difficulties soon beset them, and in
August 1838 became so serious that the military were
called in ; and the Mormons were finally driven, unjustly,
harshly, and oppressively, by force of arms, from the
State of Missouri, and sought protection in the State of
Illinois, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. They
were well received in this State, and after wandering
for some time — while their leader, Joe Smith, was in
jail — they bought a beautiful tract of land in Hancock
County, and, in the spring of 1840, began to build the
city and temple of Nauvoo. The legislature of Illinois
at first passed an act giving great, and, probably,
injudicious privileges to this city, which, in 1844, was
already the largest in the State, and contained a popula-
tion of about twenty thousand souls. The temple, too,
was of great size and magnificence — being 128 feet long
and 77 feet high, and stood on an elevated situation,
from which it was visible to a distance of 25 or SO miles.
In the interior was an immense baptismal font, in
imitation of the brazen sea of Solomon — " a stone
reservoir, resting upon the backs of twelve oxen, also
cut out of stone, and as large as life."

But persecution followed them to Illinois, provoked in
some degree, no doubt, by their own behaviour,
especially in making and carrying into effect city
ordinances, which were contrary to the laws of the
State. The people of the adjoining townships rose in
arms, and were joined by numbers of the old enemies of
the Mormons from Missouri. The militia were called
out ; and, to prevent further evils, Joe Smith and one of
his brothers, with several other influential Saints, on an
assurance of safety and protection from the governor of
the State, were induced to surrender themselves for trial
in respect of the charges brought against them, and were
conducted to prison. Here they were inconsiderately
left by the Governor, on the following day, under a

198 NEW STATE OF UTAH.

guard of seven or eight men. These were overpowered
the same afternoon by an armed mob, who killed Joe
Smith and his brother, and then made their escape.
After this, the Mormons remained a short time longer in
the Holy City ; but the wound was too deep seated to
admit of permanent quiet on either part, and they were
at last driven out by force, and compelled to abandon or
sacrifice their property. Such as escaped this last
persecution, after traversing the boundless prairies, the
deserts of the Far West, and the Rocky Mountains,
appear at last to have found a resting-place near the
Great Salt Lake in Oregon. They are increasing
faster since this last catastrophe than ever ; and are daily
receiving large accessions of new members from Europe,
especially from Great Britain. They form the nucleus
of the new State of Utah, this year erected into a
territory of the United States, and likely, in the next
session of Congress, to be elevated to the dignity of an
independent State. So rapidly has persecution helped
on this offspring of ignorance, and tended to give a
permanent establishment, and a bright future, to a
system, not simply of pure invention, but of blasphemous
impiety, and folly the most insane.

The Booh of Mormon^ which is the written guide of
this new sect, consists of a series of professedly historical
books — a desultory and feeble imitation of the Jewish
chronicles and prophetical books — in which, for the
poetry and warnings of the ancient prophets, are
substituted a succession of unconnected rhapsodies and
repetitions, such as might form the perorations of ranting
addresses by a field preacher, to a very ignorant
audience.

The book, in the edition I possess, consists in all of
634 pages, of which the first 580 contain the history of
a fictitious personage called Lehi and that of his
descendants for the space of a thousand years.

BOOK OF MOEMOX. 199

This Lehi, a descendant of Joseph the son of Jacob,
with his family left Jerusalem In the beginning of the
reign of Zedeklah, six hundred years before Christ, and,
passing the Red Sea, journeyed eastward for eight
years till they reached the shore of a wide sea. There
they built a ship, and, embarking, were carried at length
to the promised land, where they settled and multiplied.
Among the sons of Lehl one was called Laman and
another Nephi. The former was wicked, and a disbeliever
in the law of Moses and the prophets; the latter, obedient
and faithful, and a believer in the coming of Christ.
Under the leadership of these two opposing brothers, the
rest of the family and their descendants arranged them-
selves, forming the Lamanltes and the Xephites, between
whom wars and perpetual hostilities arose. The
Lamanltes were idle hunters, living In tents, eating raw
flesh, and having only a girdle round their loins. The
skin of Laman and his followers became black ; while
that of NephI and his people, who tilled the land,
retained its original whiteness. As with the Jews, the
Nephltes were successful when they were obedient to
the law ; and, when they fell away to disobedience and
wickedness, the Lamanltes had the better, and put many
to death. At the end of about four hundred years, a
portion of the righteous Nephltes under Moslah, having
left their land, travelled far across the wilderness, and
discovered the city of Zarahemla, which was peopled
by the descendants of a colony of Jews who had
wandered from Jerusalem when King Zedeklah was
carried away captive to Babylon, twelve years after the
emigration of Lehl. But they were heathens, possessed
no copy of the law, and had corrupted their language.
They received the Nephltes warmly, however, learned
their language, and gladly accepted the law of Moses.
This occupies 158 pages. The history of the next two
hundred years follows this new people, and that of

200 APPEARANCE OF CHPvIST IN AMERICA !

occasional converts from the Lamanltes — called still by
the general name of Nephites in their struggles with
the Lamanites, and the alternations of defeat and success
which accompany disobedience or the contrary. This
occupies several books, and brings us to the 486th
page, and the period of the birth of Christ. This event
is signified to the people of Zarahemla by a great light,
which made the night as light as mid-day. And thirty-
three years after there was darkness for three days, and
thunderings and earthquakes, and the destruction of
cities and people. This was a sign of the crucifixion.
Soon after this, Christ himself appears to this people
of Zarahemla in America, repeats to them in long
addresses the substance of his numerous sayings and
discourses, as recorded by the apostles ; chooses twelve
to go forth and preach and baptize ; and then disappears.
On occasion of a great baptizing by the apostles,
however, he appears again ; imparts the Holy Spirit to
all, makes long discourses, and disappears. And,
finally, to the apostles themselves he appears a third
time; and addresses them in ill-assorted extracts and
paraphrases of his New Testament sayings.

The account of these visits of our Saviour to the
American Nephites, and of his sayings, occupies about 48
pages. For about 400 years, the Christian doctrine and
church thus planted among the Nephites had various
fortune; increasing at first, and prospering, but, as corrup-
tions came in, encountering adversity. The Lamanltes
were still their fierce enemies ; and as wickedness and
corrupt doctrine began to prevail among the Christians,
the Lamanltes gained more advantages. It would appear,
from Joe Smith's descriptions, that he means the war to
have begun at the Isthmus of Darlen — where the
Nephites were settled, and occupied the country to the
north, while the Lamanltes lived south of the isthmus.
From the isthmus the Nephites were gradually driven

BOOK OF ETHER. 201

towards the east, till finally, at the hill of Cumorah, near
Palmyra, in Wayne County, western New York, the
last battle was fought, in which, with the loss of
230,000 fighting men, the Nephites were exterminated !
Among the very few survivors was Moroni, the last of
the scribes, who deposited in this hill the metal plates
which the virtuous Joe Smith was selected to receive
from the hands of the angel. This occupies to the
580th page.

But now, in the Book of Ether, which follows, Joe
becomes more bold, and goes back to the tower of Babel
for another tribe of fair people, whom he brings over
and settles in America. At the confusion of the
languages. Ether and his brethren journeyed to the
great sea, and, after a sojourn of four years on the
shore, built boats under the Divine direction, water-tight,
and covered over like walnuts, with a bright stone in
each end to give light ! And when they had embarked
in their tight boats, a strong wind arose, blowing
towards the promised land, and for 344 days it blew
them along the water, till they arrived safe at the shore.
Here, like the sons of Lehi, they increased and
prospered, and had kings and prophets and wars, and
were split into parties, who fought with each other.
Finally, Shiz rose in rebellion against Coriantiimr, the
last king, and they fought with alternate success, till
two millions of mighty men, with their wives and
children, had been slain ! And, after this, all the people
were gathered either on the one side or the other, and
fought for many days, till only Coriantumr alone
remained alive !

This foolish history is written with the professedly
religious purpose of showing the punishment from the
hand of God which wicked behaviour certainly entails ;
and, with some trifling moralities of Moroni, completes
the Book of Mormon,

202 JOE smith's doctrines.

Joseph Smith does not affect In this gospel of his to
bring in any new doctrine, or to supersede the Bible,
but to restore " many plain and precious things which
have been taken away from the first book by the
abominable church, the Mother of Harlots." It is full of
sillinesses, follies, and anachronisms ; but I have not dis-
covered, in my cursory review, any of the immoralities or
positive licentiousness which he himself practised, directly
inculcated. He teaches faith in Christ, human depravity,
the power of the Holy Ghost, the doctrine of the
Trinity, of the atonement, and of salvation only through
Christ. He recommends the sacraments of baptism and
the Lord's Supper ; and, whatever his own conduct and
that of his people may be, certainly in his book
prohibits polygamy and priestcraft.

The wickedness of his book consists in its being a lie
from beginning to end, and of himself in being
throughout an impostor. Pretending to be a " seer" —
which, h€ says, is greater than a prophet — he puts into
the hands of his followers a work of pure invention as a
religious guide inspired by God, and which, among his
followers, is to take the place of the Bible. Though an
ignorant man, he was possessed of much shrewdness.
He courted persecution, though he hoped to profit, not
to die by it. Unfortunately, his enemies, by their
inconsiderate persecution, have made him a martyr for
his opinions, and have given a stability to his sect which
nothing may now be able to shake. It was urged by
Smith himself that the New World was as deserving of
a direct revelation as the Old ; and his disciples press
upon their hearers that, as an American revelation^ this
system has peculiar claims upon their regard and
acceptance. The feeling of nationality being thus
connected with the new sect, weak-minded native-born
Americans might be swayed by patriotic motives in
connecting themselves with it. But it is mortifying to

CITY OF ROCHESTER. 203

learn that most numerous accessions are being made to
the body in their new home by converts proceeding
from this country.* Under the name of the " Latter-
day Saints," professing the doctrines of the gospel, the
delusions of the system are hidden from the masses by
the emissaries who have been despatched into various
countries to recruit their numbers among the ignorant
and devoutly-inclined lovers of novelty. Who can
tell what two centuries may do in the way of giving a
historical position to this rising heresy ?

Leaving behind us the townships of Palmyra and
Manchester, the scene of Joseph's first transactions, and
of the last battles of his heroes, who seem to have fought
very much like the Kilkenny cats, and Canandagua, a
pretty town of one long street, running down to the lake
of the same name, we rapidly approached the city of
Rochester, on the falls of the Genesee Eiver. The valley
of this river is celebrated for its production of wheat,
and for the first-class flour into which its grain is con-
verted by the Eochester millers. On the falls of the
Genesee river have been established the numerous mills
and factories for which the city of Eochester is famous.
In 1812, only ten houses stood where, in 1850, a city
with 25,000 inhabitants had already arisen. The flour-
mills, which are driven by the great water-power, are
the chief distinction of Eochester. Some of these con-
sume upwards of 2000 bushels of wheat a-day, and pro-
duce, in the same time, 500 barrels of flour. But it has
cotton-mills, carpet factories, paper-mills, machine and
engine shops, plough, thrashing-machine, and other
agricultural implement manufactories, and ship-yards.

* It has beeu recently stated that the Mormon emigration from
Livei-pool alone, up to the present year, has been ] 3,500, and that they
have, on • the whole, been superior to and better provided than the
other classes of emigrants. Of course, many more of this sect must
have emigrated from other ports, and many even from the port of
Liverpool, whose faith and ultimate destination was not known.

204 VALUE OF NEW BLOOD.

Its literary tastes may be judged of from the fact that,
besides common and grammar schools, a Protestant uni-
versity has just been opened ; that the Roman Catholics
have a seminary, which they talk of converting into a
university ; and that, besides general libraries, it has a
law library belonging to the State, already containing
3000 volumes.

Not only rapid prosperity, but an active and energetic
population of men horn elsewhere^ is implied in all this.
Local advantages gave rise to Rochester, and will
advance it very much farther. But whatever be the
local position, an introduction of new blood — of men who
will look upon old and familiar things with new eyes —
always helps a place forward. Progress, therefore, can-
not fail to be rapid, when, in addition to manifest phy-
sical advantages, still imperfectly developed, the blood
of the whole city is new^ untied and untrammelled by
old notions, or hampered by forefather prejudices.

Rochester is the proper home of the celebrated Genesee
flour. But the Genesee flour of the New York mer-
chants is something like the Wallsend coals of the Lon-
don Coal Exchange. It is the brand or designation of
a superior quality of flour, which has obtained a name
in the New York and Atlantic markets, and which is
made now from wheat grown in various western locali-
ties. The quantity of flour manufactured at Rochester,
in 1848, was about 700,000 barrels, requiring upwards
of 3,000,000 of bushels of wheat. Of the yearly
increasing quantity thus ground up by the Rochester
millers, a large proportion is annually brought from
other States by way of the Erie Canal, the railroad, and
the lakes.

The Genesee Valley, which gives its name to the finest
samples of flour, produces wheat of the best quality.
The soil on which it is grown is for the most part a rich
drift clay — the ruins of the Onondaga salt-group — inter-

THE GENESEE VALLEY. 205

mixed with fragments of the Niagara and Clinton lime-
stones. A very comfortable race of farmers is located
in this valley. The richest bottom or intervale land,
cut for hay or kept for grazing, is worth 120 dollars, or
£26 an acre. The upland, the mixed clay and lime-
stone gravel land, of which I have already spoken, when
sold in farms of 100 to 150 acres — the usual size on this
river — brings from 35 to 70 dollars, according to the
value of the buildings that are upon it. The bottoms,
when ploughed up and sown to wheat, are liable to rust;
but the uplands yield very certain crops of 15 to 20
bushels an acre. On crops of 15 bushels the farmers of
all this wheat-region can live very well.

Land, of which a man with a good team w^ill plough
IJ to IJ acres a-day, costs six dollars an acre to culti-
vate, including seed, and 3^ more to harvest and thrash.
Fifteen bushels, at 1 to IJ dollars, (4s. 4d. to 4s. lOd.,)
give a return of 15 to 17 dollars, leaving a profit of
about six dollars, or 26s. an acre, for landlord and
tenant's remuneration, and for interest of capital invested
in farming stock. That this calculation is near the
truth, is shown by the rate at which the average land,
producing 16 to 18 bushels, is occasionally let, where it
suits parties to make such an arrangement. In these
cases, 7 to 7^ bushels of wheat an acre are paid for the
use of the land. In taking a farm at such a rent as this
— half the produce — the tenant makes a sacrifice for the
purpose of obtaining an outlet for superfluous home
labour. Our small farmers of 50 or 100 acres, who
cultivate with their own families, do the same when they
consent to pay rents which leave them, out of the pro-
duce of their farm, at the end of the year, less than the
usual wages of the labour expended upon it, for the
accommodation and comfort of being their own masters,
and of living and working together.

But all through this wheat-district much land is let

206 RENT AND PEOFITS ON THE GENESEE.

upon shares, the cultivator paying one-half of the clear
23roduce, with such details as the parties may arrange.
As In New Brunswick, this system Is more popular than
that of a fixed, and especially a money rent.

I had subsequently an opportunity of meeting Mr
Wadsworth, one of the largest landowners in the State,
possessing a large tract of the wheat-land in the Genesee
Valley. This gentleman himself farms 1000 acres, and
clears from 3 to 7J per cent on the whole capital
employed. Including the market value of the land, and
of the buildings and stock upon It. For a gentleman
farmer, this would be a very fair return ; but It Is scarcely
enough In a country where land gives no political and
little social Influence, and where, by lending his money,
and doing nothing, a man can obtain 7 per cent certain.

Mr Wadsworth informed me that the system of rent-
ing farms is not unpopular In his district ; that his farms
used to be let nominally on shares, but in reality at a
fixed grain rent. The produce was estimated at 18
bushels of wheat an acre, and he took one-third, or 6
bushels, as the rent. Latterly he has been taking 8
bushels, and the farmers pay it readily. The rotation he
prescribes is wheat followed by two years clover, cut for
hay or eaten off the first year, and eaten off or ploughed
in the second. For the wheat land he takes 6 or 8
bushels of grain of the best quality, delivered In kind at
a warehouse on the canal, where it is always sure of an
immediate and ready market ; * for the clover land he
takes a money-rent of two or three dollars an acre, as
may be fixed by inspection of an agent, every year.

* This is the old Scotch system of corn rents without the averages,
which the easy sale of wheat in this locality renders unnecessaiy.
Nothing seems fairer for all parties, more siiited to a proper rotation of
crops, or less likely to be affected injuriously either for landlord or
tenant by changes in corn laws, than that which is still followed where
old leases are unexpired. Thus on the Hamilton estate, within 6 miles
of Glasgow, a farm of 150 Scottish acres, the lease- of which is just

FARMING CAPITAL TOO SMALL. 207

These tillage farms are cultivated by persons who do
not usually possess more than £1 an acre of capital ; they
afford, in fact, an opportunity for persons to begin life who
do not possess money enough of their own to buy farms,
at least in that neighbourhood. What kind or quality of
farming would be looked for, in any of our best districts,
from men with such a capital as this ?

I may here remark, indeed, as my general impression
in regard to the^ farming of the whole of north-eastern
America it was my fortune to visit — that too little capital
is employed in cultivating the land. The land itself, and
the labour of their families, is nearly all, the capital which
most of the farmers possess. And if any of them save a
hundred dollars, they generally prefer to lend it on mort-
gage at high interest, or to embark it in some other
pursuit which they think will pay better than farming,
than to lay it out in bettering their farms, or in establish-
ing a more generous husbandry.

Of the rich grazing land, an acre and a half fattens off
a beast which in the lean state will cost £5. Those who
hold this land, therefore, require a capital of £3 or £4 an
acre to stock it.

With a capital of £1 an acre only, an exhausting
system of culture can scarcely fail to be followed — espe-
cially as the custom is to remain only from four to eight
years, and during this time to save as much as enables
the tenant to buy a farm somewhere for himself. Hence
the necessity for the strictest adherence to a rotation
such as that I have mentioned.

On the whole, under this system of management, Mr
Wadsworth calculates that his land yields him five per

expiring, pays a I'ent of 62 quarters each of wheat, barley, and oats, or
3 bushels of wheat, 3 of barley, and 3 of oats per imperial acre, reckoned
at the average prices for the same year between November and February.
Eight bushels of wheat per acre is a higher rent than the above nine of
mixed crops ; but the land of the farm I allude to is not naturally so
good as that upon the Genesee.

208 LAND CONFERS NO INFLUENCE.

cent upon its market value in the form of rent, besides
which he has the benefit of the continual rise in the value
of land, which has added enormously to the value of this
property since it came into the hands of his family. But
this return is scarcely advantageous enough to present an
inducement to moneyed men of the Old World to invest
their capital in the purchase of large tracts of land in the
New. The possession of this land carries with it little
increased consideration, and confers no political influence.
On the contrary, in most places it is a cause of jealousy,
distrust, and dislike. The feeling is that the living man,
and not the dead chattels that he owns, ought to influence
the destinies of the country.

The wheat in this Genesee region is sown in the last
week of August, or first of September. It thus gets well
rooted before the winter sets in, and is not so liable to be
thrown out. It begins to grow again about the first of
May, and from that time is ripe in about eighty days,
being usually reaped in the last week of July. This
rapid growth, in Mr Wadsworth's opinion, stands in the
way of their raising generally, in this district, crops of
wheat so large as ours. The heavy crops which are
occasionally reaped, however, are not in favour of this
opinion. It is, nevertheless, an interesting subject for
experiment. What the land of this region would pro-
duce, under skilful culture steadily conducted, is not yet
known. If the land were enriched with substances which,
while they did not raise so great a rush of straw as to
increase the chances of rust, should especially promote
the growth and filling of the ear, tlie true influence of
the climate upon this important crop would be more
distinctly made out.

An interesting fact connected with the agricultural
history of this country is, the change that has taken place
in the relative values of human labour and of rural
produce. Forty years ago the wages of a man for a

AYERAGE PRODUCE OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 209

year were valued at the price of one yoke of oxen, or of
50 bushels of wheat. Now they are equal to the value
of two yoke of oxen, or of 100 bushels of wheat. This
does not indicate a corresponding money-rise in the
wages of labour. The difference is partly caused by a
fall in the market-value of agricultural produce ; but, as
all other necessaries of life are at least as cheap as they
were forty years ago, the condition of the agricultural
labourer must have greatly improved. I doubt if, in
any part of our own islands, the same can be said in
regard to the condition of our agricultural labourers.

What this district of country originally was in ferti-
lity may be inferred from what it still is. The average
produce per acre of its three most fertile counties, as
recently published, is represented by the numbers in the
following table : —

Genesee.

Ontario.

Nia2;ara.

Wheat, .

161

16

18

Barley, .

15

19

19

Oats, .

23

32

29

%e,

10

9

81

Buckwheat, .

19

21

17

Indian corn,

25

29

29

Potatoes,

125

106

110

Turnips,

105

148

155

Compare the numbers opposite wheat and barley, and it
will appear at once that this is eminently a wheat-
country ; and then consider that, after all the exhausting
culture to which it has been so long subjected, it still
yields an average of from 16 to 18 bushels of wheat per
acre, and we shall have an idea of what its natural
fertility as a region must originally have been — what, I
may say, its fertility will still become, when the exertions
of its agricultural societies and of its many spirited im-
provers shall have produced their destined effect, (I hope
I may so speak of it) upon the practical cultivation of
its grateful soil.

VOL. 1. 0

^10 WHEAT-PEODUCING POWER OF

But, with all the fame and natural capability of this
fine western region of New York, the Empire state as a
whole does not at present — according to the best infor-
mation I have been able to obtain — produce wheat
enough for the consumption of its own inhabitants. In
round numbers, the population of the State of New
York is about three millions, while the produce of wheat
in bushels is about 15 millions — or at the rate of five
bushels to each inhabitant. If, according to our English
calculations, eight imperial bushels a-head are necessary
to support our people, the New York people, though
they may consume a large quantity of Indian corn, can
have little surplus left out of five bushels a-head.'^

My impression is, therefore, that our British farmers
have little to fear from the competition of the wheat-
growers of all that part of North America which lies
between the Atlantic and the St Lawrence — from New-
foundland on the east, as far west as the head of Lake
Ontario. The whole of this region, as to wheat-grow-
ing, is more or less in sympathy with the English farmer
— struggling against the vigorous competition of the
new North-Western States. Wheat is already more
costly to raise than In former years, even in the least
exhausted portions of this north-eastern region; while
the North-Western States, until the rise or growth of a
consuming population among themselves, or till the fresh-
ness of the virgin soils is rubbed off, can afford to export
supplies of wheat at a comparatively nominal price.

I would not be so rash as to say, or so uncharitable
as to hope, that the wheat-producing powers of the
region east of Lake Erie, and south of the St Lawrence,
will never be much greater than it is now ; I believe it
may become, and I hope the time may soon arrive, when
more skill and knowledge shall have forced it to become

* This argument is stronger, if it is also recollected that an imperial
quarter is a little moi-e than nine American bushels.

WESTERN NEW YORK. . 211

far more productive, as a whole, than It is now. But by
that time a larger home population also will have arisen
to consume it, while the very introduction of more
generous and more artificial forms of culture will add to
the cost of production on the whole. So that, even when
such better agricultural times arrive in this region, the
English farmer will still, in my opinion, have little to
fear from this quarter of the American continent. He
may find here new Lothians and Norfolks and Lin-
colnshires, and a reproduction of the best farmers of all
these districts — their very sons and grandsons, in fact,
settled on American farms ; but I do not expect he
will ever, in ordinary seasons, have reason to look upon
them with bitter feelings, as so rivalling him in the
British wheat market as to lessen his own home profits,
or seriously to diminish the comforts of his family.

Were Upper Canada seriously to turn her thoughts to
the reasonable development of her material interests,
she ought to become, for a while, the most formidable
American competitor of the English farmer, in the home
markets.

The duty upon Canadian wheat on entering the States
is 20 per cent. This, as is well known, is loudly com-
plained of, and it is desirable that it should be removed,
on the broad principle of abolishing restrictions upon
commerce — if not for those special reasons which our
North American colonies put forward most strongly.
But notwithstanding this duty, the Rochester millers
cross the lake, buy the Canadian wheat at Toronto, pay
the freight across, and the 20 per cent duty, and after
all, make a profit on their flour in New York. Is this
first-class flour with the Genesee brand made for the
home market only — to suit a special American taste — and
is a higher price given to the Rochester millers on this
account ? If so, one could understand why, with the view
of manufacturing for this special market, the Rochester

212 PRICES OF WHEAT IN ROCHESTER AND TORONTO.

millers could afford to pay this premium for Canadian
wheat of equal quality with that of western New York,
and grown upon similar soils. But such is not the case.
Abundance of this flour, if I am not misinformed, comes
to Liverpool, and is sold in the English, and I believe
also in the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia markets.
What a premium there is here, therefore, upon the
expenditure of Canadian enterprise !

At the period of my visit to the neighbourhood of
Bochester, wheat was selling in the Toronto market at
75 to 80 cents a bushel ; while at Bochester, the same
qualities brought 106 to 112| cents — being a difference
of about 25 per cent. In six hours a packet can cross
from Toronto to Bochester and bring grain at 2 cents a
bushel ; and it is the opinion of the Upper Canadians,
that if they had reciprocity with the States, either by
annexation or otherwise, their wheat would rise to the
full amount of the duty now paid on importation to the
States. The Bochester and Oswego millers, on the other
hand, are favourable to reciprocity, because they think
that a large proportion of the duty now paid, would
come into their pockets ; while the New York farmers
are naturally averse to the introduction of Canadian
wheat duty-free, to compete with, and reduce the price
of their own, at the season of the year in which it is in
greatest request.

I shall return to this subject hereafter, when I speak
of my observations in Canada. I will only observe, in
this place, that the expectations of the Canadians from
this reciprocity are in my opinion greatly exaggerated.
The differential duty ought to be removed if possible, on
the ground that all such obstructions stand in the way
of the full and natural development of the resources of
great countries, and create artificial interests, as they
have done among us, which it is very difficult after-
wards to do away with. But the policy of Canada is to

IMPORTANCE OF THE ST LAWRENCE. 213

encourage direct communication with Europe, and to
endeavour to perfect itself to make more use of the
navigation of the St Lawrence. Western America is
now beginning to feel the importance of this river,
which is the great natural outlet, and must become a
main commercial outlet for the growing productions
of the new North-Western States. The Erie Canal is
already far too limited for the traffic which at present
comes to it, and the St Lawrence presents facilities
which the canal does not possess ; and of these facilities
numerous parties in the States are already beginning
to avail themselves. Instead of making sacrifices,
therefore, with the view of obtaining a reciprocity, the
benefits of which would be at least as great to New
England as they would be to Canada, let the Canadian
wheat and flour be sent direct to Liverpool ; and in this
way the Canadian merchant and miller may put in their
pockets the duties and profits they are now made to pay
to other parties as they pass through the cities of Roches-
ter and New York to the same final destination.

This great canal, the sole main artery along which —
until the railway from Albany to Buffalo was formed — the
traffic of the west and of the upper lakes found its way
to the Atlantic, is not only very creditable to the enter-
prise and foresight of the people of New York State, but
has been a source of great wealth to them. It has also
proved the means of developing, in a most rapid manner,
the natural resources of the State, and of creating an
extent of commercial and manufacturing industry which,
without such a means of easy, lengthened, and econo-
mical transit, it might have taken centuries to establish.
This canal connects the navigable waters of the Hudson,
at Albany and Troy, with the north-eastern part of Lake
Erie at Bufi'alo. It has a length between these extremes
of 363 miles, and it is joined in its way by branches,
which with their feeders are 273 miles in length. There

214 TEAFFIC ON THE ERIE CANAL.

is, besides, the Lake Champlain Canal of 79 miles, by
which the navigation of the lake Is connected with that
of the liver Hudson, making In all 714 miles of canal
navigation, and necessary feeders, executed and upheld
by the State. In executing this work, a large outlay
was for many years Incurred, and Its projectors had much
opposition to encounter, and m-any struggles with the
purse-holders of the State, before It could be brought into
a navigable condition. Now It Is a source of large direct
money-revenue to the State, in addition to the numerous
indirect benefits which it otherwise confers. The total
number of tons of goods of all sorts conveyed along It, in
1849, was 2,894,732, and their estimated value about
145,000,000 of dollars. The main transit of produce is
from west to east, as we should naturally suppose. Thus,
in 1849, the tons of wheat and flour conveyed eastward
to the Hudson were 434,444, while there were conveyed
westward to Buffalo, on the way to other States, only
67,966 tons of the same articles. Of the whole traffic,
also, of all kinds, 1,266,000 tons came eastward to the
Hudson, while only 315,000 tons went westward. The
toll varies from 1 to 5 mills (thousandths of a dollar) for
1000 lbs. per mile, and the revenue in 1849 amounted to
3,250,000 of dollars, of which 2 J millions remained as a
clear surplus, after paying all necessary expenses of
collection and repairs.

The importance of this canal to the Western States
appears from the fact, that of the whole traffic from the
west, (1,226,000 tons) which arrived at the Hudson,
768,000 tons had come direct from the Western States.
Besides, It is one of the great thoroughfares to the
western territory for the poorer classes of emigrants from
Europe. For the emigrants who arrive at New York
there is a choice of two routes to the west — one by
Philadelphia and Pittsburg, the other by Albany and
Buffalo. The latter is the cheaper, the easier, and the

189,176

220,603

18^8.

1849.

98,061

112,591

23,062

28,321

6,415

8,840

1,054

1,782

128,592

151,534

51,973

55,705

1, 2,932

6,754

2,734

2,683

EMIGRANTS TO NEW YORK. 215

more direct, and, since the formation of the railway, is
also much the quicker route.

The number of emigrants who landed at New York in
the years 184S and 1849 respectively, were

In 1848,
In 1849,

Of these there were from

Ireland,

England,

Scotland,

Wales, ....

Total from Great Britain )
and Ireland, . . J

Germany,

Holland, Norway, and Sweden

France, ....

A very large majority of the European population,
which is flowing to the United States, comes, therefore,
from the United Kingdom. Germany sends out more
than any other country of continental Europe. In con-
sidering the effect of the vast numbers of Irish emi-
grants upon the population of North America, it is of
consequence to notice that of the Teutonic races, includ-
ing the English, German, Scotch, Dutch, and Scandi-
navian : there are almost as many as there are of the
Celts. The Irish emigrants, also, are by no means all
of pure Celtic blood. As a whole, therefore, these emi-
grants would produce a valuable mixed population were
they to be settled indiscriminately, and intermingled by
marriage in succeeding generations. This, however, is
to a certain extent prevented, by the natural tendency
of people of the same country to flock together, and to
settle near each other. Thus, as the French prepon-
derate in Lower Canada and Louisiana, the Germans in
Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio, the Dutch in some

216 ISOLATION OF RACES.

places upon the Hudson Elver, &c., so the Irish and the
Highland Scotch, and even the Norwegians, establish
themselves in separate localities, and give a tone to the
manners, feelings, and habits, and new words and
accents to the language of the tow^nships, counties, or
states, in which they choose their homes. This will,
no doubt, be found to give peculiarities to the popula-
tion of the several States, and to modify the temper,
and even the legislation, of the Houses of Assembly in
each State. But these State differences will disappear
in the Federal Congress, and will rarely affect the action
or procedure of the Central Government. The greater
fire and impatience of one State will be restrained by
the coolness and caution of another ; and thus, while the
warm temperaments of some of the States may prevent
national stagnation, they will, it is to be hoped, but
seldom prevail to hurry forward the whole Union to
hasty and inconsiderate measures.

In regard to the new States which are springing up
towards the west and north, it is very interesting to
observe how important an influence is exercised by the
restless New Englanders upon the establishment among
them of political, religious, and educational institutions,
and upon the general character and expression of public
feeling and sentiment.

The emigrants who go out from Europe — the raw
bricks for the new State buildings — are generally poor,
and for the most part indifferently educated. Being
strangers to the institutions of the country, and to their
mode of working, and, above all, being occupied in
establishing themselves, the rural settlers have little
leisure or inclination to meddle with the direct regulation
of public affairs for some years after they have first
begun to hew their farms out of the solitary wilderness.
The New" Englanders come in to do this. The west is
an outlet for their superfluous lawyers, their doctors.

INFLUENCE OF NEW ENGLAND. 217

their ministers of various persuasions, tlieir newspaper
editors, tlieir bankers, their merchants, and their pedlars.
All the professions and influential positions are filled up
by them. They are the movers in all the public mea-
sures that are taken in the organisation of State govern-
ments, and the establishment of county institutions;
and they occupy most of the legislative, executive, and
other official situations, by means of which the State
affairs are at first carried on. Thus the west presents
an inviting field to the ambitious spirits of the east ;
and through their means the genius and institutions of
the New England States are transplanted and diffused,
and determine, in a great measure, those of the more
westerly portions of the Union.

Near Eochester we passed one of the emigrant trains
which every day proceed from Albany and Troy to
Buffalo, on their way to the Far West. There were
women and children and men of all ages, and the ragged
and lively, though often squalid-looking Irish, were
mixed up wath the more decently clad and graver-looking
English, Scotch, and Germans. The fare from New
York to Albany by water, and thence to Buffalo by
railway, is five dollars a-head, though the poor strangers
are liable to much imposition in New York on the part
of a set of men called runners^ who waylay them on
landing, and profess to give them information, with the
view only of cheating them of their money. Much pains
has been taken, however, by the State Emigration Com-
missioners in New York, with the view of preventing
such imposition. It is made unlawful for a tavern or
lodging-house keeper to detain the luggage of an emigrant
for any debts he may contract ; persons are appointed
to give information to those who land; and were ordinary
prudence to be exercised by European emigrants, very
much less opportunity for fraud would be afforded to the
swarms of heartless wretches who, in proportion to the

218 OLD HUNKERS AND BARNBURNEKS.

population, are probably as mimerous at least in New
York as in any European city.

Though most of my fellow-passengers were on their
way from the fair at Syracuse, the conversation in the
cars was more about political differences, conventions,
and discussions, than about the proceedings of the show.
The Old Hunkers and the Barnhurners — two sections
of the democratic party — were holding many meetings
throughout the country, with the view of bringing about
a union, as their differences had been a source of great
advantage to the Whigs at the recent federal and state
elections. In England, to be a democrat still implies a
position at the very front of the movement party, and a
desire to hasten forward political changes, irrespective of
season or expediency. But among the American demo-
crats there is a Conservative and a Radical party. The
former, who desire to restrain " the amazing violence of
the popular spirit," are nick-named by their democratic
adversaries the " Old Hunkers;" the latter, who pro-
fess to have in their hearts " sworn eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,"
are stigmatised as Barnburners^ but call themselves the
" Young Democracy!!^ or the " Progressive Young
Democracy." The New Yorh Tribune^ in reference to
the origin of the names themselves, says that the name
Hunkers " was intended to indicate that those on whom
it was conferred had an appetite for a large hunk* of
the ' spoils,' though we never could discover that they
were peculiar in that. On the other hand, the Barn-
burners were so named, in allusion to the story of an old
Dutchman who relieved himself of rats by burning his
barns which they infested, just like exterminating all
banks and corporations, to root out the abuses connected
therewith." It is alleged against the Barnburners, that

* Hunh or hunch is a large slice or piece — as, a hunk of bread and
cheese.

PRINCIPLES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 219

their recent conduct in reference to the slavery question,
as the supporters of General Cass, the pro-slavery can-
didate, is sadly inconsistent with their affected hostility
to every form of tyranny. But where men go for the
predominance of a party, small considerations regarding
consistency will not readily restrain them.

But if the principles of this extreme section of the
democratic party in the United States be such as their
own organs (the Ohio Union ^ for example,) represent
them, they can scarcely be charged with inconsistency
in this, or almost any other case. " They believe that
the democratic impulses are right, and should be obeyed,
not thwarted : they believe in and favour progress, and
would not prescribe a fixed rule in all minor matters for
all time^ but would adapt action to the circumstances
and exigencies which arise in the progression of events,
and to the rights and interests which accompany or
result from that progression and its changes." This is
virtually surrendering principle to impulse, and giving
the reins into the hands of a constantly shifting expe-
diency. If they find it expedient, for party purposes, to
oppose the extension of slavery to-day, therefore, it
will not, with these professions, be inconsistent to pro-
nounce it expedient to favour that extension to-morrow.

Proceeding from Eochester to Attica, a distance of
forty-four miles, in a south-west direction, we again
crossed the several geological formations I have already
described, and saw much strong wheat-land. Here and
there considerable patches of forest remained, and some-
times fields with the stumps standing ; and occasionally
my memory was refreshed by a more or less extensive
burning of the stumps, reminding me of what I had
seen so frequently, and on so large a scale, in the forests
of New Brunswick. Thirty miles more brought me to
Buffalo ; and upon this tract the native forest, still
untouched, and the log cabin, and the half-cleared land,

220 EVIL EFFECTS OF LAND-JOBBING.

and the blackened stumps, and the occasional fellings
and burnings, told of our approach to the limits of com-
plete settlement — to the wilderness lands, over which the
living tide of redundant European energy is so rapidly-
diffusing itself.

Along the line of this great thoroughfare in the State
of New York, comparatively few emigrants now linger.
Farmers, with capital to stock a good farm at home,
occasionally find eligible farms to buy, upon which they
can comfortably settle, and bring up their families with-
out fear of rent-days or shifting corn-laws. But the
mass of movers, who are men of comparatively small
means, pass on without inquiring whether or not the
State of New York has still any suitable land to sell.

It may at first sight be considered as a remarkable
circumstance, indeed, that, in a country so large and so
new as the State of New York, containing 46,200
square miles, only 350,000 acres were public property
at the beginning of 1849. Of these only 25,000 be-
longed to the State, 11,000 to the Literature Fund, and
314,000 to the School Fund. But a little inquiry soon
shows that when people are flocking in from foreign
countries, and lands are for sale at a fixed price, land-
speculators will spring up, in whose hands large tracts
will accumulate, to be held till a rise in price enables the
first purchasers to sell with a profit. It is by land-job-
bing, in fact, that the largest fortunes have been made
in most of the States. Though this land-jobbing has
made it the interest of individuals to use all efforts to
turn the tide of emigration in particular directions, and
has thus at first more rapidly increased the population
of the new States, it has undoubtedly, in the end, the
effect of retarding the settlement of a country and the
development of its natural resources ; and it is one of
the internal evils under which our own North American
colonies are now to a considerable extent suffering.

CHAPTEE VIII.

City of Buffalo ; cause of its rapid rise. — Influence of the growth of
the Western States on the agriculture of western New York and
Upper Canada. — Passage from Buffalo to Chicago in Illinois and
Millwaukie in Wisconsin. — Home ideas as to these new States. —
Cheap wheat does not imply rich land. — Character of the soils in
Michigan. — Avei-age produce of this State, and of its several counties.
— Exaggerated statements of the producing and exporting powers of
these new States. — Can the export from these new States continue ?
— Thin sowing of buckwheat. — Quantity of seed-corn per acre sown
for the different kinds of grain in the several States of the Union. —
Copper mines of Lake Superior. — Immense masses of native copper.
— Extent and richness of the deposits. — How they occur. — Ancient
Indian workings. — Amusing differences of opinion as to the mode in
which the copper has been deposited. — State of Wisconsin. — Popular
feeling in regard to the several new States. — Quantity of public land
sold in each in 1847.— Short Michigan fever in 1836. — Minnesota,
the New England of the West. — Influence of these new States on the
future traffic of the St Lawrence. — Wonders of the hog crop of
Ohio. — Comparative productiveness of the States of Ohio and New
York. — Indian corn the staple of Ohio. — Outlet for this crop in
raising pork. — Hogs killed in the several western States. — How they
are fed. — "Packing business" at Cincinnati. — How all the parts of the
animals are disposed of — Lard oil exported largely to France to
adulterate olive oil. — Amount of the various marketable products of
this business at Cincinnati. — Connection of rural economy and
manufactures.

Buffalo, now a city of upwards of 40,000 inhabitants,
contained in 1830 only 8,653, and in 1813 was a small
village, which in that year was destroyed by fire. Its
rise has been rapid, and its future progress is likely to be
great ; but both are easily intelligible — unavoidable, in

222 PROGRESS AND TRAFFIC OF BUFFALO.

fact, in the nature of things. Its position at the
termination of the Erie Canal, the monopoly of the
carrying trade of the lakes, and the rapid peopling of
the Far West — these are the sources of its past progress,
and must be the causes of a great increase still to its
size, wealth, and importance. It bears, in fact, at one
end of the inland water communication of the State, the
same relation to the traffic of the wide north-western
country as New York at the other end bears to the
commerce with Europe.

It is interesting to note the direct and immediate effect
which the peopling of a new country has, not only oit
the rise and prosperity of particular localities, but upon
the general wealth, economical value, and forms of
husbandry followed in countries which adjoin it.

Thus, in 1838, wheaten flour was shipped at
Buffalo for the west ; and the wheat-region of New
York, with that of Upper Canada, were the main sources
of its supply. Now, after only twelve years, an enormous
supply of wheat and flour is brought from the west,
along Lake Erie, and shipped upon the Erie Canal for
the east, at Buffalo and the adjoining port of Blackrock.
Thus, of wheat and flour so shipped, independent of
what might be arrested by the way, at Rochester and
elsewhere, there arrived at the Hudson Biver, in —

1846, . . . 264,000 tons.

1847, . . . 398,000 ...

1848, . . . 273,000 ...

1849, . . . 250,000 ...

The value of these articles at Buffalo, in each of these
last two years, averaging about 10,000,000 of dollars.

The effect of these large arrivals from the Western
States — which were unnaturally stimulated during the
years of European famine, as the large number opposite
the year 1847 indicates — has been to render wheat less
valuable in western New York, to make the wheat

HOME OPINIONS OF THESE NEW STATES. 223

culture less remunerative, and to turn the attention of
the New York farmers more to grazing and dairy
husbandry, fruit culture, and other branches of rural
economy, in which they think the north-west will be
unable so directly to compete with them.

The nearest of the new North-western States to Buf-
falo is Michigan, which commences at the other end of
Lake Erie. On the arrival of the trains from Albany,
steamers, during the summer months, are in waiting to
convey emigrants up the lake without delay. At the
time of my visit, 500 emigrants a-day were said to
leave the Hudson River, and make their way by rail to
Buffalo. Along the lake to Detroit, In Michigan —
about 250 miles — is, by the quicker boats, 17 hours;
from Detroit across the south end of Michigan, by
railway, to New Buffalo, 11 hours ; and again, by
steamboat, across the foot of Lake Michigan, to Chicago
in Illinois, is 4 hours ; and to Millwaukle, in Wisconsin,
about 6 hours more ; — In all, about 32 hours to Chicago,
(518 miles,) and 42 to Millwaukie.

We are accustomed to attach the Idea of great natural
productiveness, and of boundless tracts of rich land, to
those new States from which come the large supplies of
wheat that are annually poured into the port of Buffalo,
and which vex the New York State and New England
farmers, by their effect upon the prices of the staple
article of vegetable food. But a closer examination of
these counties undeceives us as to both these points.
The power of exporting large quantities of wheat implies
neither great natural productiveness, nor permanently
rich land. In a district which, from a state of nature, is
beginning to be subjected to arable culture.

In Michigan, for example, the geological structure
shows that a very large portion of the State is occupied
by rocks which belong to the coal measures, and, like
the similar rocks in New Brunswick, yield poor soils.

224 SOILS IN MICHIGxVN.

Then the central basin, in which the coal is found, is
encircled by a broad zone of those older rocks of which
I have spoken under the name of the Portage and
Chemung groups, as forming the upland and interior
portions of western New York. Among these, thick
sandstone rocks occur, which give sandy and stony soils,
and dark-coloured shaly rocks, poor in lime, which yield
soils on which an inferior forest vegetation naturally
springs up, and which, under the influence of culture,
yield poorly remunerating returns.

In Michigan generally^ therefore, the soils ought to be
poor — the main exceptions being at its northern
extremity, towards the straits of Michilimackinac, which
connects Lake Huron with Lake Michigan, and on its
south-eastern extremity, where it adjoins the river and
lake of St Clair, and the rich lands of the south-
western limit of Upper Canada — and such, I believe, is
practically found to be the case. The Michigan Central
Kailroad passes over much poor sandy country. And
although extensive tracts of thin poor soil, sparsely
studded with open forests of stunted oak, appear to
invite the settler by the ease with which they can be
cleared, and the first crops put in, yet a few years' trial
warns him, at the first favourable opportunity, to shift
his location, — sell it, if he can, to a new-comer — and
to seek out for a permanent resting-place in a more
naturally favoured district.

And yet, such a country as I have described — like
the interior uplands of western New York — will give
excellent first crops, even of wheat, and will supply, to
those who skim the first cream off the country, a large
surplus of this grain to send to market.

The correctness of these remarks is proved by a
comparison of the actual average produce of the land in
this new State of Michigan, with the quantity of wheat
and flour it has of late years been able to export. Thus

COUNTY AVERAGES IN MICHIGAN.

225

— according to the Statistical Eeturns for 1848, published
by order of the State legislature in 1849, and for a
copy of which I have to express my obligations to the
Secretary of the State Agricultural Society, Mr Holmes
— it appears that, in 1848, the number of

Acres sown to wheat, was . 465,900

Of bushels produced, was . 4,739,300

And the average, per imperial acre, 10 1 bushels ;

or less than 9 bushels, if seed-corn be deducted.

And that this average is not derived from the
combinations of extreme numbers, given by very poor
and very rich land, appears from the fact, that, of the
twenty-nine counties of which the separate averages are
deducible from the published returns —

Bushels per acre.

2 Counties

give

an average

of

7

3

...

8

2

9

7

10

6

11

3

12

4

13

1

-

16

1

18

These last 2 counties being Macomb and St Clair,
situated on the fertile south-east portion of the State, to
which I have already referred.

And yet the quantity of wheat and flour exported
from this State is comparatively large — though I have
access to no trustworthy data from which the absolute
quantity can be estimated.* Were we to allow to each

* I may give, as an illustration of the veiy loose, and often
exaggerated statements which are put forth regarding these new
States, what has been published by authority in regard to Michigan.
In the Patent Office Report for 1847, p. 547, a table is given,
representing the estimated population, produce in wheat, home
consumption of this grain, and surplus for export in each State of the
Union in that year. In this table the population of Michigan is taken
VOL. I. P

226 EXPORTING POWER OF MICHIGAN.

of its 400,000 Inhabitants 8 bushels of wheat, as Indian
corn enters there less into the consumption of the
people, there would remain a surplus for exportation of
1,500,000 bushels. Even this is a large export for so
young a State, and naturally leads a foreigner to the
idea that the country must be very fertile to raise so
large a surplus with so small a population. But the
real reason for this surplus is, that nearly the whole
population is employed in agricultural pursuits, and that
wheat is the only grain they produce for which a ready
market can be found, and which can be easily exchanged
for the manufactured goods, and West or East India
produce, which are necessary to their comfort.

A question of great importance to the British and
New England wheat-growers here suggests itself — Will
the large export of wheat from these new States con-
tinue to increase, or are there any reasons why it should
by-and-by begin to decrease ? So far as I have been
able to collect information bearing upon this question, I
am decidedly of opinion that, though the quantity of

at 378,000, the produce of wheat at 8,000,000 of bushels ! the
consumption at 3 bushels per head! and the sui'plus of 6,890,000
bushels given as remaining for exportation, making Michigan, after
Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the largest wheat-exporting State in
the Union. Again, in the same Patent Office Eeport for 1848, p. 547,
the population is estimated at 400,000, the consumption at 8 bushels
per head, and yet a surplus of four millions of bushels is supposed to
remain for exportation. But in opposition to these calculations are
the numbers obtained by actual inquiiy in 1848, and published by
order of the Michigan legislature in 1849, which show the entire
produce of wheat in the State, in 1848, to have been only 4,739,300
bushels.

For such inaccuracies, of course, the compilers of the Reports
published at Washington are probably not deserving of blame, so much
as their State correspondents, who have a tendency, each of them, to
magnify and exaggerate the produce and fertility of his own new
region, for the purpose of drawing more men and more capital into it.
But their effect, when discovered, is to lessen our faith very much in
the other important data which are contained in these very valuable
reports, otherwise so creditable to the United States.

BOGS AND SWAMPS IN MICHIGAN. 227

wheat and flour exported from these north-western
States may continue to increase for a certain .limited
number of years, it will by-and-by begin to diminish,
and will finally in a great measure cease. The reasons
for this opinion will be given when I come to review the
agricultural changes which the last twenty years have
introduced into the husbandry of Lower Canada.

I may however, as a special fact affecting the capabi-
lities of Michigan, here mention, that the long peninsular
character of this State, surrounded on all sides by water,
mollifies much and equalises its climate, but at the same
time makes it exceedingly moist. This, with the
peculiar impermeable character of many of its rocks,
cover large portions of surface — as is the case in parts
of New Brunswick — with bogs and swamps. The whole
area of the State is about 36,000,000 acres, and of
these 4,500,000, or one-eighth of the whole, are untill-
able swamps. With an indifferent soil, and a humid
climate, this vast extent of constantly cold and exhaling
surface must co-operate to diminish the agricultural
capabilities of the State as a whole.

In connection with the growth of grain in these new
countries, I may advert to a circumstance which is
closely related to the subject of a discussion which has
for some time interested the agricultural body in Great
Britain — that of thick or thin sowing. I have already
alluded, in the case of buckwheat, to the very small
quantity of seed — one-half to one bushel an acre — which
is found sufficient to secure a good crop of this grain in
New Brunswick. In the State of Vermont, from a
quarter to a half bushel is the usual quantity of seed
sown for this crop ; and in Tennessee one bushel.

I was at first inclined to attribute the success of these
small quantities of seed, in the case of buckwheat, to
the protection against the attacks of insects which this
seed derives from the hard triangular shell with which

228

QUANTITY OF SEED-CORN SOWN

it is covered ; and this may possibly have some influence
in securing the growth of a larger proportion of the
seeds sown, than in the case of less securely protected
kinds of grain. But on comparing together the practice
of different portions of the United States, in reference
to the quantity of seed-corn of various kinds sown to
the acre, we are compelled, I think, to allow to other
causes a very material influence in determining how
much or how little it will be safest for the farmer to
sow. Thus of wheat, barley, oats, rye, rice, and pota-
toes, the quantity of seed put in per imperial acre, in
the different States, so far as I have been able to ascer-
tain, is as follows : —

Georgia,

Alabama,

Michigan,

WHEAT.

Bushels.

Texas,
Illinois,
New York,

Bushels.
3

toU

H

Tennessee,
Michigan,
Maine,

BARLEY.

Bushels. Bushels.

I New York, 2 to 3

li to 2 New Hampshire, 2i .. . 4

OATS.

Bushels.

Alabama, | to 1

South Carolina, 1
Georgia, . 1 ... 1,
New York, li... 3

Bushels.

Michigan, 2 to 3

Vermont, . 3

Iowa, . 2 ... 4

New Hampshire, 3 ... 4

Of these three kinds of grain, it seems to be generally
true that the newer States sow less seed than the older,
and the more southerly than those which lie more
towards the north and the east. As Alabama and
Texas are chalk countries, the quantity of calcareous
matter in the soils may have an influence in diminishing
the quantity of seed-wheat required.

IN THE DIFFERENT STATES. 229

RYE.

Bushels. Bushels.

Alabama and ) ^ New Jersey and )

Mississippi, j ^ Tennessee j

Georgia, . | Michigan, . ll

Soutli Carolina, § New Hampshire, 1 to 2

Iowa, . . 2

Illinois, . 2 to 2|

POTATOES.

Bushels.

Georgia and ) o + « Maine, Connecticut, \ ,

Tennessee, j ^ and Maryland, j

Mississippi, 4 New York and Ohio, 8 to 20

New Jersey, 2^ ... 10 New Hampshire, Ver- ) ^^ 2o
mont, and Massachusetts, J

Of these crops, also, the quantity of seed increases as
we come north.

Of rice, half a bushel is sown i.n Alabama, and two
bushels in Tennessee ; but, in the case of rice and rye,
so much depends upon small differences in the soil, and
in the case of potatoes upon the variety planted, that
safe conclusions cannot be drawn from varying practice,
as to these crops.

It is not surprising, though it is economically of much
importance, that a still less proportion of seed should
be used in planting Indian corn generally, than is found
necessary even for buckwheat. Thus the quantities
usually put in, are, in —

. Bushel.

Bushel.

South Carolina, tV

New Hampshire,

i

Michigan and Georgia, i

New York,

itof

New Jersey, Pennsyl- ) i ^ i
vania, and Michigan, j ^ ^

Ohio,

1 3
4 ••• 8

The differences in regard to this grain are less striking,
because it is dropped or dibbled in with the hand ; and
the above differences in the quantity used depend upon
the distances at which the hills are put, and the number
of grains dropped into a hill — and these, again, on the

230 DEPOSITS OF NATIVE COPPER

height to which the variety grows, and the luxuriance
which the soil and climate usually impart to it.

It is a striking fact that, in Alabama, in ordinary
husbandry, half a bushel of seed is by very many per-
sons found sufficient to secure a good crop of wheat.
Considering the difference of climate, however, it is
perhaps as remarkable that, on the low flat new red-
sandstone country of north-western Lancashire, called
the Fylde^ where the weather is wet and uncertain in
the autumn and winter, less than a bushel of seed should
by many persons be found sufficient for their winter
wheat, when sown early in October.*

Of the economical circumstances connected in the
public mind with the great inland lakes of North Ame-
rica, that which, next to the agriculture of Michigan and
the other adjoining States, most materially affects one of
our important home interests, is the existence of large
deposits of native copper at various places in the States
of Michigan and in the British north-western territory.
These deposits were known to the native inhabitants of
North America, probably many centuries ago, but it is
only about ten years since they were re-discovered, and
their value proved ; and only four or five since the metal
from them has been extracted and brought to market.

The most important of these mineral deposits which
have yet been discovered are those of the Upper penin-
sula of Michigan, which separates Lake Michigan from
Lake Superior. The mines hitherto opened are chiefly
on the Kewenaw peninsula, which juts out into the
middle of Lake Superior, and to the south-west of this
peninsula, a few miles up the Ontonagon River, which
empties into Lake Superior.

The remarkable feature in these mines is the immense
sheets, or walls, of native or metaUic copper which occur In

* Royal Agncultural Journal, vol. x. p. 24.

ON LAKE SUPERIOR. 231

the veins. It was these masses of solid copper which the
native North Americans were in the habit of extracting.
Their workings are scattered at intervals over the whole
copper region, for a hundred miles, and are sunk twelve
or fifteen feet deep. Their working hammers are made
of a hard variety of trap — as many as fifty cartloads of
them might be collected at the Minnesota mine, near
the Ontonagon River ! In one of the abandoned pits of
this mine, at the depth of twelve feet, a mass of native
copper weighing above five tons was found, which had
been worked round on all sides, cleared from the rock,
and partly raised, by the ancient native miners, and is
supposed to have been abandoned because of its great
size. Some have imagined that these mining operations
must have been conducted by a former race of inhabi-
tants, possessed of more skill than those who were found
in the country on the arrival of the Europeans. That
the excavations are ancient is proved by the fact that the
workings are filled up, and that over them are growing
trees which are upwards of a hundred years old. But
Dr Charles Jackson states that, with the hammer, toma-
hawks and scalping-knives have been found ; and he
conjectures that, as the Indians had no use for the cop-
per but for the manufacture of implements, they had
abandoned the mines soon after 1640, when the early
missions of the French Jesuits put them in the way of
procuring implements of more valuable steel. The
succeeding interval of two hundred years would account
for all the appearances of antiquity which have as yet
been observed.

The Kewenaw Point consists of a series of parallel
ridges of trap, which have an E.N.E. direction. The
trap contains much iron, and, where it comes in contact
with sandstone, assumes the characters of an amygda-
loid. In this amygdaloid the veins are rich in metallic
copper. In the superincumbent trap they are pinched

232 VEINS AT KEWENAW POINT.

in to mere films of metal in many places ; and in the
sandstone the veins, though continuing large, are filled
with calc — spar, and other vein-stones — and become poor
in valuable mineral matter.

The veins are of two kinds — transverse, which cross
the trap ridges in a direction which is N. by 26° to 30°
W. ; and longitudinal, which run parallel to the ridges
and to the strike of the red-sandstone beds. These
longitudinal veins, as well as the cross veins, are rich in
copper in the amygdaloid only ; and though in many
places they have the appearance of beds, they are, in
the opinion of Dr Jackson, probably true veins. The
most successful mine as yet brought into operation is the
Cliff Mine, in a cross vein on Kewenaw Point. The
vein-stone is prehnite, and the vein widens and becomes
richer in copper the deeper it is followed. In 1848
this mine shipped and sold 800 tons, and in 1849 about
930 tons, containing an average of 60 per cent of pure
copper. Next to it is the Minnesota Mhie, on the Onto-
nagon River. It is in one of the longitudinal veins or
beds, and though only a few hundred tons of metal have
yet been shipped, the mine is of great promise. There
are many others in progress, from which large supplies
are expected, in a few years, to be obtained.

The only form in which the mineral has yet been
extracted, in marketable quantity, is in that of metallic
copper. When the huge masses and sheets of native
metal were first met with in these veins, the extraction
of them was found so difficult that it was doubted
whether it would be possible economically to remove
them. This is now done by clearing the face of the
metal, and cutting it out with cold-steel chisels. It
occurs in more or less extended sheets, standing on
edge, and following the lie of the vein. Several of
these are sometimes arranged side by side. They swell
out here and there Into ellipsoidal forms, so as to be in

HUGE MASSES OF NATIVE COPPER. 233

one place only 6 inches, while in another they are 5
feet in thickness. Dr Jackson states that, at the CHff
Mine, " one mass of pure copper was extracted, when he
was surveying the country, which weighed 80 tons ; and
other masses, probably of equal magnitude, were in
process of being uncovered." Mr Trowbridge, in his
later Report to the Secretary of State, says that, " in
proceeding along the fifth level of the same mine, he
passed a mass of copper 125 feet in length, and varying
from 1 to 2J feet in thickness. Its depth was unknown.
At one place Captain Jennings (the mine captain) said,
' Here are 100 tons of pure copper in sight.' On the
second level we passed another of the same description,
&c." In the Minnesota Mine, Mr Hodge describes a
sheet which he saw, having a known length of 150 feet,
a height of 8 feet, and a thickness, in some places, of 5
feet. What was visible in the overhanging wall of this
drift was estimated to contain 250 tons of copper.
The poorer part of the vein is blasted out, brought
to the surface, heated to redness, quenched in water,
stamped, and then washed. By this means the metal-
lic copper is separated, and packed in barrels. This
and the chiselled copper are the only forms in which
the products of the mines have hitherto been sent to
market.

The copper thus obtained, according to Dr Jackson,
who first drew the public attention to the value of these
deposits of native metal, is pure metallic copper, as
dense as the densest hammered copper. It possesses
the remarkable peculiarity of being intermixed with
variable quantities of metallic silver, not diffused uni-
formly through the mass, but forming distinct crys-
tals and crystallised masses, scattered through the
body of the solid copper. I saw some of these crystals
in specimens possessed by Dr Jackson, and he stated to
me that some masses are actually porphyritic^ with

234 PRODUCE OF THESE MINES.

metallic silver scattered through them — without, how-
ever, forming an alloy with, or rendering impure, the
copper itself.

As a matter of economical interest to the copper
miners of our own country, I may remark that, in all
prohabllity, this part of the United States will. In ten
years more, be able to supply, not only a sufficient
quantity of copper to meet the demands of the Union,
but a surplus also for exportation. The quantity of
copper hitherto imported into the United States has
amounted to about 5400 tons a-year. The Cliff Mine
alone, in 1849, has shipped what Is equal to about 560
tons of pure copper.* From what is already known of
this copper region, it is fair, I think, to presume that in
ten years this quantity will be increased ten times, and
that the lake region may be seeking foreign markets for
its surplus copper, as the upper Mississippi is already
doing for its superabundant lead.

It would be out of place here to discuss the origin of
this native copper — the probable mode In w^hlch it has
been deposited in the veins. It is very amusing, however,
to observe in this, as in so many other cases, how men
who look at the same phenomena from different points
of view see in them arguments for completely opposite
views. Dr Jackson remarks, that the metal bears the
imprint of crystals of prehnlte ; that perfect crystals of
native copper, sometimes half-a-pound in weight, occur
in the prehnlte, datholite, calc, spar, and quartz which
form the body of the veins ; and that the melting-point
of silver, which is mixed in crystals and large lumps
with the copper. Is considerably below that of metallic
copper ; and these facts, he justly adds, are objections to
the igneous origin of these broad sheets of native

* 933 tons containing 60 per cent of copper. The quantity of pure
copper extracted at the various smelt-works in Great Britain is about
25,000 tons, one-half of which is from Cornish ores.

STATE OF WISCONSIN. 235

metal.* Professor Agasslz, again, looking at the mode
in which the mineral deposits occur in the large, thinks
the copper all plutonic — that is, thrown up in a melted
state ; remarks, " that the whole phenomena might easily
be reproduced artlficlallj on a small scale;" and adds,
" it appears strange to me that so many doubts can still
be expressed respecting the origin of the copper about
Lake Superior." f So far as I have had the means of
forming an opinion upon the chemistry of this subject, I
am certainly inclined to differ very widely from the two
opinions of Professor Agassiz above quoted — either that
the phenomena prove the copper to have been certainly
injected in a melted state, or that we really know
how to reproduce the phenomena on a small scale by
art.

West of Lake Michigan is the new State of Wiscon-
sin, numbering, in 1848, about 220,000 inhabitants.
Its principal port, on the south-western part of the lake,
and the general destination of emigrants from the east,
is Milwaukie. Fifteen years ago Indian skeletons, in
rude coffins, might be seen suspended under the trees
where this town of 16,000 inhabitants now stands.

Each of the new States has its turn in popular favour,
but for the last three or four years the tide of emigra-
tion has been setting most strongly towards these North-
western States, and especially to Wisconsin. This
appears from the extent of the public lands which have
been sold during these years in this, compared with
the other States of the Union. Thus the Government
Keturn for 1847 — the latest to which I have access —
gives the following comparative number of acres as
sold in the several States during that year : —

* Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of
^amce, 1849.— P.294.

f LaTce Superior: its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals.
—P. 427.

236

LAND SALES IN THE SEVERAL STATES.

Ohio, .

Acres.
105,234

Indiana,

230,627

Illinois,

506,802

Missouri,

246,415

Alabama,

146,859

Mississippi,

94,206

Louisiana,

90,694

Michigan,

62,338

Arkansas,

85,448

Wisconsin,

630,575

Iowa,

271,614

Florida,

27,339

This table shows, that to Wisconsin the rush of land-
bujers has been greater lately than to any other State,
and that Illinois alone approaches it in the quantity of
public land disposed of. In 1836, the Michigan fever
was the variety then at its height. In that year, four
millions of acres of the public lands were disposed of in
that State; but 1837 put an end to that excitement, and
the sales have since been comparatively small.

North-west of Wisconsin, bounded on the east by
Lake Superior, and lying opposite the copper country
of Michigan, is the territory — about to become the State
— of Minnesota. This district is called by some the New
England of the West. It is in a colder latitude than
any of the older States, but it is bounded on the west
by the Missouri, and is traversed for 900 miles by the
Upper Mississippi. These rivers, with their many tribu-
taries, afford abundant facilities for inland navigation.
New as this territory is, we already hear of its agricul-
tural societies, its cattle-shows, and its lead-mines; and
steamers ply regularly to the town of St Paul, the seat
of government, situated immediately below the Falls of
St Anthony on the Upper Mississippi,* and 219 miles
within the borders of the territory.

Its geology, and the nature of its soils, have not as yet

* Seymour's Travels in Minnesota, the New England of the West,

IMPORTANCE OF THE ST LAWRENCE. 237

been fully explored. The eastern portion of its surface
appears, however, to consistof sandstones and magnesian
limestones, forming sandy soils and naked prairies. The
western part is an extensive chalk formation, forming
prairies, in many places rich in pasture.

In connection with the lake-traffic which will neces-
sarily arise out of the prosecution of the copper-mines
of Michigan, the existence and rapid growth of these
new States ought to be borne in mind. Their inter-
course with Europe will be chiefly through the lakes,
the Erie Canal, and the St Lawrence. The Erie Canal is
already overloaded with traffic, and can never be enlarged
to meet half the growing demands upon its means of
transport. The St Lawrence, therefore, must become a
great continental thoroughfare, a source of great wealth
to Canada ; and if the Canadians would only exercise as
much reasonable patience in the development of their
natural resources as they have lately shown of political
rashness, they may obtain from the United States any
proper equivalent for a right of way through their canals
and private waters.

Of all the wonders in rural economy with which this
New World is pregnant, there is none with which the
traveller becomes acquainted, in these lake-bounding
States, which is more wonderful than the history of what
is called the hog-crop of Ohio. This State, one of the
most prosperous in the Union, and containing now a
population of nearly two millions, is bounded on the
north by Lake Erie, along w^hich it has a coast line of
upwards of 200 miles. Though this State possesses
much wheat-land, and raises in some places large
breadths of this grain, yet both its soil and its climate
adapt it more generally to the growth of Indian corn.
This latter grain, therefore, may be considered the staple
of the State. The general fertility of the land, in com-
parison with that of the States of New York and Michi-

238. AVERAGE PRODUCE OF OHIO.

gan — as they are at present cultivated — and the com-
parative productiveness of each crop in these States, will
be seen by the following table, representing the average
yield in each per imperial acre : —

Ohio.

New York.

Michigan.

Wheat,

15i bush.

14 bush.

10^ bush.

Barley,

24 ...

16 ...

...

Oats,

33f ...

26 ...

...

Buckwheat,

201 ...

14 ...

...

IndiaD corn,

41i ...

25 ...

Potatoes,

69 ...

90 ...

...

In w^heat it does not much exceed the State of Neiw
York, but it greatly surpasses it in the produce of
Indian corn ; while, from possessing a drier summer
climate, it is inferior in the growth of potatoes.

Thus rich in Indian corn, an early question with the
farmer was, how to dispose of his surplus growth. Until
the famine years of 1847 and 1848, the quantity of this
grain which was exported from the whole United States
was exceedingly small. From 1820 to 1845, it averaged
only about 60,000 quarters (half a million of bushels)
a-year ; but from 100,000 quarters in 1845, it rose to
230,000 in 1846, and to 2,125,000 quarters in 1847,
after which it fell to half a million in 1848, and has
since continued to decline.

A home outlet, therefore, was sought for, and the
distilling of whisky and the fattening of hogs are the
means of consumption which have been found most easily
available, and most generally profitable. The extent to
which the packing business^ as the latter is called, is
carried on, and the States in which the two conditions
— the faculty of growing Indian corn and of producing
abundant acorns — coexist most extensively, will be seen
by the following table, which represents the number of
hogs killed in each of the packing States of the west in
1846 :—

PACKING BUSINESS OF OHIO.

Missouri,

70,898

Tennessee,

42,975

Kentucky,

215,125

Illinois,

68,120

Indiana,

251,236

Ohio, .

420,833

Other places.

18,675

Total hogs killed.

^1,087,862

The hogs are allowed to run in the woods, and feed on
the acorns, &c., till five or six weeks before killing-time,
(8th or 10th November,) and are then turned into the
Indian-corn fields, to fatten them and harden their flesh.
They are usually from eleven to eighteen months old
when they are killed ; and the longer they have been in
the corn-fields, the better is the pork.

The packing business of Ohio has been gradually con-
centrating itself in Cincinnati, where, in the winter of
1847 and 1848, about 420,000 hogs were sold, killed,
and packed. The blood is collected in tanks, and with
the hair, hoofs, and other offal, is sold to the prussiate
of potash manufactories. The carcass is cured either
into barrelled pork or into bacon and hams, and the
grease rendered into lard of various qualities. Some
establishments cure the hams, and after cutting up the
rest of the carcass, steam it in large vats, under a pres-
sure of seventy pounds to the square inch, and thus
reduce the whole to a pulp, bones and all, and draw off
the fat. The residue is either thrown away or is carted
off for manure. One establishment disposes, in this way,
of 30,000 hogs. Of the lard, the finest is exported —
much of it to the Havannah — where it is used instead of
butter. About thirty factories are engaged in the manu-
facture of lard oil and stearine, which is done by com-
pressing the lard at a low temperature. The stearine is
made into candles on the spot, of which 6000 pounds are
manufactured every day, on an average of the whole

240 PEODUCTS OF THE HOG CROP.

year. The lard oil is partly sold as such, but in the
Eastern States is used to adulterate spermaceti oil,
and in France to lower the price of olive oil. It is
said, that in this latter country, from 65 to 70 per cent of
lard oil is often mixed with the olive oil without detec-
tion. The mixture is more apt to deposit stearine, how-
ever, than the pure oil, and such an appearance may lead
to its detection.

The less pure lard, and the fat extracted from diseased
animals and from the offal, is used in the manufacture of
soap. Besides soft and fancy soaps, there are made at
Cincinnati about 100,000 pounds of soap weekly, and of
the fat employed about 80 per cent is pork grease.
Lastly, the bristles give rise to a separate business,
employing a hundred hands, and the hoofs are partly
boiled down into glue.

The marketable products of the 420,000 hogs packed
at Cincinnati may be thus summed up —

Pork (150,000 barrels,) 29,400,000 poinids.

Bacon,

Lard (No. 1,)

Lard oil,

Stearine candies,

Bar soap.

Fancy and soft soaps, 7,300,000

Prussiate of potash, . 50,000

21,000,000 ...

13,800,000 ...
1,000,000 gallons,
1,875,000 pounds.
5,200,000 ...

This is the yearly produce of a stock of about a million
and a half of hogs in the State of Ohio. In the whole
United States, the entire hog stock is estimated at
upwards of 40,000,000. Hog-rearing must therefore be
regarded as one of the most important branches of rural
economy, and the hog-crop one to which yearly attention
should be given.

This branch of economy in Cincinnati shows us how
cities grow, how centres of united and simultaneous
action become necessary to the most profitable develop-

MANUFACTURE AT CINCINNATI. 241

ment of rural industry, and how many arts arise out of —
necessarily spring from, and are indispensable to — the
profitable pursuit of the farmer's operations. No corn
or hog grower in Ohio would venture to say that the
interests of his class were unconnected with, or opposed
to, those of the moneyed men and enterprising merchants
and manufacturers of Cincinnati.

VOL. I.

CHAPTEE IX.

Case of American cleverness. — Fat cattle of Ohio. — Butcher in Buffalo.
— Cause of the growth of the city of Buffalo. — Capital taken out by
emigrants. — Influence of Europe on the progress of American
cities. — Cause of the difference in progress of Canadian and New
York cities. — Not a result of want of energy in the Upper Canadians.
— Lake Erie. — Supposed periodical slow rise and fall in the level of
the gi*eat lakes, — Evidence of such gradual changes of level. — Their
relation to existing terraces, and ancient beaches. — Their supposed
cause. — Water discharged by the Niagara River. — Hotel at the Falls.
— Coloured waiters.— Geological Section at the Falls. — Published
descriptions of the Falls. — Popular disappointment. — Wearing action
of the water. — Varying amount of water discharged over the Falls. —
Influence of the wdnds on Lake Erie. — Influence of the noise of the
Falls on their impression upon the mind. — Railway to Lewistown.
— View from the mountain ridge. Voyage on Lake Ontario. —
Queenstov/n heights. — Profits of New York farming, by a New York
farmer. — Knowledge and intelligence among these farmers. — City of
Oswego. — 'Sackett's Harbour.— Railway to Canada. — Ejngston in
Upper Canada.— Character of the Upper Canadians.— Difference
between a Canadian and a New York wife to a working man. — Dif-
ference in the character of the people in the States arising from the
number of Germans among them.

Sept, 16th. — I began a previous chapter by an allu-
sion to the use of the word clever' In the United States ;
I Introduce the present by an Illustration of the " clever-
ness " of the people.

As we approached the end of our journey to Buffalo,
a gentleman, to whom among many others I had been
Introduced at Syracuse, but whose name I did not know,
accosted me In the railway carriage, and asked me to

AMERICAN CLEVERNESS. 243

take up my quarters at his house, a couple of miles out of
Buffalo. I excused myself from giving him trouble, on
the plea that I intended to start again early in the
morning for Niagara, and that it would be more con-
venient for me to go to the American Hotel. He then
offered, while I waited for my luggage, to walk into the
town to secure me a good room at the hotel. Accord-
ingly, half-an-hour after, when I drove up to the hotel,
I found him waiting, and comfortable quarters secured
for me. In the morning, when I asked for my bill, I
was told that everything was paid. I hesitated at first
to receive this pecuniary obligation ; but on reflecting
that it was meant in kindness, I felt it would be unkind
in me, in the absence of my unknown friend, to refuse it.
I contented myself, therefore, with inquiring his name,
and have pleasure in mentioning the circumstance here,
as an instance of the proneness of our Transatlantic
cousins to the virtue of hospitality. Notwithstanding the
sour and exciting things said occasionallyby bitter journal-
ists, on both sides of the water, they will not, in our time at
least, altogether forget that "blood is thicker than water."
The long and wide main street of Buffalo reminded
me of the Trongate of Glasgow more than of any other
street in Europe I recollect to have seen, though, of
course, it is newer, and less finished in appearance. On
the evening of my arrival I took a walk along it, to look
at the many large and well-stored shops. Among others,
I went into a butcher's store, in which the beef and lamb,
to my eyes, seemed excellent. The prices of lamb and
mutton were 3 to 6 cents, of beef 4 to 8, of pork 6^, and
of fowls, when full grown, 5 cents a pound. The import
duty on Canadian beef is 20 per cent ; so that fat cattle
not reared at home are brought chiefly from Ohio, where,
as I have said, the excess of Indian corn is used up in
feeding stock. Besides the " hog crop " of south-western
Ohio, the cattle crop of the eastern portions — which lie

244 AMERICA A GREAT COUNTRY.

on the less fertile sandstones and non-calcareous clays of
the Portage and Chemung groups of the New York
geologists — is very large and valuable. The five coun-
ties of Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Madison, and Fayette,
send annually to market at least 35,000 head of fat
cattle, worth £8 a-head.

After I had asked my questions of the butcher, and he
in return had found out, by questioning me, first how
many years, and then how many months, I had been in
America, " Well, sir," says he, ".we live in a great country
here — we are a great people." I evaded what was
meant as a question, and spoke pleasantly to his every-
day ideas, by remarking that " I had certainly seen at
Syracuse the very largest oxen I had ever beheld." So
we parted very good friends, and he invited me to drop
in and see him again.

It is unpleasant to a stranger to be always called upon
to admire and praise what he sees in a foreign country ;
and it is a part of the perversity of human nature to
withhold, upon urgent request, what, if unasked, would
be freely and spontaneously given. But highly to
esteem, and value, and prefer one's native or adopted
country, is a virtue which is to be commended and
encouraged. It is the basis of individual mental con-
tentment, and of that general patriotism which has in so
many countries led to great and noble actions, and which
has always ranked the first among political virtues. If a
man does not think the country he lives in the best in the
world, he had better leave it. But this does not justify
6y excuse either unfounded arrogance or self-esteem in a
people, or the tendency to brag and swagger which one
does occasionally see among individuals in the United
States.

Buffalo, as I have already remarked, is a very
thriving town, and the causes of its success are very
intelligible, though not always clearly seen or fairly

GROWTH OF BUFFALO AND THE NEW STATES. 245

put by writers on the rise and growth of American
towns.

Situated at the end of the Erie Canal, with a large
American population and the highway to Europe behind,
and with boundless tracts of new land before it beyond the
lakes, Buffalo, like New York, has risen from the mere
force of circumstances. Every emigrant, and every
package of goods, that passes through New York,
Albany, and Buffalo, imparts some gain to each place in
the transit. And as the city of New York increased
with the western population of the state, so Buffalo has
increased, and will increase, with the number of persons in
the new north-western States, whose way to and from
the principal markets is by the Erie Canal.

So also the new States rise in numbers and wealth.
The poorest of the Irish immigrants who land at New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, or New Orleans, bring with
them some money — the greater number enough to pay
the traveUing expenses of their families, to buy a piece of
land, and to maintain them for a year. The fare alone
from New York to Chicago, in Wisconsin, is fifteen
dollars a-head, which is about £10 for a man and his
wife and two children. The English and Scotch and
German emigrants appear to be better and more thought-
fully provided for than the Irish ; but Pat's ragged coat,
as the captains of steamers know well, often conceals
more gold than the decenter garments of the emigrants
from other countries.

Taking rich and poor together, it is a very moderate
assumption that the emigrants, on an average, carry out
iiJlO a-head, which, for the 200,000 who land at New
York alone, makes the sum of £2,000,000 sterling added
at once to the money capital of the districts through which
they pass, and in which they settle. Then a single
year's labour of this 200,000, in agricultural operations
upon new land, must add at least £5 a-head, or another

246 COMPARISON WITH CANADIAN CITIES.

£1,000,000 to the capital of the new States; while the
increased consumption of imported articles, by the added
population, augments the Federal revenue which is
derived from the duties levied upon imports.

It is Europe, not America, therefore, that is the cause
of the rapid growth of the United States — European
capital, European hands, and European energy. If all
the native-born Americans — not being the sons or grand-
sons of Europeans — were to sit down and fold their
hands, and go to sleep, the progress of the country would
scarcely be a whit less rapid, so long as peace between
America and Europe is maintained.

It is thoughtless in travellers to contrast the towns of
Buffalo and Eochester and Oswego, on the New York
side of the lakes, with Colburn, at the mouth of the
Welland Canal, on the Canadian side of Lake Erie — or
with Toronto and Kingston, on the opposite coasts of
Lake Ontario ; and to draw comparisons unfavourable to
Canadian energy and enterprise, from the relative pros-
perity of these several places. There is quite as much
energy in the blood of Upper Canada as there is in the
British and German blood of western New York. But
the local position of these towns of Upper Canada, and
the condition of the inner country, forbids their becom-
ing, for many years, equal in size or in wealth to the
towns I have named. Suppose Colburn, like Buffalo —
being at the end of canal navigation — had as large and
growing a population behind it, and as extensive and
valuable western territories before it, and that the high-
way from Europe lay through it instead of through
Buffalo, then Colburn would have rivalled or exceeded
Buffalo, even at this early period of their several histories.
But this slow town of Colburn, as many have thought
and called it, has nevertheless a great future before it.
The natural outlet of this western region is by the St
Lawrence. The Erie Canal is already unable to accom-

RAPID PEOGRESS OF UPPER CANADA. 247

raodate Its traffic, and as this increases with the growth
of the North-western States, more and more of it must
proceed bj the Canadian canals and waters, and drop Its
fertilising contributions as it passes through the country.
With the settlement of the interior, also, and the increase
of means of Inter-communication, Toronto, as the natural
course of the cross country traffic from Lake Huron ; and
Kingston, from Its situation at the head of the St Law-
rence, will both become seats of commercial wealth, and
towns of political importance. I am sure that. If my
Canadian fellow-subjects will be content to wait patiently
for the natural course of events, which no Government
or energy can precipitate, but which domestic disturb-
ances will much retard — most seriously, perhaps, by their
effect upon European opinion as to the desirableness of
the Canadas as a place of settlement — they will soon see
every reasonable expectation fulfilled. Even now. In-
stead of granting that they are justified in looking either
with envy or discontent at the growth of other places, I
can only see reason to wonder that, in their geographical
position, and with their political fretfulness, they have of
late years Increased so wondrously fast.

The morning was fine as I left Buifalo In the railway,
which skirted the foot of the lake, and for a great part
of the way ran along the banks of the Niagara River.
The waters of Lake Erie, rippled by a light wind, were
of a beautiful blue, and the numerous vessels to be seen
on it made the view to me very interesting. To see on
the far horizon large ships crowded with canvass, loom-
ing through the thin haze, and blue misty hills in the
distance, such as one observes with eagerness when
making the land after a long voyage across the ocean,
realised to my eye that this fresh-water lake is, in reality,
a great inland sea.

Before leaving this lake, I may advert to one impor-
tant physical circumstance, in regard to the level of its

248 CHANGE OF LEVEL IN THE

waters, to which my attention has been drawn. It is
the result of long observation that the surface of this,
and, I believe, of the other lakes also, is subject to gra-
dual, and, as some believe, periodical, but certainly very
considerable alterations of level.

This is proved by the observations of those who reside
on their shores. The water on sand-banks becomes
shallower or deeper. Mills at the mouths of streams are
rendered permanently useless by the rising level of the
lake into which the streams descend. Former roads
along the lake, as that immediately beyond Buffalo, have
been overflowed, and rendered impassable. Old beaches,
covered with trees and cliffs, are seen far inland, showing
the greater height to which the waters formerly attained;
while others, which men remember to have been at a
distance from the lake, have again been reached, and
are in progress of being undermined.

The height and periods of this rise and fall are both
uncertain. In 1838, Lake Erie reached the highest
elevation it has attained during the present century, and
since that time it has been gradually receding. In
1788 or 1790, it was higher than in 1838, after which
time it receded probably for many years, and then
began again to rise. On the shores of Michigan, the
rise was estimated at 5j feet between 1819 and 1838 ;
and in another place, a resident of twenty-three years
on the spot observed that, though it was highest in
1838, it was, in 1840, still 4 feet higher than when he
settled there in 1817.

Facts of this kind have long drawn the attention of
the inhabitants along the lakes. They are to them a
source of anxiety, and, where low flat lands stretch
along either shore of the lake, of alternate gain and loss.
They are also interesting to the geologist, in connection
with the ancient terraces, and the frequent more or less
distant sea-beaches which skirt the lake-shores at

WATERS OF THE LAKES. 249

various places. How high the lake may rise, when it
next begins to increase, past experience does not enable
us to judge. As we are ignorant of the cause, we
cannot say to what level a rise is possible in existing
circumstances*, we cannot, therefore, reason as to the
cause or antiquity of the ancient lake-beaches, especially
those which are not greatly elevated above the present
waters, or draw safe conclusions as to the permanent
change of level which the lakes may now be presumed
to have undergone. Hence these oscillations in the
lake-levels have been subjects of inquiry and discussion
both by Mr Hall, one of the geologists for the State of
New York, and by Mr Hlggins, of the geological survey
of Michigan.

Variations in the fall of snow and rain in the lake
country, and differences in the amount of evaporation,
suggest themselves as the simplest causes of the pheno-
mena. But such causes — unless, in this region, they act
in obedience to some steady alternating law — will not
explain the specialties of the case. The rise and fall of
the lake-levels are so gradual, and continue to augment
for so long a period, that a steady and increasing aug-
mentation of the water poured into the lakes must go
on while the level is rising, and a similar gradual and
long-continued diminution while it is falling. Meteoro-
logical observations have not yet shown that such aug-
mentations as these of the fall of rain and snow, or of
lake evaporation, do take place in any part of the world.

The quantity of water which escapes from the lake
by its natural outlet, the Niagara Eiver, is an important
fact in this discussion. The Falls of Niagara, during
the high-water of summer, allow 20,000,000 o.*^ cubic
feet to fall over them* — a discharge which, taking the
area of Lake Erie at 10,000 miles,t would lower the

* This is Mr Barrett's, the latest and best determination.
+ Dr Houghton estimates it at 9600 square miles.

250 PEOBABLE CAUSE OF THIS CHANGE.

level of the lake one foot in ten days ; or, more cor-
rectlj, if Niagara were dammed up, the level of the
whole lake would be raised two feet in ten days — one foot
by the usual supply of water poured into the lake from
above, and another by the water prevented from escap-
ing. Any sudden increase in the fall of rain or snow,
therefore, would soon run off, and leave the lake at its
usual level.

If we consider the case of Lake Erie by itself, and
compare its area of 10,000 square miles with that of
all the upper lakes united, which cover 77,000 square
miles, and suppose these upper lakes to be raised very
high by one extraordinary fall of rain or snow, or by
a great diminution in the evaporation of one short
cold summer, then it is possible that the discharge from
these upper lakes of this one unusual amount of water
might, by the nature of the outlet into Lake Erie, be so
regulated as to continue augmenting for a series of
years, and again, as it lessens, to continue diminishing
for another series. But this possible explanation seems
to fail, when it is recollected that Lake Michigan itself,
one of these upper lakes, exhibits similar oscillations of
level. The source of the increased or diminished supply
must, therefore, be sought for in Lake Superior, if this
be considered a probable cause. But, unfortunately,
the remoteness and hitherto generally wilderness state
of the shores of this lake have prevented any obser-
vations being made, by which light could be thrown
on this interesting point.

Part of the country through which the railway con-
ducted us on our way to Niagara was still uncleared or
unstumped, and sprinkled with log-huts and apparently
poor settlers, surrounded by indifferent crops of Indian
corn, on soils evidently better adapted for wheat. We
cross again, on this route, the belt of flat wheat-land,
belonging to the Onondago salt and Niagara limestone

VILLAGE AND HOTEL AT NIAGARA. 251

groups, which, as I formerly stated, stretches beyond
the Niagara Eiver far into Canada. As seen here, it is
a clayey region, on which the system of thorough-
drainage is destined hereafter to produce most beneficial
results.

I reached the Falls of Niagara, on the American side,
at a quarter past ten, in time to hear service well per-
formed in a new, nicely-finished, though small Episcopal
church. This village of Niagara consists chiefly of
hotels and churches; and the running of a morning and
evening train to Bufi'alo is considered indispensable to
the success of at least one of these sets of establish-
ments.

At dinner at the Cataract Hotel, we had a large party of
about a hundred and twenty, though not half as many
as the room was fitted to accommodate. This universal
dining in public, in the United States, of all sexes and
ages, is one source of the forward boldness of so many of
the young people. And although the mingling of all
classes at these tables teaches the use of silver forks to
persons who would never meet with such things at
home, yet it roughens the general tone of speech and
manners of all, and makes those who really know better
fall into customs they would at home be the first to
reprove.

I may remark, however, that perhaps too much Is said
by travellers of the solecisms of guests at the American
tables. I doubt very much if a similarly indiscriminate
assemblage of persons of all classes at an English table
would, on the whole, behave so well. Besides, the cus-
tom In the American hotels of loading the table at
breakfast and dinner with a countless number of small
dishes, not half of which are furnished with knives and
forks, or spoons to lift their contents, leaves the majo-
rity of the guests no other resource, than either to be
helped with their own, or probably to deny themselves

252 COLOURED WAITERS.

what the dishes contain altogether, and leave them to
less scrupulous neighbours.

What amused me most at this hotel was the excellent
discipline maintained by their chef among the eighteen
black waiters who attended the table. In carrying out
the first course, they all started at a signal, and marched
en militaire in double file, each bearing his dish, and
presently returned in the same order with the second
course, opening into Indian file as they reached the head
of the table ; and when each had reached his station,
depositing the whole at the same instant on a signal
from the head-waiter, who was also dark-coloured. The
peculiar proud swagger with which all this was done,
the air of the men as they strutted along, and the evi-
dent " Isn't that well done ? " which each of them looked
as he lifted his cover, were most amusing to me, Avho
had not yet had much opportunity of studying the pecu-
liarities of the free coloured people in the northern
States. My own sympathies have always followed this
unhappy race of people, whether in slavery or in free-
dom, and I have usually found them civil and obliging.
They are often, however, very conceited ; and can be
very saucy, as white servants in English hotels not
imfrequently are. But they are in general very quiet and
civil, and have a peculiar knack at waiting. Of abso-
lute rudeness among this class of people, the only
instance I met with was in the Irving Hotel in New
York, where black servants are employed, and where, on
the occasion of my visit, one peculiarly black and
impertinent sheep had certainly found a place among
the flock.

In the afternoon, I went down to the Falls. I crossed
over to the Canadian side, and spent several hours on
the banks which overlook them. I afterwards walked
to the suspension bridge a couple of miles below, which
is itself a nervous thing to walk along, and from which

> . Niagara group.

SECTION OF THE ROCKS. 253

the view of the Falls, and of the ravine, Is striking and
beautiful. The section of the strata, as seen at this
place, is as follows : —

Limestone,

Shale,

Limestone, . . CHnton group.

Sandstone and thin \

clay marls, chiefly > . Medina sandstone.

red, J

This section Is now well known, as well as the Influence of
the Niagara shale, in hastening the working back of the
Great Falls. It illustrates, however, what I have had
occasion to say In reference to the soils and geology of
western New York. The numerous layers of red clay
marl, among the red rocks of the underlying Medina
sandstone, are In conformity with the economically Im-
portant observation, In reference to the agricultural
value of this group of rocks, to which I adverted In
the preceding chapter — that the poorer Medina sand-
rock of the eastern counties of New York becomes more
mixed with clay towards the west. Hence the rich soils
to which It gives rise below the mouth of the Niagara
Elver, and along the south-western borders of Lake
Ontario, where it forms the surface of the country.

Above the Niagara limestone, rest the Onondaga salt
rocks and their dehris; and though these are spread over
the surface of the country In the neighbourhood of the
village of Niagara, they are not seen in the section of
the ravine as It appears from the bridge, nor on the
immediate banks of the river.

I attempt no description of the Falls. The first peep
I had of them showed me how very little all I had read
of them had Impressed me with anything like a definite
Idea of the peculiar features of this great descent of
water, or of what I was entitled to expect when I came
to look upon It. I infer, from this, that they cannot be

254 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.

adequately and graphically described — or, at least, that
I should fail were I to attempt to do so. I have seen
many water-falls in many countries, and I venture only
to remark, in regard to this one, that I think it is a
piece of great presumption in the common class of
tourists to talk as one usually hears them do, of their
having been disappointed — as if some great showman
had got up the thing for their amusement, and had not
put gunpowder enough into the crackers sufficiently
to astonish their w^eak minds.

On the Canadian side of the Falls, a high bluff of red,
probably drifted clay, rests above the Niagara limestone,
forming an upland above the narrow fringe which sepa-
rates it from the waters of tbe river above the Falls.
Below the falls, this bluff retires to a considerable dis-
tance from the river, and the carriage-road to the suspen-
sion bridge runs along the surface of the nearly naked
rock. When walking leisurely here, two things agree in
forcing the same thought upon the imagination. Where
it is completely uncovered, the whole upper surface of
the limestone rock, on which we travel, exhibits evidence
of the wearing action of the water. It has the same
hollowed and irregular appearance as the surface above
the falls, over which the water is now pouring. Over
this, therefore, the river must formerly have run, before
it ate out the deep ravine below. And, again, the retir-
ing of the bluffs shows that it then, as we should sup-
pose, had occupied a wider bed, and, as it now does above
the Falls, had undermined the cliffs of clay, and bent its
course now more to the one side, and now more to the
other, as circumstances might direct. One reflects on
such things, and in his closet makes cool calculations of
the lapse of time necessary to accomplish all this. But
the greatness of the lapse is felt when we see before us
the protracted effect, and the still living and acting cause.
The foam of the cataract becomes, to the imagination,

WATER FLOWING OVER THE FALLS. 255

the hoaiy hair of thousands of years, and its perpetual
rainbow a halo round the head of the sleepless spirit
which has seen these changes and survived them all.

The quantity of water which falls over these rocks
lias been variously estimated. The most trustworthy,
perhaps, is that of Mr Barrett, already quoted, which
was deduced from three different observations, made at
Black Rock during the high water of 1838 and 1839.
This estimate makes it amount to nineteen and a half
million cubic feet per minute. It varies very much,
however, with the height of the water and the direction
of the wind. When a strong wind blows from the west,
the water at the east end of Lake Erie will rise several
feet in a few hours ; and so much more water is driven
down the Niagara River at such times that the river in
the ravine below the Falls, though so rapid, " frequently
rises 15 or 20 feet during a westerly wind." A wind
from the east produces a contrary effect, lowering the
water at the east end of Lake Erie, and lessening the
quantity of water which passes over the Falls.

September 17. — The forenoon of this day I spent
chiefly on Goat Island, wandering about the Falls on the
American side. There is nothing to be seen from this
side which can compare with the quiet and graceful
beauty of the American Fall , as seen from the Canadian
side. The perfection with which the folds of that broad,
living, spotless stream are draped together cannot be
imagined ; and though there are many beauties among
which days are too little to spend on Goat Island, the
quieter spots were to me the most attractive. In truth,
the reason why the disappointed people talk of the thing
growing upon them is, that they must become so
familiarised with the noise and roar as to be able to
abstract these altogether from the scene, before their
eyes and hearts can come into independent contact
with its true attractions. This abstraction, to the

256 VIEW FROM THE EIDGE AT LEWISTON.

generality of minds, is a difficult task ; but, once made,
then the sound of the cataract comes in like far off
music — not in the foreground, deafening and annoying,
but soothing and lulling, as it were, in the distance, and
thus administering to the enjoyment it had formerly
intruded upon and broken up.

The fresh-water shells which occur in the deep bed of
mixed slaty gravel and red clay drift, which covers the
limestone rocks at the edge of the waterfall upon Goat
Island, are now well known. The minute, almost
microscopic species, I found very abundant in the clay.
Besides the shells usually collected, I picked up a frag-
ment of a fresh- water crustacean.

After dinner, I left Niagara, on my way to Lewiston
— w^here the river escapes from the ravine and the high
lands — to take the steamer down Lake Ontario. This
railway is a very indifferent affair, and Lewiston a long
straggling skeleton of a place ; but the last mile's ride
along the edge of the ridge, and the view it affords, is
worth going twice as far, and by a still rougher road, to
enjoy. Sheer down we looked from a high escarpment,
upon the broad flat forest lands, stretching many miles
back from the lake, and along its shores farther than the
eye could reach. Here and there only, in all this
distance, a clearing appeared ; while right before us lay
the endless lake, and its occasionally bolder shores
beyond, with now and then a straggling sail or a distant
steamer's smoke, and all mellowed and blended together
by a four o'clock sun. The whole prospect perhaps
struck me the more that it came upon me quite miex-
pectedly ; but I regretted much that previous arrange-
ments did not admit of my spending a day in wander-
ing over these high lands — scarcely allowed me even
a moment to master what was before my eyes, as the
steam was up, and bags and portmanteaus demanded
the attention of the careful traveller.

THE MOUNTAIN -RIDGE. 257

The mountain-ridge, as it is called, formed by the
outcrop of the Niagara limestone, has been long known
to the inhabitants of western New York. When, some
two centuries hence, all the low plain beneath it shall be
cleared, and drained, and cultivated, and smiling villages,
and cheerful homesteads, and scattered flocks and herds,
overspread its surface, and the blue smoke dies away from
many chimneys as the Sabbath-bell draws the gathering
people toward the frequent house of worship — how
many, in those days, for broad pictures of wide natural
beauty, intense with countless little episodes of still life,
will frequent this mountain-ridge, when the noise of the
cataract has wearied them, and they wish again to calm
and compose their spirits, worn out by its ever-fretting
impatience !

The escarpment which forms this ridge is bolder above
the village of Lewiston than it is in some other parts of
its course along the southern shores of Lake Ontario.
The following section (taken from Mr Hall) gives an
idea of the physical and geological nature of the ridge
itself, and of the flat country and its soils which lie
below —

bite
1l-

Here the section No. 1 is the Medina sandstone, con-
sisting chiefly of red sandstones and shivery clay marls.
No. 2 is the Clinton group, of no great thickness or
consequence ; and No. 3 the Niagara shale, surmounted
by the Niagara limestone. The long flat edging of the
lake consists of the red soils of the Medina rocks, and
ought to be very productive. In many places, from its

VOL. I. R

258 A NATIVE ON THE PROFITS OF FARMING

level character, it is marsliy or full of water ; and in
many others arterial drainage on an extensive scale will
probably have to be introduced, before the capabilities of
the country can be at all fully developed.

The escarpment of the Niagara limestone is not
everywhere, as I have already remarked, so high nor
so abrupt as it is represented in the above section ; but,
with occasional breaks, it may be visited along a great
part of western New York, with the certainty of com-
manding from its summit an extensive view of the flat
country below, and of the wide blue lake beyond. It
extends also, towards the north, round the western end
of Lake Ontario, and then eastward for many miles,
forming an escarpment far behind Toronto, carrying
with it into Upper Canada a wheat-region, not unlike
that of western New York.

As we steamed from Lewiston through the mouth of
the Niagara River, and entered the lake, Queenstown, on
the Canadian side, appeared to us on the water to be at
least as flourishing as Lewiston, which we had just
surveyed by land. The heights above it, on which
opposing forces of the same blood, with equal gallantry,
fought the battle of Queenstown, and where the well-
known pillar commemorates the fall of the brave Sir
Isaac Brock, are as high as the ridge above Lewiston,
of which I have spoken, and promise to the lovers of the
picturesque as wide, and if it bear the eye to the western
extremity of Lake Ontario, a wider, and perhaps a still
more beautiful view of mixed land and water, high-land,
forest, and cultivated fields.

On board the steamer, I had a concluding conversa-
tion on the profits of farming in western New York,
with a practical farmer from Syracuse. " The results of
my personal experience are," he said, " that money is
not to be made by farming in this State. If a farmer
hire two men, and work with them, and keep them at

IN WESTERN NEW YOEK. 259

their workj he may maintain his family, and clear 8 per
cent upon the vahie of his farm. But if he farm more
largely, as a gentleman farmer, leaving the management
to an overseer, he will not make more than perhaps 2 or
8 per cent. Farming is much less profitable in my
county of Onondaga, during the last five years, than it
used to be. Exhaustion has diminished the produce of
wheat, formerly the great staple of the country. When
the wheat fell off, barley, which at first yielded 50 or 60
bushels, was raised year after year, till the land fell away
from this also, and became full of weeds. It still grows
50 bushels of Indian corn, and this is the best crop we now
get — but it must be manured. Much is now laid down
to grass to be recruited ; but those who are anxious to
make money are turning their hands to something else,
and either selling or letting their farms. A farm in a good
situation can be let to pay 5 per cent ; but as 7 per cent is
easy to be got for money, few persons care to continue
the owners of farms which they cannot cultivate them-
selves, and can only let to yield a return like this."

Such was my new friend's opinion of agriculture in
the empire State ; and I have since met with many who
agreed with him in all essential points. No interest in
national importance can ever, in this New World, compete
with the agricultural ; and yet, after the first two or three
generations, the most energetic and aspiring sons of the
first pioneers forsake the scene of their fathers' labours,
and betake themselves either to other pursuits or to new
regions. A certain numerical strength, permanent
competency, and abiding position in long-known locali-
ties, will always in every country remain with the
owners of the land ; but in the United States, as else-
where, the energy and activity, and intellectual influence
upon social and political progress, will be mainly pos-
sessed by the alert and enterprising brood w^ho yearly
hive off from the old lichen-covered stationary stock.

260 KNOWLEDGE OF NEW YORK FARMERS.

I shall have occasionj hereafter, to speak of the
prospects of agriculture, and of the progress of rural
improvement in general, in the State of New York. I
will here only add, in justice to the New York farmers,
that, in my jonrney to Buffalo, I was struck with the
very general familiarity whicli seemed to prevail among
practical men as to the geological character of their
country, and the relation which the geological details
had to the agricultural qualities of their farms. The
efforts of the State Government, in distributing numerous
volumes of their Natural History Survey, has no doubt
aided much in diffusing this knowledge, so rare in an
agricultural community, and yet so creditable to their
intellectual position. In the county of Surrey only,
and along the borders of the chalk and green-sand
country of England — where geological differences affect
the soils in so marked a manner, and within such short
distances — have I met among practical farmers, with so
clear an idea of local geological relations, and of their
connection with rural labours and profits.

As the boat paddled out into the lake, the water
roughened a little, and many of the passengers became
indisposed. I had a comfortable state-room ; but the
meals, which were included in the fare, were uncomfortable
and crowded. It was little else than a rush and a scramble,
where the slowest and weakest got neither place nor
pudding. At 11 P. M. we reached Rochester, a distance
of 80 miles, and after a short delay steamed on to
Oswego, 65 miles farther, where we arrived at 6 in the
morning, and were at first allowed time only for a short
stroll, but finally were detained till half-past 10, in
waiting the arrival of the train from Syracuse.

The flower-mills of Oswego are, I believe, the staple
source of its prosperity. It is a thriving town, and, being
at the termination of the canal and of the railroad — both
of which connect it directly with the Atlantic, while the

STEAM VOYAGE TO KINGSTON. 261

lake lays open all Canada and the west — its commerce
and importance are likely to augment. In anticipation
of this, it has already been incorporated into a city. My
readers must not interpret this as indicating a very rapid
or high degree of prosperity, since the language of this
State, as I have already explained, recognises nothing
between a village and a city.

Through this port, a large part of Upper Canada is
supplied with salt from the salines of Syracuse ; and
along the wharfs lay numerous little mountains of salt-
casks, waiting to be shipped.

From Oswego to Sackett's Harbour was a run of forty-
five miles, along a shore which is still very much wooded.
Now and then, in the midst of the forest, a few burnings
became visible, showing the work of clearing to be still
in progress.

Beyond Sackett's Harbour, on its north-eastern side, is
laid out the railway now in progress, which is to connect
Kingston in Upper Canada, across the Ten Thousand Isles,
with Rome in the State of New York, and thence by the
existing line with Albany. It will be a great boon to
Canada when it is finished, and a matter of much
moment also to the city of New York.

The village of Sackett's Harbour shows nothing to
arrest attention, beyond its hotel, and some signs of
increase in size. After stopping about an hour we
started again for Kingston, which is forty miles across
the lake, making in all a distance, by this route, of two
hundred and thirty miles from Lewiston to Kingston.

The harbour (Sackett's) and the islands about its mouth,
and among which we steamed, made this part of the
voyage very pleasant. We passed the main channel o^
the St Lawrence, which is about a mile in width, ^
up N. by E. at Simcoe Island, on which the llgh
stands, and then sailed a straight course of mr
for Kingston. Long before the eye could m-

262 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CANADA AND NEW YORK.

houses of the city, the towers of a lofty building raised
themselves like a beacon, far above every other object
in massive proportions and In height. As we neared
the coast this proved to be the Eoman Catholic cathedral,
occupying the highest ground in the city. In many
other parts of North America, as well as here, I have
found the Eomlsh churches ambitiously securing the most
prominent and imposing positions. They are all selected
with an eye to the future.

At 6 P.M. we landed on the pier. I almost felt myself
at home again as I set ray foot on shore in sight of the
British flag ; and the kind welcome of a Kingston family
added double pleasure to the agreeable week I subse-
quently spent in this place.

In manners and in sympathies, a sensible difference
still prevails between Upper Canada and western New
York. Notwithstanding the proximity of the two coun-
tries, and the increasing Intercourse between them, this
will probably long continue to be the case.

Part of the difference which is felt, in crossing from
either side, may be in idea only, and connected with
one's political prejudices, republican or monarchical ; yet
sensible differences, both in men and women, exist
nevertheless. One feels the de trop — the tendency to
exaggerate — among the men on the one side, obtruding
itself sometimes offensively, especially in the newer States
of the Union, and among the newer people. An opposite
tendency, and not unfrequently symptoms of discontent
lurking at the corners of the mouth, are met with along
the Canadian border, so often as to arrest attention to
the circumstance. But the Upper Canadians have in
themselves, and in their country, the materials of a first-
soiii People, if their eager spirit, anxious too speedily to
at the yould permit them to proceed steadily on their

of which

"Der Canadian women have their character too.

A CANADIAN WIFE. 263

" I'll go over to Canada for a wife when I marry," said
a young south-shore farmer to his friend. " When I
come home at night she'll have a nice blazing fire on,
and a clean kitchen, and a comfortable supper for me ;
but if I marry a New Yorker, it'll be, when I come home,
^ John, go down to the well for some water, to make the
tea C or, ' John, go and bring some logs to put on the
fire, to boil the kettle.' No, no ; a Canadian woman's
the wife for me."

One circumstance which will materially modify the
population on the opposite shores is the large number of
Germans who have settled in the States, while the popu-
lation of Upper Canada is almost wholly British. This,
I think, promises a more active future to Canada than
the population of New York would give her.

I have already drawn attention to some of the places
in the valley of the Mohawk, where Germans especially
abound. But all along the western region they are
numerous. In Buffalo, the German correspondence is
so extensive that a separate bureau, as I was informed,
is established at the post-office for German letters ; and
in the far north-western State of Minnesota — the New
England of the West — the annual message of Governor
Eamsay to the Legislature for 1850 was printed in
German as well as English, which shows how many of
that tongue are already numbered among its adventurous
inhabitants.

CHAPTEE X.

Kingston. — Soils of its neighbourhood.— Importance of agriculture in
Canada.— Show of the Upper Canada Agricultural Society.— Pork-
raising in the provinces. — Adaptation of bi'eeds to local circum-
stances.—Implements in the show-yard. — Infancy of root-culture in
the province.— Alleged difficulty in the turnip-culture.— Rocky-
Mountain beans.— Canadian coffee. — British sympathy with colonial
grievances. — Alleged pusillanimity of the Governor-general.— Farm-
ing in Home district. — Wheat the surest crop in Canada West. —
Excellence of the winter wheat. — Best wheat-belt round Lake Onta-
rio.— Total produce of Canada West, and average yield per acre. —
Large consumption of oats. — Less productiveness of the wheat-crop
than in foi^mer times. — Cause of this. — Social position of the farming
class in Upper Canada. — Means of improvement now in progress. —
United Empii*e Loyalists, — Limited capital of the farming proprie-
tors.— Condition of the grants made to the United Empire Loyal-
ists.— Renting of land, and farming on shares. — Indian-corn whisky,
and malt. — Extensive manufacture of such whisky at Cincinnati in
Ohio. — Use of Indian corn in the Canadian distilleries, and of mixed
rye and pease. — Whisky from pease. — Prospects of Kingston. — The
Ten Thousand Isles of the River St Lawrence. — Descending the
rapids. — The Sault St Louis. — Nature of this rapid, and of the
descent. — Approach to Montreal. — Metamorphic limestone rich in
phosphate of lime. — Agi'icultural value of this rock, and of the
mineral phosphate as an article of export. — Deposits of mineral
phosphate in the State of New York. — Origin or source of this
mineral phosphate, and of garnet, graphite, and other minerals found
in crystalline limestones. — Graphite and phosphate of lime in an
altered rock, evidences of the former presence of organised bodies.
— The crystalline limestone interstratified with gneiss. — Singular
contortions exhibited by the limestone. — Dr Emmon's explanation of
the cause.

Sept. 19. — Kingston, on my arrival, partook of two
different forms of excitement — one in common with the

NEIGHBOURHOOD OF KINGSTON. 265

whole province, arising out of the political differences
and recent burnings at Montreal 5 the other — peculiarly
its own — connected with the show of the Agricultural
Society of Upper Canada, which was to be held in its
suburbs during the course of the week. The interest
taken by all parties in the political question was great ;
and the comments on the procedure of the Government
and the Governor-general, numerous and free. The
influence of all this was not insensible upon the affairs
of the agricultural meeting, at which, until almost the
last hour, his Excellency's presence was expected. On
the whole, however, the meeting went off very well, and
very creditably to the agriculture of the province — though
with the introduction into the after-dinner speeches of
more politics than would have been permitted by an
experienced chairman on such occasions at home.

The neighbourhood of Kingston is an inferior agri-
cultural district. A thin, generally light soil, rests on
the Trenton limestone — a solid deposit of dark-blue
fossiliferous rock, which here skirts the northern shores
of the lake, and extends inland to a considerable distance.
The richest lands of this division of Canada lie towards
the north and west, a portion of the province which I
regretted that my previous arrangements did not permit
me to visit.

In Canada, every one is satisfied of the paramount
importance of the agricultural interest ; a very general
desire exists, therefore, to advance it by every reason-
able or available means. The superior class of settlers,
of whom so many are scattered over Upper Canada,
will greatly facilitate the adoption of such means of
improvement as are usually employed, or are easily
available by agricultural societies.

The Agricultural Society of Upper Canada had been
in existence only three years, and the excited state of
political parties had retarded that general union, even

266 AGEICULTUEAL SOCIETY.

upon the question of rural improvement, which, as
men's minds sober down, must eventually take place.
Still I was agreeably surprised, both at the extent of
the preparations I saw making on my arrival, and with
the appearance of the town and of the show-yard on the
day of the exhibition. The latter was not so extensive
nor so crowded as that of Syracuse, but much more
numerously attended by well-dressed and well-behaved
people, and rendered attractive by a greater quantity of
excellent stock and implements than I had at all anticipated.

The best of the stock was brought from the western
part of the province. Among them were superior Short-
horns, a few Devons, and some Ayrshires — all of pure
blood. The greater number, however, were crosses,
which, as in the States, are here called grades. The
Leicester sheep were very fine, and the prize pigs —
chiefly Berkshlres — excellent.

The pig husbandry in Canada and in the province of
New Brunswick, to be conducted economically, requires
to be somewhat modified in comparison with the method
adopted in Ohio, and the other large hog-growing and
Indian-corn producing States. Of the vast number
slaughtered at Cincinnati after harvest, the ages vary
from a minimum of eleven to a maximum of nineteen
months. They are generally kept over one winter,
and packed before the next commences. In the pro-
vinces, the first diflSculty which the settler has to over-
come is that of laying in a sufficient stock of food for
the long months of winter 5 and although the intro-
duction of a better husbandry will by-and-by greatly
lessen this difficulty, yet at present it is a main object
with the farmer to get the winter over at as little cost of
food as possible. The aim in regard to pigs is, there-
fore, to obtain a breed which shall litter in April, and
can be fed to produce a barrel of pork (196 lb.) in
November or December of the same year, and thus to

IMPLEMENTS IN THE SHOW-YAED. 267

save all winter keep, except for the breeders. As the
lumber trade retires farther back, and becomes less
extensive, the large and fat pork which was in demand
for the lumberers becomes unsaleable, and a new form
of the article — such as a civilised community are likely
permanently to consume — is necessary to be produced.

Considerations of this kind render it necessary to look
at stock in different countries with a differently instructed
eye ; and the opinions of a committee in offering, and
of a judge in awarding, prizes, must be determined, not
so much by the abstract excellence of this or that
animal or breed, as by its special adaptation to local
circumstances, and to the purposes for which it is reared.
Among the implements, which considerably exceeded
in number and variety what is often to be seen at the
shows of the Highland and Agricultural Society of
Scotland, there were many excellent ploughs, harrows,
cultivators, &c., manufactured in the province. Straw
and corn-stalk cutters, and corn-shellers, were in con-
siderable numbers; but an English visitor would be
struck by the want of drill-machines, and root-cutters,
and grain-crushers, now so abundant at our British
shows. A few of the former, for drilling wheat, were
the only implements of the kind which were to be seen.
The roots exhibited — turnips, carrots, beet, mangold-
wurzel, &c. — were all large and fine, showing the
aptitude of the climate and soil to this culture. But
here, as elsewhere in North America, the root-culture is
still in its infancy. A rich virgin soil, producing crops
for many years almost spontaneously, gave no stimulus
to the preparation and preservation of manure among
the first settlers ; while the ready sale for wheat, and
the difficulty of procuring hay for large wintc^y <^ock,
have hitherto prevented the attention of the ^5 ^^ '--^ ^
farmers from being turned to the rearing of cat® ^^ form
Besides the fly — which, as with us, commit^ or staymg

268 EOCKY MOUNTAIN BEAN.

great ravages upou the young turnip — drought is said
to prevail in this province more frequently than at
home, at the time for sowing the seed. There is
greater difficulty also, it is alleged, in keeping the roots
during winter than with us. Such difficulties, however,
appear more formidable at first ; experience generally
shows how they are to be overcome. The last-men-
tio*ied difficulty has often been put to me in the pro-
vince of New Brunswick, chiefly by persons new to
the turnip. Yet even there I have met many practical
farmers, who had fairly entered upon the culture, and
had experienced its benefits in the winter-feeding of
their stock, to whom the preservation of their turnips,
in cellars of a properly adjusted temperature, had pre-
sented no difficulty whatever.

Among the horticultural productions v»^ere two which
were new to me. One was the Eocky Mountain bean,
which had pods from 12 to 18 inches in length, growing
in pairs, and about the thickness of a common French
bean. The seed has the appearance of a small kidney-
bean. The other was labelled Canadian Coffee. It is a
species of pea growing in a small inflated pod. It has the
flavour of a pea, with a bitterish after-taste, and when
roasted, has much of the odour and taste of coffee.
It grew readily and ripened in the neighbourhood of
Toronto, and may possibly come to be economically
important.

On the whole, as I have said, this Kingston show

was very creditable to the province of Upper Canada.

The thousands of people who came to it, the stock and

implements exhibited, the respectable appearance, the

orderly behaviour, the comfortable looks and cheerful

facQj' f both male and female, spoke for a state of

\^'^ . t least not very unflourishing. The British

V^ rurerin Upper Canada than in the State of New
can be tL /^ i i -r^ i i

November"^' as i have already remarked, Dutch and

HOME SYMPATHY WITH THE COLONIES. 269

German settlers occupy large portions of the territory,
and crowd into the towns 5 but in both there is enough
of its influence and energy seen everywhere to make a
home-born man proud of his country and his people.
Faces, persons, dispositions — all look like home over
again. The most pushing and impatient of the colonial-
born little imagine how very much they resemble the
tens of thousands of men at home who restlessly gnaw
the bit of restraint — by which order can alone be
secured, and leisure obtained for that cautious and
steady progress by which advances, economical and
political, w^iich all consider desirable, may be safely
made and successively rendered secure. I venture to
say for John Bull, and Sandy too, that there is not
a single British colony to which it does not delight
them to hear that their brothers and cousins are going,
or, having gone, to learn that they are prospering in it.
Nor is there not a single real grievance with which any
of these colonies may be afflicted that does not meet
with their ready sympathy, and, whatever party may
be in power, their ready co-operation, by all lawful
means, to secure redress.

I introduce these observations, as the reader will
readily understand, in reference to topics which I often
heard discussed during my stay in Canada. At King-
ston, the presence of his Excellency the Governor was
looked for by many ; and the number of guests at the
Society's dinner was probably very much fewer in
consequence of his absence. Various comments, of
course, were made, according to the feelings and wishes
of parties, upon this absence. His friends were disap-
pointed, as they were ready to support him. His
enemies called it pusillanimity, and used many other
hard words. For my own part, I knew too little, at the
time, of the temper of the people, to permit me to form
an opinion as to the propriety of his coming or staying

270 CONDUCT OF THE GOVERNOR- GENERAL.

away. I was from the first, however, inclined to regard
the Governor's movements as impelled chiefly by a
prudent caution, and all I afterwards learned or saw
tended to confirm and strengthen this first impression.
What matters the personal bravery of the Governor
of a colony, compared with his personal prudence ? To
satisfy his partisans, or to disprove the allegations of
his opponents, is he to place himself in circumstances
where disturbance may occur, the public peace be
endangered, lives possibly sacrificed, and feelings of
bitterness awakened which he may never be able to
allay ? The Annexation party in Canada would justly
have blamed his rashness, his imprudence, and his unfit-
ness to preside over a constitutional government, had
they succeeded, by their taunts, in compelling him into
any equivocal position.

The farming about Toronto — in the Home district,
which I was unable to visit — is said to be better as to
implements, stock, and handiwork, than in any other
part of Canada. The surface-soil in this district is
generally sandy, and covered with pine; but it rests, at
a depth of 10 to 18 inches, on a clay often blue in
colour, and burning to a white brick. Such a soil
is easily tilled at first, and has the means of permanent
improvement below.

Wheat is still the surest crop in Canada West,
though, in the lower or moister grounds, it is very
subject to rust. This has been particularly the case
during the last ten years, hundreds of acres having
sometimes been left uncut on account of this disease.

Winter wheat is preferred, sown in September, be-
cause it leaves less to do in the short spring, is ripe a
fortnight earlier than spring wheat, and brings 3d. to
6d. currency a bushel more in the market. It is this
winter w^heat which the Rochester and Oswego millers
covet, because they can get it earlier in the season than

PRODUCE OF CANADA WEST. 271

the western wheat, and because the flour it makes Is less
apt to sour at sea.

The best samples of wheat are grown on a belt of
some twelve miles broad, which skirts the lake from
Niagara round as far as the town of Cobourg, which is
about a hundred miles west of Kingston. The land on
this belt is rolling, and generally light, loamy, and
capable of being ploughed with light horses. Beyond
this belt, in every direction, wheat is more subject to
rust. Winter wheat cannot be grown with equal
certainty, and spring wheat, therefore, is generally
sown. From what I have heard, I think it not
unlikely that thorough-drainage may eventually cure all
this.

The whole produce of Canada West, in 1828, and the
average yield per imperial acre, are represented in the
following table : —

Area in cultivation.

Total produce.

Average produce

In acres.

In bushels.

per imperial acre.

Wheat,

593,695

7,558,773

12 f bushels.

Barley,

29,324

519,727

17i ...

Oats,

285,571

7,055,734

24f ...

Rye, .

38,452

446,293

m ...

Indian corn,

51,997

1,137,555

21f ...

Buckwheat,

26,653

432,573

16i ...

Potatoes,

56,796

4,751,231

84

Though the largest breadth of land is under wheat, it
will be seen by the above numbers that oats and
potatoes are staple articles of food. This arises, in
part, from the climate being more generally pro-
pitious to these crops, and in part from the large
proportion of persons of Scottish descent who are found
among the inhabitants of the province.

The wheat midge has not yet been sensibly felt in
Canada West ; still, the wheat crop is by no means so
sure as it used to be, and, as one consequence, larger
numbers are returning to Indian corn, which, twenty

272 FAILING GROWTH OF WHEAT.

years ago, used to be cultivated in much larger
proportion than now.

But it cannot surprise any Old Country farmer that
the wheat crops should become less valuable, even on
the best of land, where so little has been done to
conserve the natural capabilities of the soil. In Prince
Edward's District — a peninsula lying immediately to the
west of Kingston, between the Bay of Quinte and the
lake — the land has, in some places, been cropped with
wheat for fifty years, without any other manure than a
ton of gypsum a-year applied to a whole farm. In
other places, a similar system has been followed. Can it
be wondered at, then, that here, as elsewhere — from
this among other causes — the wheat-producing region
should be gradually retiring inland, or farther to the
west; and that, as in the State of New York, the
agriculture of the whole province should, by degrees, be
materially altering? It is the multiplied and prolonged
modes of procedure of its individual citizens that, in
agriculture as in the arts, ultimately determines the
nature and extent of the relations, economical and
commercial, which one country bears to another. These,
in the case of the North American provinces and States,
are leading to a condition of agricultural production
which is of the greatest possible interest to British land-
owners and land-cultivators.

Little knowledge of improved agriculture has hitherto
been diffused in Upper Canada ; and it is, as yet, among
practical men, held in little esteem. In revenge, the
farming class are not, as a body, regarded with much
estimation by the other classes of society. They do not
assume their proper position among a community where,
if they only knew how to use it, all political power is, in
reality, in their hands. The knowledge which they despise
would be the means, not only of enabling them to wield
this power, but of placing themselves in that position in

PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 273

the social scale from which their present contempt of
knowledge debars them. Still, the efforts now making
cannot fail to do good. The thousand pomids given
in prizes at Kingston had the effect of stimulating
many, and of awakening some ; while the things exhi-
bited in the show-yard must have led many, on their
return home, to look with a new eye upon their own
stock and tools and produce. The Society publishes,
as yet, no Transactions ; but a weekly Journal issued
under their patronage promises to spread much useful
information. And the lectures delivered from time to
time by their Secretary, in the country districts, must
lead to thoughts of change, and to improvements in
practice ; while the introduction, now in progress, of
scientific agriculture as a branch of instruction into the
Canadian colleges, and of elementary lessons on the
principles of agriculture into the schools of the rural
districts, will lay a solid foundation for those more general
ameliorations by which the practices of the next
generation are to repair the evils produced by those of
the past.

Among the sources of evil and retardation to Upper
Canadian agriculture, the President, in his address,
stated the occupation of too much land by individual
farm-proprietors to be one of the most injurious. This
is especially the case in reference to the descendants of
what are now generally called the U. E. Loyalists.
At the close of the first American war, many persons
emigrated from the United States, not only to Nova
Scotia, but also to Upper Canada. They were kindly
received, and liberally dealt with by the British
Government. All the land on the St Lawrence above
the French settlements, up to and around the Bay of
Quinte, was divided into townships ; the settlers called
the United Empire Loyalists were placed upon it.

VOL. I. S

274 GRANTS TO THE U. E. LOYALISTS.

Farming utensils, building materials, and two years'
provisions were supplied to them ; and, besides the land
given to themselves, allotments of 200 acres were
granted to each of their children on attaining the age of
twenty-one years. This has thrown into the hands of
persons of small capital, and little agricultural knowledge
or pecuniary means, larger tracts of land than they have
been able beneficially to cultivate. Had those grants
been made in farms of 100, or even 50 acres each, it
would, in the judgment of the President, have been
better for the province, and for the actual condition of
its practical husbandry.

This, we should say at once, might probably have
been the case. But the argument appears to have a
better foundation than could be gathered by a stranger
as the words fell from the lips of the speaker, when we
consider the extent of land granted to the U. E.
Loyalists, and how little has, as yet, been done to a large
proportion of that which was assigned to their children.

In the authorised Statistical Report of the Canadian
Board, (Montreal, 1849,) these lands are described as
consisting of : —

, Acres.

Located, . . . 150,800

Unlocated, . . . 321,950

Other lands, . . 2,734,239

Total described, . 3,206,987

I do not know exactly what distinction is intended
between the second and third quantities of these lands in
the above enumeration ; but if it be the case that, of
the 3i millions of acres granted, only 150 thousand are
located — by which I understand actually under culti-
vation— it does seem as if the original benevolent
intentions of the Home Government had been greatly
interfered with, and rendered abortive.

A large proportion of the later grants, I believe,

LETTING OF FARMS. 275

never came into the possession of those for whom they
were intended. The claims, prospective rights, or war-
rants of the children of the loyalists, for 200 acres each,
were in great numbers transferred to other parties for
small sums of money, and thus came into the hands of
persons — often speculators — who have not themselves
hitherto possessed the ability or the intention to bring
them into cultivation.

Such unlooked-for occurrences as this are to be classed
among the other unanticipated consequences which have
followed from grants of land made in Canada, often with
the best intentions — consequences to be regretted, and
which may retard, but, it is consolatory to think, cannot
prevent the growth and prosperity of this rapidly rising
colony.

The land in Upper Canada is generally cultivated by
its owners, as in the United States. In the Gore Dis-
trict, which lies at the head of Lake Ontario, and con-
tains land of the best quality, only about one in tv/enty
is let to a tenant. In the newer settled districts, the
system of letting in shares is most common ; if the land-
lord gives only the land, he has a third — if he finds stock
also, he gets two-thirds. In the older settled districts,
money-rents are common, and leases of seven years are
granted, with restrictive conditions as to cropping. Good
wheat-land, not within ten or twelve miles of a town,
lets at two dollars — about 2 J bushels an acre.

In the table given in a preceding page, it will be seen
that the quantity of barley grown in Upper Canada —
half a million of bushels — is comparatively small. The
produce of this grain is not, however, as in Great Bri-
tain, any test of the amount of fermented liquors, and
especially of ardent spirits, which are manufactured and
consumed. I have already stated, in reference to the
Indian corn of the Western States, that distillation was
one of the outlets by which the excessive produce of this

276 INDIAN- CORN WHISKY.

grain had hitherto been disposed of. Cincinnati, in
Ohio, of which I have spoken as the great centre of the
packing business, is also the great centre of the whisky
manufacture. It is the great whisky mart of the West,
and probably larger stocks of whisky are to be found at
one time in that city than in any other market in the
world. The whole quantity produced by the distilleries
of this city, or brought into it from more or less distant
distilleries, is about 1000 barrels, of forty gallons each,
per day, or 14,500,000 gallons in a year. The quantity
shipped off in the state of whisky — chiefly down the
Mississippi — is estimated at 11,000,000 of gallons,
while about 1,000,000 gallons more are converted into
alcohol, and disposed of to the Atlantic States. All
this whisky is manufactured from Indian corn ; and
even for the mashing, barley is not necessary, as
sprouted Indian corn makes a malt as serviceable to the
distiller as that from barley.

In Canada, which is not so much of an Indian-com
country, this grain is also used in the distilleries,
although not so exclusively as in the Western States,
where this grain is a drug. I had the opportunity of
conversing with the intelligent and enterprising owner
of a large distillery in the neighbourhood of Kingston,
who informed me that he used chiefly rye and Indian
corn, but sometimes pease also — all ground up together.
Two bushels of barley malt were sufficient for a bushel
of crushed rye — Indian corn requires four bushels to one.
When barley is scarce, a larger proportion of rye can be
used. I was most interested in the use of pease, which,
from their composition, one would not expect to be well
fitted either to give a good sample or a large return of
spirit. He informed me, however, that the yield was
tolerably good, but the quality inferior to that from
Indian corn — the main objection being, that the spirit
carries the flavour of the pea along with it.

PEOSPECTS OF KINGSTON. 277

Though Kingston possesses, In its happy position, a
certain assurance of great future prosperity, its progress
was somewhat checked by the removal of the seat of
Government to Montreal, upon the union of the pro-
vinces. Placed at the head of the navigation of the St
Lawrence, at the junction of the E-ideau Canal with
Lake Ontario, and with direct access to the commerce
of the States and upper lakes by steam-boats and rail-
ways, it will grow with the general growth of Canada,
especially with the settlement of the basin of the Ottawa,
and the increase of the carrying trade of the great river,
till it will compete on at least equal terms with Koches-
ter and Oswego, on the south side of the lake. It is not,
as some fancy, feverish energy and over-speculation that
are required, but a patient trust in the natural develop-
ment of the resources of the country, and a prudent and
cautious use of the new opportunities of advancing It
which every succeeding year presents.

Sept. 22. — Leaving my kind and hospitable friends in
Kingston, I embarked for Montreal at 7^ A. M. We had
neither rain nor fog In sailing among the Thousand Isles,
but the absence of the sun robbed this part of the voyage
of half Its beauty. I was reminded of the Ten Thousand
Islands of the Swedish Lake ]\Iaeler, and of the less
numerous Islets of our own Loch Lomond, as we glided
rapidly down the stream ; but not a gleam of sunshine
descended to give the Canadian scenery the bright
sparkle which I have seen lending so much joy fulness
to these European lakes. A quiet beauty, nevertheless,
suffused the river, and, with agreeable and instructive
society on board, the day passed pleasantly. Darkness
had already come on for more than an hour before we
stopped for the night at Coteau-du-Lac, at the foot of
Lake St Francis, and 160 miles below Kingston. We
had, during the day, descended several rapids, which
can only be passed by ascending vessels through the

278 RUNNING THE EAPIDS.

short canals which have been constructed for the purpose,
near the banks of the river. But the most formidable
of the river rapids were yet to come ; and It was to
obtain daylight for the passage of these that we pulled
up at the foot of Lake St Francis.

Sept. 23. — At four In the morning we were again
under weigh, and most of the passengers on deck, to
witness the running of the three formidable rapids,
which occur within the next sixteen miles. The descent
was very Interesting. The rapid current, the often narrow
channel, and the care In steering, all told of difficulty in
the passages ; and when one looked at the large ship,
dodging, as It were, among the shallows and headlands,
it appeared really wonderful that accidents should so
rarely happen. At the foot of the cascades we entered
Lake St Louis, where the Ontario from the north falls
into the St Lawrence ; and at seven we reached Lachine,
in the Island of Montreal. Here most of the passengers
landed, and proceeded by railway nine miles to the city.
The really dangerous rapids, however, were still below
us, and as the boat was about to pass them, I and a few
others remained on board, with the captain's permission,
till the boat arrived at Montreal.

This was certainly the most striking part of the
voyage ] and It Is one which a stranger visiting Mon-
treal ought not to allow himself to be prevented from
performing. Of the rapids between Lachine and Mon-
treal the most formidable and dangerous, Is that of the
Sault St Louis. The descent of this rapid, in so large
a vessel, created In my mind a feeling of surprise. In
descending the Toblque, in my bark-canoe, with a single
Indian polling and fending off. In quick and narrow and
rocky rapids, I could not help admiring the nice tact, the
instinctive perception as It were, with which a gentle
touch of the pole on the threatening rock, at the proper
moment, kept all safe. Here, on the St Lawrence, the

THE SAULT ST LOUIS. 279

same tact appeared, but with a greatly superior intellec-
tual skill, in handling and guiding a large boat with a
heavy cargo through a crooked channel, where the
slightest oversight, for a single moment, would cast all
upon the rocky shallows.

Let the reader fancy to himself a ledge of rocks run-
ning across the river, over which the water has a distinct
fall — to the eye appearing to be somewhere between six
and ten feet — into deep water below. Through this
ledge is a narrow channel of deep water, where the
rock has been torn away, and through which the river
rushes with great velocity. Below this ledge, at a short
distance, is a second ledge of rock, over which the water
falls, and through which, as in the case of the first, a
natural gap or sluice-way exists. Between these two
ledges deep water exists, but the openings of the two
are not opposite to each other, or in the same line.
You must descend the one, then turn sharp in the deep
water along the foot of the first ledge, and at the proper
time turn sharp again to go through the other. The chan-
nel is a true zigzag, and to sail along this letter Z in the
face of a strong current, and a heavy pressure of water,
requires a degree of skill and coolness in the captain, and
of mobility in the ship, which it requires a little considera-
tion fully to realise. Four men at the wheel, and six at
the tiller, to guard against accidents, steered us safely
down ; and it was beautiful to see with what graceful
ease and exactness the prow of the long vessel turned
itself to suit the sudden turns of the rocky channel.
We reached Montreal about nine o'clock, soon after
which, a pelting rain came on — the first serious fall
of rain I had yet encountered on the American con-
tinent.

The approach to Montreal from the river reminded
me of the approach to Leith from the river Forth. The
town of Montreal on the river bank, and the hill of

280 METAMORPHIC LIMESTONE

Mont Royal rising behind with a faint resemblance to
Arthur's Seat, sent the heart home to more familiar
scenes, and almost secured beforehand for the stranger-
city an interest in its affections.

In descending the St Lawrence from Kingston, the
somewhat naked and rocky limestone country of that
part of Upper Canada continues, till we have passed the
Thousand Isles. Below this the banks are less rocky,
and most of the way down to Montreal consist of a
light-coloured drift, which yields in general, I should
think, only an indifferent soil. This drift rests upon,
and is probably in great part formed from, the Potsdam
sandstone and calciferous sand-rock of the New York
geologists — being the lowest portions of the Lower
Silurian rocks. These rocks, where they occur in other
parts of North America, produce In general Inferior soils.

The most interesting geological fact, bearing upon the
practice of agriculture, which fell under my observation
in this part of my tour. Is the occurrence over a large
part of Canada of a deposit of metamorphic limestone,
which is unusually rich in phosphate of lime. This
limestone is subordinate to, and Interstratlfied with, beds
of porphyrltic and syenitic gneiss, which form a long
ridge of high-land, dipping beneath not only all the
Silurian strata, but also under the copper-bearing beds
of Lake Superior, which are beneath the Silurian. Both
the limestone and the gneiss are probably highly altered
members of the older Cambrian series.

This ridge of altered rocks extends, as a prolonged
high-land, in a north-east and south-west direction, from
the west of Labrador to the Ottowa, running nearly
parallel to the St Lawrence, and at a distance north of
that river of from twelve to twenty miles. Near
Bytown on the Ottowa the limestone appears in great
force, and from that point the ridge of mixed rocks
ranges nearly due west to the shores of Lake Huron.

RICH IN PHOSPHATE OF LIME. 281

Near the point where it crosses the Ottowa, a branch
of this formation forks off towards the south, spreads
over a considerable extent of country between the
Ottowa and the head of the St Lawrence, crosses this
river at the Thousand Isles, among which the syenitic
rocks prevail, with intermixed crystalline limestones,
and passes into the northern counties of New York,
where it is extensively developed. It is there coloured
among the primary rocks of the State, in the published
geological maps of Mr Hall and Professor Emmons.

This rock, like the altered limestones in most other
localities, contains imbedded in it various simple minerals
in greater or less quantity ; and among these apatite, or
phosphate of lime in grains and green crystals, is some-
times very abundant. Mr Logan, Provincial Geologist
for the Canadas, in bis Report for 1845-46, p. 94,
has mentioned several localities where the mineral phos-
phate of lime is especially plentiful ;* and Mr Hunt,
chemist to the survey, with whom I had the pleasure of
conversing upon the subject, assured me that in many
places this mineral formed a tenth part of the whole rock.

One economical fact is certain — that the existence of
such a limestone is of undoubted value to the neighbour-
hood in which it exists, where it can be readily quarried
and burned for lime, to be used in agricultural opera-
tions ; and that it is of equal value as an article of export
for agricultural purposes, where facilities for shipment
or other cheap means of transport exist. Such a lime-
stone rock, in most easily accessible parts of Great
Britain, would be as sure a source of permanent wealth
as a mine of Californian gold.

Another economical point is worthy of inquiry. Does
this mineral phosphate, in any of these localities, occur

* At Blasdells Mills, on the Gateneau, at the Calumet Slide, and
above the head of Moor's Slide, near the line between Ross and
Westmeath. Probably many other localities are now known.

282 PHOSPHATE OF LIME ABUNDANT.

in masses so large, or so readily separable from the
common limestone, that it could be economically
extracted, and brought in a pure state into the
market? If so, it would prove valuable as an article
of shipment to Europe, and would provide another
available resource to the high-farmed lands of Great
Britain. Upon the exhausted wheat-soils of Canada,
properly prepared and applied, its- use would be invalu-
able. An inquiry into this point is deserving of the
attention of the Canadian Legislature, with a view to
the good of the province ; and of individual landowners
along the outcrop of this rock, with a view to their own
individual profit.

I think it the more likely that some localities may be
found in Canada where this mineral phosphate will,
present itself in sufficient quantity to admit of being
profitably extracted, because, during my subsequent
residence in the State of New York, I was assured by
Professor Emmons of Albany, one of the State geolo-
gists, that he had met with it in several places in that
State where he thought it might be so extracted. In
the white metamorphic limestones of Essex, Jefferson,
and St Lawrence Counties, into which, as I have already
said, the Canadian limestone extends, he had so observed
it ; and at Rossie, in the last of these counties, he thought
a man might in some places pick out a hundredweight
a-day. Among the magnetic iron ores also, in the
township of Peru, near Lake Champlain, he informed
me that it sometimes occurs in equal bulk with the ore
itself, and that, by washing or other mechanical means,
a ton a-day might be collected in some localities.

In the interest of general scientific agriculture, inde-
pendent of individual or local profit, it is desirable that
the accuracy of such statements, and the possible avail-
ability of these and similar deposits, should be speedily
investigated.

MINERALS IN METAMOEPHIC ROCKS. 283

Speculations have been hazarded at various times in
regard to the origin or source of the crystals of apatite
(phosphate of lime,) of graphite (plumbago,) garnets,
and various other minerals, which are met with in so
many countries intermingled with the metamorphic or
crystalline limestones. But the origin of all these is now
easily intelligible. It is certain that this crystalline
character is the result of the action of heat long con-
tinued. But the assumption of this crystalline character
implies a power of movement of the particles among
each other, which, in fact, is seen in many cases in
unmelted bodies — as in the annealing of glass and
metals, and in the tempering and converting of iron or
bronze — to take place where they are kept for a pro-
longed period at an elevated temperature. It is certain,
also, that particles of a like kind have a special attraction
for each other — a tendency to draw towards one another
and cohere, when circumstances are such as to admit of
their moving among themselves, or among the particles
of other matter with which they may be mixed. And,
thirdly, it is certain that, when several substances which
incline to unite with each other are present in a mixture
in which circumstances admit of a movement among the
particles, they often unite to form definite chemical
compounds, exhibiting, more or less, well-defined crys-
talline forms.

Now it is known that stratified limestones, when
deposited, are rarely free from admixtures of earthy
matter, which contain the constituents of garnet, chon-
drodite, hornblende, &c. When these limestones are
subsequently exposed to the long-continued action of
heat, the particles of the rocky mass arrange themselves
in crystalline forms, while the earthy matters unite to
form the simple minerals (garnet, &c.,) which can be most
readily produced out of the substances of which they
consist, in the proportions in which they are actually

284 PEODUCTION OF CRYSTALS, OF PHOSPHATE

present. Hence the minerals produced differ in quantity,
in kind, and in relative proportions, according to the
quantity and nature of the impurities which the lime-
stone contains.

Again, all limestones, almost without exception, con-
tain the remains of animals or vegetables, or both.
In the former they are often very rich, and in these
phosphate of lime always exists in sensible quantity.
When the limestone is changed by heat, the animal and
vegetable substances are at the same time entirely
decomposed. All that is volatile escapes ; while the
earthy phosphate, being fixed, remains intermixed with
the limestone. But while the particles of carbonate of
lime attract each other, and form crystalline marble,
those of phosphate of lime also attract each other, and,
although sparingly mixed up with the limestone, gradu-
ally approach each other, and finally cohere into crys-
talline grains, and regularly crystallised forms. In this
way the phosphate, which was intermixed with the
rocky mass, perhaps in almost inappreciable proportion,
becomes collected together into sensible masses in par-
ticular places. And if the rock be one which, like some
of our still unchanged limestones, is unusually rich in
animal remains, or in mineral phosphates as a mass, the
quantity of the separated crystals will be great in pro-
portion. Hence their comparative abundance in some
of these white limestones, and hence also the reason
why the occurrence of them may be looked for, in some
localities, in sufficient quantity to admit of their being
economically extracted for use in agriculture or the arts.
Lastly, while the volatile parts of the animal and
vegetable matters contained in the limestone — those
which often give to limestones a bituminous character —
escape under the influence of heat, a portion of the more
fixed charcoal (carbon) remains, in the crystallised form
of graphite or plumbago. Hence, the deposits of this

285

substance, more or less extensive, wliicli are frequently
met with in metamorphic limestones — varying in amount
with the quantity and kind of organic matter which the
rock originally contained, and with the intensity and
continuance of the heat to which it has been exposed.
In some places in Canada, and in the State of New
York, therefore, it may still be found in sufficient quan-
tity to prove an invaluable source of mineral wealth.

If what is above said, in regard to the phosphate of
lime, be received as a satisfactory explanation of its
origin, it will follow that crystalline limestones in which
this mineral is found must not only be metamorphic, but
must have been deposited in the stratified form, and
have once contained the remains of fossil animals in
very considerable quantity.

I may here, in connection with this metamorphic
limestone of Canada, mention three facts observed by
Mr Logan,^ which are not only interesting in themselves,
but which bear upon the important point in chemico-
geological theory — the supposed origin of such limestones,
to which I have just alluded. These facts are — First^ That
while the gneiss above or below the limestone exhibits
regular stratification and even lamination, the limestone
itself will at times display contortions of the most com-
plicated character, and which increase in importance
with the thickness of the bed of limestone. Second^ That
when this thickness is great, beds of gneiss, of even a
foot in thickness, will be bent, folded, and broken, and
fragments — sometimes very large — of the gneiss will
be surrounded by the white limestone. Third^ That, in
one instance, the bed of limestone had an uninterrupted
connection with a mass of the same, which filled up a
crack or fault in the gneiss, at right angles to the general
direction of the strata. In the large, the limestone and

* Survey of Canada Report for 1845 and 1846, p. 43.

286 SINGULAR APPEARANCES IN THE LIMESTONE.

the gneiss were interstratlfied regularly and distinctly.
How, then, came these anomalous appearances ? They
are regarded by some as proofs of the theory that the
crystalline limestones, like the granites which have been
fused, are of igneous origin ; that they have been
melted, and in this state have been elevated from
beneath, and injected into the anomalous situations in
which they are occasionally found. Without denying
the possibility of such fusion and injection, there is no
occasion, I think, to have recourse to this supposition
with the view of explaining the phenomena hitherto
observed. The most strenuous supporter of this igneous
origin of the crystalline limestones in North America is
Dr Emmons of Albany — a man of much learning, who
has enjoyed many opportunities of personally observing
such rocks in situ. My attention was drawn to the
subject by this gentleman during my stay in that city ;
I shall, therefore, if my space permit, return for a little
to the consideration of his views in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER XL

Montreal. —New churches. — Ruins of the Parliament House. — Scotch
farmers in the Island of Montreal, — Soil near Lachine.— Its produce
per acre. — Cultivation of hops.— Price of land. — French Canadian
farms and farming.— Bad farming at home.— Bad farmers forced to
emigrate. — Clerical obstacles to the settlement of Protestant farmers
in Lower Canada.— Apples and cider of the island. — Hedges of
English and American Thorn. — Valley of Lachine. — Importance of
a better practical husbandry in Lower Canada. — Interest of an
established clergy in promoting its introduction. — Interest they have
in the land. — Yet progress has generally been slowest where the
interest of the clergy is the greatest.— Importance of agricultural
instruction in the country schools, especially in agricultural principles.
—How they should be taught.— Desire to introduce such instruction in
Lower Canada.— Patronage of the Roman Catholic clergy.— Excursion
to St Hilaire.— St Lawrence and Atlantic railroad. — Wmter shelter
for cattle, — Mode of making butter, — Maple sugar manufacture in
Canada and the adjoinmg States,— Mode of procedure. — Produce of
single trees. — Profit of Maple-groves. — Soil of the valley of St
Lawrence.— Tile-drainage upon its stiff clays, — Pigeon or stone weed,
its prevalence,— What its history teaches. — Inferior breeds of pigs and
cattle.— Bellffiil Mountain.— Pilgrimage Stations.— Beautiful view of
the St Lawrence flats,— Exhaustion of this formerly fertile region. —
Seignorial tenure of land.— Reserved rights of the seigneur. —
Reserved rents a grievance. — Sherbrooke. — Lands of the " Canadian
Land Company," in the eastern counties, — Their progress and
present inconveniences. — Tile-draining at Montreal. — Voyage to
Quebec— The Ottawa River and District.— Its rising importance-
Proportions of British and French in Montreal.— National, political,
religious, and municipal parties in the city.— Diflaculty in satisfying
such a population.— Wisdom in changing the seat of government. —
Why the British members from Upper Canada voted for the Rebellion
Losses Bill. — Explanation of one of their number.

Sunday J 2Sd September. —I attended morning service in
an Episcopal chapel in Montreal. It was well per-

288 " REBELLION REWARDED.

formed ; but the congregation was very small. In its
ecclesiastical concerns, the city appears to be in a very
prosperous and thriving condition. A new Roman
CathoHc cathedral, and a palace for the bishop, have been
of late years erected. The cathedral is chiefly remark-
able for its size and internal capacity. It is so fitted up
with pews as to afford sitting-room for ten thousand
people ! New churches belonging to other denominations
also, and all handsome, are springing up in various well-
selected situations.

As I went along the streets, evidences of the prevail-
ing political excitement presented themselves every-
where. Among others was a large placard on the walls,
headed " Rebellion Rewarded," and containing extracts
from the speeches of Lords Stanley and Lyndhurst in
the House of Lords, on the subject of the recent Com-
pensation Bill. I could not help regretting that opinions
should have been expressed by influential men in the
Home legislature, which those who were now declaring
themselves enemies of British connection should be able
to quote with something like a show of reason, in
justification of their illegal violence.

I visited the ruins of the Parliament House. It had
been a fine massive building, constructed of the blue
Trenton limestone, which is much employed as a building
stone in Montreal. The outer walls were still standing ;
but though massively built, it appeared to be entirely
incapable of repair. It is a defect of this stone, other-
wise excellent for building purposes, that the united
action of fire and water upon it causes it to crack, and
fly into numberless splinters. Hence the walls of the
Parliament House, and those of a large hotel lately
burned down in the city, are shattered and splintered in
every direction. This is an evil to which walls of brick,
sandstone, granite, or hardened slate, are not so subject.

Monday^ Sept. 24. — The wind was blowing cold this

SCOTCH FARMERS AT LACHINE. 289

morning, and I began to feel my summer clothing too
light for the Canadian autumn. After breakfast, I
drove out to Lachlne with a Mr Somerville, a practi-
cal Scottish farmer, long settled in the country, who has
a farm of 300 or 400 acres on the banks of the St
Lawrence, opposite the rapids of Lachlne. He and his
neighbour, Mr Penner, are farmers of the old Scotch
school, who bid you " lay the land dry, then clean and
manure — make straight furrows, clean out your ditches,
take off the stones, and plough deepishy With these
good mechanical principles. Industriously carried out,
they have greatly surpassed the French Canadian far-
mers ; and with the possession of good Ayrshire stock,
and the growth of a few turnips, and of mangold-
wurzel, which does well even with the early winters of
Lower Canada, they have raised good crops, extended
the arable land of their farms, and kept up Its condition.

The soil on this part of the Island of Montreal, which
lies low, and along the river, is of a blackish colour,
generally very rich — of a loamy character, and easy to
work. It Is drained by open ditches and cross-furrows.
TUe-dralnlng, hitherto untried, Is Indicated by the local
circumstances of soil, climate, and physical position ;
and although here, as in the State of New York, the
cost may appear large when compared with the total
value of the land, and the increase of price which, after
tile-draining, would be obtained for it in the market,
yet, if from the cost be deducted the annual outlay which
must be incurred to keep the ditches and cross-furrows
open, the actual expense of the permanent tile-drainage
will rapidly disappear. When a man settles on such
land, therefore, as requires the maintaining of open
ditches — with the view of retaining it, say only ten to
twelve years — he will, in most cases, find his pecuniary
profit greater at the end of the term, although the price

VOL. I. T

290 THE GARDEN OF CANADA.

he then sells his land for should really be no greater, In
consequence of the drainage he has performed. Here,
as in New Brunswick and the Eastern States of the
Union, I find it was a disputed question whether money
is to be made by farming, Avhere all the work is done
by hired labour; that is, whether the Scotch and
English system of large farming, or the class of large
farmers, can be successfully introduced into the pro-
vince.

It is conceded that a man with 100 acres in cultiva-
tion, doing one-half the work by the hands of his own
family, and employing hired labour to do the rest, may
make both ends meet ; but if a larger farm is to be
worked by the same home-force, with a larger number
of hired labourers, it is a question whether it can be
done, in average years, so as to pay. This doubt arises
not merely from the high price, but from the alleged,
and I believe real. Inferior quality of the agricultural
labour — chiefly Irish — which a farmer Is able to secure.

The Island of Montreal has been long celebrated for
its fertility, and, from its production of fine fruits, has
been called " the garden of Canada." The front-land,
along the river, over which I passed. Is very good, pro-
ducing, per imperial acre, from 20 to 35 bushels of
wheat, from 40 to 60 of oats, and of Indian corn,
though not much cultivated here, from 40 to 50 bushels.
The value of this land Is, on an average, about £20
currency, or £16 sterling, per acre, when it is in a good
state of cultivation, and has good buildings upon it.

Mr Tenner's farm is, for the most part, very superior
land. From 40 to 50 acres of it are In hops, which
thrive well — produce, on an average, from 800 to 1000
lb. per acre, and are a profitable crop. Here, as in our
own hop-grounds, and in those of Flanders, they
require high manuring ; and thus, as a general article
of culture, they are beyond the skill of the manure-

PRICE AND PRODUCE OF LAND. 291

neglecting French Canadians, and the equally careless
British and Irish emigrant settlers. This rich hop-land
is worth £40 an acre.

At a distance of twenty or thirty miles from the mar-
ket of Montreal, good land can be bought for £4 to £7
an acre ; but the buildings are generally bad. If these
happen to be good, the price is higher. The farms in
this district usually run in long stripes, the breadth of
3 acres in front, and from 30 to 50 back, or from 90 to
150 acres in all. The average produce on the farms of
the Canadian French is not more, as I was informed
here, than 8 to 10 bushels of wheat per acre — and for
this grain the soil is becoming poorer — and 20 bushels
of oats. They grow little hay, except on the natural
meadows, from which they reap 1 to 1\ tons an acre.
The system is to divide the farm in two, lengthwise,
and to crop the one and pasture the other alternately,
without sowing down — merely grazing the weeds that
spring up.

This neglect of grass-seeds may be considered as a
fair indication of a low state of practical husbandry, in
nearly every coimtry which is blessed with a moderately
moist and temperate climate. It is far too general in
North America — the Provinces and States alike. Even
among our home-farmers, it is to be observed much
more frequently than those persons who never leave the
high-roads in their agricultural travels would readily
believe.

Indeed, if we go a little out of the beaten track, we
may find, either in England or Scotland, all the vices of
American farming. Our home-farmers, indeed, may be
said to be the parents of them all. We have among
US still numberless farmers of the old school, possessed
of deep-rooted prejudices, who refuse to advance and
change their methods. It is chiefly such men who,
during the last twenty or thirty years, while those who

292 INTEREST OF THE CLERGY.

advanced with the times were generally prosperous, have,
one by one, been driven from their farms, and forced to
emigrate. Having sacrificed themselves at home to
their prejudices, they bear them religiously beyond the
Atlantic, and transmit them as heir-looms to their
descendants.* The changes in our corn-laws will not,
it is to be hoped, now send out any of our better men.

With such men, holding at least a considerable share
of the land, it is not surprising that bad farming should
be found in North America, even among the Anglo-
Saxon race ; and if improvements are introduced slowly
among us, they cannot be expected to advance with a
less languid step among them.

It is believed that the introduction of British settlers
into Lower Canada would improve the rural industry
of the French population ; and, in so far as the example
of a more patient and energetic blood goes, this might
possibly be the case. But, in addition to the unwilling-
ness which the British Protestant emigrant feels to place
himself in the midst of a people who speak a different
tongue, and belong to a different religious denomina-
tion, there is another obstacle to this admixture of races,
arising out of the law of tithes, of which I was not
aware until my friends explained it to me here to-day.

Before the British conquest, the Roman Catholic
clergy were, by law, entitled to the tithes of all land —
one twenty-sixth part of the produce being the legal
due of the priest of the parish. But by what is called,
I believe, the Quebec Act, they are now permitted
to demand tithe of persons of their own persuasion only,
Protestants being exempt. Hence, every transfer of
land from a Boman Catholic to a Protestant proprie-
tor, is a money-loss to the Romish Church, and a
money-inducement is held out to the priest of the place

* See, for instance, the state of farming in Lancashire even now. —
Royal Agricultural Journal, vol. x., part L

CANADIAN THORN-HEDGES. 293

to throw obstacles in the way of such transfers. This
is a temptation by which the best of men among the
Roman Catholic clergy may be insensibly biassed, and
to which the law ought not to expose them.

Fruit, and especially apples, grow well on the low-
lying black land I visited to-day; and orchards are
numerous around Montreal. At Mr Penner's, I saw
some fine apple-trees, and gathered some excellent
fruit. Among other eatable varieties, the ^pomme grise
is one which is highly esteemed as a good bearer and of
high flavour. Some of the valuable rennets also, such as
the large white Canadian, called also the large English
rennet, are said to be of Canadian origin. Besides table
fruit, cider-apples also are grown ; and in addition to
those of his own orchard, Mr Penner buys and crushes
those of the neighbouring orchards.

For the first time in Canada, I saw here some hedge-
rows of our English thorn, CratcBgus oxyacantha. The
mice are said to be their greatest enemies. When the
snow is on the ground, they often destroy this and other
valuable trees, by gnawing off the bark for food — as
hares and rabbits, in severe winters, do with us. I saw
also some very nice and well-kept fences of the American
thorn — the Crataegus crus-galU^ or cockspur thorn, I
believe.* No other objection was stated to the general
introduction of these hedges, except the trouble and
expense of keeping them in repair.

Before leaving Mr Penner's farm, I ought to mention,
in connection with the high-manuring of his hop-lands,
that he has a bone-mill upon his farm — that there is
another at Montreal ; but that, as I was informed,
scarcely any true Canadian has as yet seriously thought

* In the State of New York, four native species of thorn are known,
of which this is considered the best suited for hedges, and is most
frequently employed for this purpose. I am not aware if all these species
are natives of Canada also.

294 DIFFERENCE OF INTEREST BETWEEN

of employing such a thing as bones, even for the manur-
ing of his worn-out wheat-lands.

I returned from Lachlne, by the way of the valley —
apparently an old channel of the St Lawrence, or of the
Ottawa — along which the ship-canal and the railway
have been conducted. There Is rich flat meadow-land In
the bottom of the valley, only partially drained ; and
some tracts of rich alluvial soil, dry enough to be sub-
mitted to arable culture, and productive of excellent
crops. The upland, also, is generally of good quality,
and well-cultivated farms are not unfrequent. On one
of these I met with a warm and kind reception from Mr
Evans, the Secretary of the Lower Canada Agricultural
Society, editor of their Journal and Transactions, and
the author of a valuable treatise on agriculture, adapted
to the climate and productions of Canada. Both on this
and on subsequent occasions, I was indebted to the kind-
ness and attention of Mr Evans, and was obliged to
him for much valuable Information.

Sept. 25. — Among other persons whom it gave me
pleasure to visit this morning was M. Morin, President
of the Legislative Assembly, and of the Lower Canada
Agricultural Society ; and M. Villeneuve, Principal of
the Koman Catholic college. Both of these gentlemen
expressed a strong desire to promote the introduction of
a better system of practical agriculture among the inha-
bitants of Lower Canada ; and no other kind of Instruc-
tion— I may say, from all I afterwards saw, no other gift
which can be bestowed upon this people — seems likely to
be productive of more material good to the province.

Looking at the relation which an established clergy
bears to the agriculture of a country, in one of the
aspects in which it naturally presents itself, it would
appear as if no class of men ought to be more anxious to
promote agricultural improvement, to remove obstacles out
of its way, and to diffuse that kind of knowledge by which

THE TITHE-OWNER AND TITHE-PAYER. 295

it is to be most rapidly advanced. Entitled in most
countries to a certain fixed share of the produce of the
land, the larger that produce can be made, the greater
the revenue the clergy must yearly receive. And yet
experience seems to show that it is precisely when, as in
Scotland, the established clergy have the least interest in
the amount of produce yielded by the land, that agri-
cultural improvement has most progressed ; w^iIle it has
remained most backward, also, in those Roman Catholic
countries in which their interest has remained the
greatest. Every one, in fact, knows how the tithe
question has impeded rural improvement in countless
localities, even in England ; and how the titlie-com-
mutation measure has been introduced, in the hope of
removing the obstacles it presented, not more to rural
peace than to rural progress.

It is not difficult to understand . how such obstacles
should actually arise out of what, at first sight, appears
likely to promote agricultural improvement ; how a
diversity of interest should exist between the cultivator
and the tithe-collector ; and how human nature should
stubbornly, though foolishly, refuse to adopt new methods
which would be more profitable to the farmer himself,
simply because they would at the same time be a source
of profit to another, who incurs none of the additional
labour, anxiety, or expense.

There is, however, an indirect method by which
improvements are certain to be brought about — slowly
perhaps at first, but largely and generally in the end.
This method is the general difi'usion of knowledge
bearing upon the practice of agriculture. It is not by
prescribing new methods to old men — by staking our
chances of success on the hope of overcoming the pre-
judices of the most prejudiced class of society. It is by
instilling into young and unprejudiced minds the prin-
ciples according to w^hich all rural practice ought to be

296 IMPORTANCE OF DIFFUSING

regulated, that future practice will be most certainly
made better. This can be done at little or no expense ;
and in regard to imparting this knowledge, there can be
no opposition of interests between the clergy and the
rural laity. In most places, the parents will regard the
new instruction as a boon to their children, and will be
proud of their knowledge. They will, in most cases, also
be delighted to see their children apply this knowledge
under their own eye ; and if they themselves refuse their
assent to the introduction of this better culture, it is sure
to be seen on the farms to which their sons succeed. To
all, therefore, who have an indirect interest in the better
tillage of the land by tliose who hold it, the diffusion of
such knowledge among the young in our rural districts
at home, as well as abroad, ought to be a chief concern.
Especially in our home islands, now when rents are
falling, if knowledge can by possibility be made to keep
them up without diminishing the comforts or reasonable
profits of the farmer, it ought to be liberally, and with a
ready hand, scattered among the children of the people.

To be generally available, however, the mode in which
this is done should be easy, short, inexpensive, involving
little change in the ordinary school-routine, little new
machinery, and little interference with the customary
school-teaching, in kind or quantity. All this, I think,
may be effected, if the eye is kept bent upon the one
object — that of instructing the children in agr{cultu7'al
principles^ and their modes of application. These are
comparatively few In number — can be simply expressed,
so as to be intelligible to the very young ; and can be
taught in so short a time as to interfere in no necessary
degree with the usual branches of education.

It is difficult to impress this clearly and distinctly
either upon the general mind, upon that of teachers
themselves, or even upon that of school-inspectors. The
principles I speak of are deduced from scientific inquiry —

AGRICULTUKAL KNOWLEDGE. 297

chemical, geological, botanical, and physiological research.
In the expression of these principles, new words — the
names, for example, of certain substances familiar to the
chemist or botanist — are necessarily employed. These
words or names must be understood, if the sentence in
which they are contained is to be comprehended — as the
child is shown pictures of the horse and the lamb, or is
taken to the fields to see these animals, if it is to
understand the early reading-lessons in which they are
mentioned. But a thing is known by its sensible
properties ; and as a child at once distinguishes the
apple, the potato, the turnip, and the onion, by their
form, colour, taste, and smell, so, among the things
chemistry deals with — phosphorus and sulphur, oxygen
and nitrogen, starch and gluten, must be made familiar
to his senses, if he is to understand the meaning of their
names. Thus far experimental chemistry is necessary
in the teaching of agricultural principles. It must make
the words intelligible, but no more is necessary. With
the apparatus or book in his hand, however, the master
(if the purpose of his teaching be not clear to his own
mind) is apt to introduce other unnecessary experiments
or scientific explanations, burdening the memory of the
boy, and distracting his attention. The school-inspector,
also, not distinguishing more clearly the true line of
agricultural teaching, sometimes encourages this, by
requiring and expecting, at his examinations, a know-
ledge of purely chemical principles, which are necessary
neither to the comprehension nor to the future appli-
cation of the agricultural principles which are intended
to be inculcated. A teacher must learn to resist the
temptation to show a pretty experiment, even with the
laudable desire of making his pupils see and feel its
natural beauty, for the boy will naturally ask, " How
does this apply to agriculture ? " It requires a clearer
head and more considerable knowledge than many

298 INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS

teachers of elementary schools possess, to be able to
draw the distinct line I speak of, between what ought
to be taught and what withheld, and considerable self-
restraint to keep within that line, Avhen it is seen. The
school-inspector, therefore, at his periodical visit, should
sedulously assist, by the questions he puts, in keeping
him to the special instruction which is to be given,
otherwise this branch of scientific agriculture will be
made to occupy too prominent a place in the course of
instruction, and will take up more time than is properly
due to it, while the pupils will, at the same time, be less
satisfactorily or usefully taught.

These remarks I introduce here, as likely to be by no
means without their use even among ourselves ; for
though I have often, in various ways, pressed such
views upon teachers and parents in our rural districts, and
though as many as 26,000 copies of my little Catechism
— which contains all the chemistry, and all the agricul-
tural principles which, in my opinion, are necessary to
make the schoolboys of our day the agricultural improv-
ers of the future — have been distributed at home, yet in
many cases I have reason to fear that the prospect of
good has been marred by a departure from the simple
necessities of the case, and the introduction of what is
really extraneous matter. For whatever may be said
in favour of pure chemistry as a separate branch of
school-teaching, it is not included in, and ought not to
be unnecessarily mixed up, in eleinentary schools^ with
instruction in the principles of agriculture.

Upon this subject of instruction in the principles of
agriculture in the common schools of the country, I had
frequent opportunities of conversing with influential
persons in the British Provinces and in the United
States, and rarely, I believe, without awakening a
desire, or strengthening that which pre-existed, to
promote this object, as a means of most certainly

FAVOURED BY THE CLERGY. 299

bettering tlie future condition of practical agriculture
everywhere.

M. VilleneuvCj the Principal of the Eoman Catholic
college at Montreal, I found already alive to the subject.
He had taken one of the college farms into his own
hands, with a view to model improvements ; and on his
library table I was pleased to find a copy oF the fifth
American edition of my published Lectures. In no
country in the world, as my subsequent experience
taught me, is the application of a greater amount of
knowledge to the soil more necessary than in Lower
Canada. Through the primary schools it can be brought
to bear upon the practice of the next generation,
without interfering directly with the prejudices of the
present; and thus, without clashing of interests, the
common good of all may be surely and peacefully
promoted.

My stay in Montreal was too short to allow me the
opportunity of meeting and conversing with the nume-
rous other persons who are interested in the improve-
ment of Lower Canadian agriculture. I w^as happy,
however, to find that the heads of the Roman Catholic
clergy, here and at Quebec, were among the chief
supporters of the Agricultural Society of the Lower
Province, and were exerting themselves to interest the
inferior clergy, so influential among the habitants. In the
introduction of a modicum of agricultural instruction
into the schools under their charge.

In the afternoon of this day I crossed the St Law-
rence with Mr Wettenhall, an influential member of
Assembly from Upper Canada, and Major Campbell, of
St Hllaire, Secretary to the Governor-general, who had
kindly invited us to visit him at his place of St Hilaire,
about fifteen miles from Montreal. We crossed the
river by a steamboat, and descended a little way to
Longeuil, whence we proceeded by the St Lawrence

300 ST LAWRENCE AND ATLANTIC RAILWAY.

and Atlantic railroad, which has already been opened as
far as St Hyacinth, a distance of about twenty-seven
miles. This railroad, which will afford the easiest and
shortest line yet projected from Montreal to the Atlantic,
will reach the coast at Portland in Maine. When it
is completed, which is expected to be the case in two or
three years, it will not only greatly promote the pros-
perity of Montreal and of Quebec, to which city a branch
is intended to fork off, but it will much assist the city of
Portland to compete with the growing neighbour city of
Boston, which it is anxious to rival and surpass. To be
at the mouth of a long river, or at the terminus of a long
inland railway, and upon the Atlantic border, seem, from
past experience, to be sure preludes to commercial pro-
sperity in a North American city. It is not surprising,
therefore, that New York, Boston, and Portland, should
all be anxious to perfect, complete, or shorten their lines
of communication with the Canadas and the St Law-
rence.

For ten miles we went over a flat country, chiefly
of tertiary or post-tertiary light-coloured clays. Here a
break-down upon the line arrested our advance, and we
considered the most promising way of getting on was to
walk the remaining five miles. This gave us an oppor-
tunity of seeing to greater advantage the wooden bridge
and viaduct, 1200 feet long, which conducts the railway
across the river Richelieu. This bridge, though nothing
almost when compared with the engineering triumphs of
our British railways, is deserving of a visit, both as a
difficult work of art, and as an evidence of the enterprise
and energy of a young and growing country. We
arrived at St Hilaire three hours behind our time, and
fully prepared for an unexpectedly late dinner.

Si'pt. 26. — This morning was wet and unpromising
for a rural excursion in a flat and somewhat clayey
country, where the roads are bad and walking difficult.

ST HILAIRE BUTTER. 301

While the sun came out, however, put an end to the
rain and dried the land, we were able to inspect the
well-finished stables and farra-oflfices which Major Camp-
bell has erected, and to inspect his dairy and his stores
of maple sugar.

I have already, in speaking of the winters of New
Brunswick, made some remarks upon the importance of
greater attention to the warmth of the cattle, if their
condition is to be easily kept up, fodder saved, and profit
to be made by keeping them. In this and the lower
parts of Canada, similar observations apply to the mode
in which the habitants tend their cattle in winter. In
Upper Canada, west of Kingston, open hammels are in
use for winter shelter, but in Lower Canada this prac-
tice is inconsistent with economy. About Montreal, in
the winter of 1848, the thermometer, for three weeks
together, never rose above zero. To expose cattle to
such extreme weather is to sacrifice food. It struck me,
therefore, that, in erecting well-constructed warm winter
buildings for his stock, the Seigneur of St Hilaire was
setting a most commendable example to his tenantry and
more wealthy neighbours.

I do not know how far the method of making butter
adopted in Mr Campbell's dairy is common in Lower
Canada, but here it is made after the manner of what
is sometimes called Bohemian butter^ or of some of the
varieties of the Epping butter of England. The cream
is collected, Devonshire fashion, in the form of clouted
cream, by placing the milk-vessel, in which the milk has
already stood twelve hours, upon a hot plate till it is
nearly boiling, then setting aside twelve hours to cool,
and subsequently removing the cream in the usual
manner. In this way it is said that a fourth more butter
is obtained, and the churning is performed by merely
stirring the cream about with a stirrer, or with the
naked hand. Of course the skimmed milk is more

302 MANUFACTURE OF MAPLE SUGAR

worthless, and contains only the curd and the sugar of
the new milk.*

But the maple-sugar manufacture of this neighbour-
hood was more interesting, as it possessed more novelty
to me. The importance of this Industry to the Canadas
may be judged of from the fact that, In 1848, there
was made, In Canada West, as much as 4,140,667 lb.
of maple sugar, or nearly 6 lb. for each inhabitant.
In Lower Canada, in 1844, the quantity produced was
2,250,000. If we suppose it now to be 3,000,000, the
whole quantity of maple sugar produced in average years,
in all Canada, is about 7,000,000 lb. There are imported
besides, of West India sugar, about 20,000,000 lb. —
so that the home produce amounts to one-fourth of the
home consumption.

Maple sugar is also an Important article of rural
Industry in some of the United States. In Michigan,
the produce in 1848 was estimated at 1,774,368 lb. ; and
in Vermont and New Hampshire, it amounted to several
millions of pounds, f

Major Campbell is himself a maple-sugar grower to a
considerable extent. On his domain he possesses about
12,000 trees, which yield on an average about a pound

* Another variety, which I believe is the genuine esteemed Epping
butter, is made by churning alone the cream which rises naturally during
the first twentj^-four houi's. This gives a much more delicately flavoured
butter than when all the cream which the milk will yield is mixed and
churned together.

t The Report of the Patent Office for 1847 estimated the maple-
sugar crop for that year in New Hampshire at 2,250,000, in Vermont at
10,000,000, and in New York State at 12,000,000 lb. But it estimated
that of Michigan, in the same year, at 3,250,000 lb. ; whereas the
returns published by the legislature of that State make it only 1,750,000
for 1848, which was a remarkably good sugar year, I doubt, therefore,
that exaggerations may exist also in the returns for Vermont and New
York, as given in the Patent Office Report for 1847, p. 85, and there-
fore I have not introduced the numbers into the text. The estimate
for Upper Canada is taken from the Reports of the Canadian Board of
Registration and Statistics, published at Montreal in 1849.

IN CANADA AND THE STATES. 303

each tree. Some trees yield three or four pounds — a
pound being the estimated yield of each coulisse or tap-
hole — and some trees being large and strong enough to
bear tapping in several places. Some years also are
much more favourable to this crop than others, so that
the estimate of a pound a tree Is taken as a basis which,
on the whole, may be relied on as fair for landlord and
tenant. These trees are rented out to the sugar-makers
at a rent of one-fifth of the produce, or one pound for
every five trees. March and April are the months in
which the trees are tapped, and the best weather is when
hard frost during the night Is followed by a hot sun
during the day. In Upper Canada, from its proximity
to the lakes probably, the sugar weather is more variable,
and the crop less certain than in Lower Canada.

The first sap that flows In April is clear, colourless,
and without taste. After standing a day or two, this
sap becomes sweet ; and a few days after the tree has
begun to run, the sap flows sweet. The last sap flows
thick, and makes an inferior sugar, called here sucre de
seve. When boiled carefully in earthen-ware or glazed
pots, the clear sap gives at once a beautifully white sugar,
and especially if it be drained in moulds and clayed, as is
done with common loaf-sugar. When pure white, how-
ever, it cannot be distinguished from refined cane-sugar.
It is generally preferred of a brown, and by many of a
dark-brown colour, because of the rich maple flavour It
possesses — a flavour which, though novel to a stranger,
soon becomes very much relished. It Is an article of
regular diet among the Lower Canadians. On fast-days,
bread and maple sugar are eaten in preference to fish.
In spring it sells as low as 3d. a pound, but in winter it
rises sometimes as high as 6d.

In some of the townships of the Eastern Counties — as
the district is called which lies between this place and
the borders of Maine and New Hampshire — maple-groves

B04 FORESTS OF SUGAR-MAPLE.

are now planted for the raising of sugar. Such groves,
in the opinion of many, will yield more profit than any
other use to which the land can be put, as beneath the
trees an excellent pasture springs up.

The sugar maple, Acer saccharinum^ forms extensive
natural forests on fertile soils, and especially on those of
the Niagara and other limestone formations of this
region, though I am not aware that it particularly affects
soils of a calcareous character. Into these forests, in
spring, the sugar-makers plunge, carrying with them a
huge pot, a few buckets and other utensils, their axes,
and a supply of food. They erect a shanty in the neigh-
bourhood of the most numerous maple-trees, make inci-
sions into as many as they can visit twice a-day to collect
the sap, boil it down to the crystallising point, and pom-
it into oblong brick-shaped moulds. In this way, in the
valley of the Chaudi^re, from 3000 to 5000 lb. of sugar
will sometiuies be made by a single party of two or three
men.

The day having cleared up, we were enabled to take
a short drive over the domain, as far as the mountain of
Beloeil — a lofty isolated ridge, which springs up in the
midst of the plain, at a distance of two or three miles
from St Hilaire.

The soil which prevails In the valley of the Richelieu
Hiver, and over a large portion of this district, is a stiff,
light-coloured clay, which used to be rich In the produc-
tion of wheat, and was esteemed the garden of Canada.
It gradually became Impoverished however, till in 1835
the wheat-midge appeared, and almost banished the
growth of wheat. In 1848 and 1849 the ravages of
the Insect a little abated, and small fields of wheat
arrived at comparative perfection. Here, as In other
provinces and States, It has been observed that late-
sown wheat Is less injured by the midge than early
sown — that which Is put In during the third week of

PIGEON-WEED ON THE CLAY LAND. 305

May escaping, while that which is sown during the first
week is destroyed.

The whole district, from Its flatness and the tenacity
of its soil, is a fit subject for thorough-drainage with
tiles — for the manufacture of which the soil itself aifords
abundant material. Major Campbell has Imported a tile-
machine — the first, I believe, which has been seen In the
province — and placed it in the hands of a brickmaker
near Montreal, who has already made and disposed of
many thousands. On a portion of his own land, which
he had dried by means of these tiles. Major Campbell
showed me beautiful mangold-wurzel ; while on the
imdralned land beside it, scarcely a plant had thriven.
Richer clover also had come up on another drained spot,
and less of the pigeon-weed, as it is here called, with
which this clay land is infested.

There are few of the evils which afflict the practical
farmer, in the management of his land and stock, which
do not aff'ord illustrations of the money-value of know-
ledge to himself — and of the economical importance to
his country that he should possess it. I may advert for
a moment to the lesson taught us by the weed of which
I have just spoken.

The Lithospermum arveiise^ Corn-gromwell or stone-
weed — called in North America by the various names of
pigeon-weed, red-root, steen-crout, stony-seed, and
wheat-thief — is said to be a European importation,
brought in probably with unclean seed-wheat from
France, or Germany, or England. Thirty years ago, it
w^as almost unknown ; now in many places it usurps the
ground, and especially overruns the districts which have
been accustomed to the growth of w^heat. But it is a
punishment which has followed the practice of the igno-
rant and slovenly farmer, who has paid little attention
either to cleaning his land at all, or to the right way of

YOL. I. U

306 MODE OF ITS GROWTH.

doing it, and who has continued for a series of years to take
successive crops of wheat from the same exhausted fields.

The peculiarity of this weed consists in the hard
covering with which its seed or nut is covered ; in the
time at which it comes up and ripens its seed ; and in the
superficial way in which its roots spread. The hardness
of its covering is such that " neither the gizzard of a
fowl nor the stomach of an ox can destroy it," and that
it w^ill lie for years in the ground without perishing, till
the opportunity of germinating occurs. It grows up very
little in spring, but it shoots up and ripens in autumn,
and its roots spread through the surface-soil only, and
exhaust the food by which the young wheat should be
nourished. A knowledge of these facts teach — First,
that unless care be taken to exclude the seed from the
farm, it will remain a troublesome weed for many years,
even to an industrious, careful, and intelligent cultivator.
In the second place, that spring ploughing will do little
good in the way of extirpating it, as at that season it has
scarcely begun to grow. Thirdly, that raising wheat year
after year allows it to grow and ripen with the wheat, and
to seed the ground more thickly every successive crop. It
is said that, when it has once got into the land, two or
three successive crops of wheat will give the pigeon-
weed entire possession of the soil. It is not, therefore,
the immediately exhausting effects of the successive crops
of corn alone which has almost banished the wheat-
culture from a large part of North America, where this
grain used to be produced in great abundance, but the
indirect or after consequences of such a mode of culture
in a considerable degree also.

In a previous chapter, when describing the geological
structure and attendant agricultural character of western
New York, I have described the Marcellus shales as
forming the surface of the upland country, immediately
behind the wheat-region properly so called. These

ITS SEED MIXED WITH AMERICAN OIL-CAKE. 307

dark-coloured shales form stiff soils, which produce good
grass, but are difficult — naturally, or have become so hj
unskilful treatment — to retain profitably in arable cul-
ture. In Yates County, upon this formation, the pigeon-
weed has become in some places almost the lord of the
soil. It was unknown there, as 'elsewhere, thirty years
ago ; now " hundreds of bushels of the seed are pur-
chased at the Yates County oil-mill ; and if it were worth
8s., instead of Is. 6d. a bushel, these hundreds would be
thousands ! "

The reader will observe. In the concluding words of
this quotation, how one evil leads to another. The pur-
chase of this seed at the oil-mills can only be for the
purpose of adulteration. I have examined samples of
American llnseed-cake In which seeds were to be recog-
nised which I could not name. They might, I then
supposed, be those of the dodder, a parasite which infests
the flax plant in some localities; but they might also be
other cheap seeds purposely mixed with the linseed.
Those who are in the habit of buying cheap American
cake may think this point deserving of their attention.
As oil-cakes are chiefly bought by farmers, perhaps it is
only a kind of retributive justice that a set of idle
farmers in one country should thus be the means of
punishing a less discerning set in another.

One purpose for which I have dwelt upon this weed Is
to show that a knowledge of the habits, or physiologi-
cal history, of our common plants Is as necessary to the
improvement of the art of culture, of the condition of
those who practise It, and of the agricultural productive-
ness of a country, as almost any other kind of know-
ledge. No one will readily accuse me of a wish to
undervalue the usefulness of chemistry to agriculture,
and yet I have often had occasion to regret the evil
influence of opinions hastily expressed by ill-informed
persons — as if this were the only branch of knowledge

308 OATS AND PIGS OF THE COUNTRY.

which was necessary to bring this most important art to
speedy perfection. It may be partly conceit, but it is
chiefly ignorance, which has led many young persons,
slightly acquainted with chemistry, to propagate crude
notions as to the omnipotence of chemistry, and of the
researches of the laboratory, in determining all difficult,
doubtful, or disputed questions in practical agriculture.
The longer a cautious and safe man lives, the less will
he value extemporaneous opinions on matters which fall
within the range of what may properly be called scien-
tific agriculture — and the wider will appear the range of
knowledge, theoretical and practical, which is necessary
to the accurate solution, even of what some look upon as
simple and superficial questions.

Among the crops which, in Lower Canada, have
taken the place of the formerly abundant wheat, the
oat is one of the most important. I did not learn what
weight they here average per bushel, but the price,
during the last year, has never exceeded 14d. currency
per bushel. The Canadian farmer is content to sell his
oats for this price, and to buy a barrel of pork with the
proceeds, rather than expend his surplus grain and time
in feeding his own pig for his own family, and making
manure for his farm at the same time.

I have spoken of the long-limbed pigs of the French
settlers in Madawaska. The pigs of this district, like
their masters, are full cousins-german to those which
inhabit the Upper St John. The snout and the legs,
as they say here, run a race for length. The native
cattle are also poor, and the starvation-limit system of
feeding, generally practised a century ago in Scotland,
is still in full force in colder Canada. It is to be hoped
that the cattle-shows, which are now promoted by local
societies, and encouraged by legislative grants, may be
the means of gradually introducing a better system of
feeding, with more profitable breeds of stock.

VIEW FROM BELCEIL. 309

To obtain a view of the country, I climbed the hill
of Beloeil. On the top is a cross and chapel, and it
is a place of popular pilgrimage. It is a pleasant, but
a steep and laborious climb. The ascent is divided
into fourteen parts or stations, at each of which is, or
was, a cross, bearing an inscription having reference to
the journey of our Saviour, as he bore the cross to
the place of crucifixion. Pious devotees, who visit the
mountain iu considerable numbers, rest a while at each
— as at the similar stations on the Rigi and other places
of pilgrimage in Koman Catholic Switzerland — and,
while they rest, repeat the appropriate prayers. These
are printed and sold under the title of '' Meditations
and prayers adapted to the stations of the Holy Way of
the Cross." Without underrating the efficacy of theee
devotions, the site of the chapel and place of pilgrim-
age are well selected. The healthful exercise, the free
air, and the lovely view from the summit of the moun-
tain, must lighten the heart, and send home the most
sorrowful and careworn with a more cheerful spirit.

Looking towards Montreal, the River Richelieu flowed
at my feet, far down in the valley — a long, scarcely
sinuous, silver ribbon, singularly narrowing as it descends
from its source in Lake Champlain on the south, to its
confluence with the St Lawrence at Sorel, far away to
the north. On its surface, a few specks showed where
the passing craft were carrying the produce of Canada
or the merchandise of Europe to their respective desti-
nations. Villages and church-spires occurred at inter-
vals above its banks ; and far as the eye could reach, on
either hand, a seemingly flat plain extended from the
Richelieu to the St Lawrence, and beyond this — broken
only by the height of Mont Royal — to the north-west,
into the counties on the left bank of the great river,
til] the sky seemed to rest on the still-extending flat.

Turning towards the north-east, the same level land

310

stretched away on the other side of Beloeil towards St
Hyacinth ; and, in the interval, flowing also towards the
north, ran the smaller river Yamaska, pouring its waters
into the St Lawrence in the middle of Lake St Peter,
between the mouths of the E-ichelieu and the St Francis.
Over this eastern part of the plain arose occasional
isolated mountain elevations, which towards St Hyacinth
in front, and in the direction of Lake Champlain on the
right, appeared to thicken into clusters or ridges of
loftier elevations.

This wide flat margin, of varying breadth, which on
either side girdles the St Lawrence, accompanies it
along a great part of its course, follows the Eichelieu up
to Lake Champlain, and thence stretches along its
shores towards the city of Albany and the river Hudson.
It is a post-tertiary region, the latest elevated part of
north-eastern America, and contains the remains of
marine animals, which are still living in the sea-mouths
of the St Lawrence, and along the Atlantic borders of
the New England States. In this part of Canada it
rests on the Utica slates, and Lorraine shales of the New
York geologists, through and among which, beds and
domes of trap occasionally force their way, forming the
isolated hills of which I have spoken. This Canadian
plain exhibits, for the most part, a surface-soil of a pale
yellowish-coloured clay, more or less heavy. Along Lake
Champlain, however, and at higher levels in the States
of New York and Vermont, and towards the Canadian
border, the subjacent clay-deposit is covered with drifted
sand and gravel, of various depths, which give to the
available soil a more open character, degenerating in
some places — as between Albany and Schnectady,
already described — into an almost worthless pine-bearing
sand.

When first cleared, this post-tertiary belt of level clay
land — the St Lawrence Flats, we may call them — pro-

FORMERLY THE GRANARY OF CANADA. 311

cluced rlcli harvests of wheat, and, over a very large
portion of then' surface, continued for many years to
yield abundant crops at little corapai*ative cost. Hence
the banks of the St Lawrence were deservedly called, in
former days, the granary of Canada. The lower province
could then afford, therefore, to export much grain ; and
among lesser articles of production, linseed was one of
which large quantities were at that time shipped to
Europe. Now, the shipment of either of these articles,
the produce of Lower Canada, may be said to have
virtually ceased.

We need not inquire in Canada after any special
causes for a change almost equally marked in every
other part of north-eastern America which has been as
long under the cultivation of European settlers. Every-
where idleness, ignorance, and an avaricious spirit, on
the part of the cultivators, have led to the same results
in diminishing the ability or disposition of the soil to
produce good crops of wheat. To speak figuratively,
the spirit of fertility is every year retiring farther
towards the west, shrinking from the abusive contact
of European industry, towards the head-waters of the
Mississippi and the St Lawrence.

And yet the peculiar tenure of land in Lower Canada,
if it be not necessary to account for the existing condi-
tion of the soil, may possibly both have aided in bringing
it into that condition, and may stand in the way of an
easy or rapid improvement or restoration of its produc-
tive capabilities.

Of the whole lands in Lower Canada, only eleven and
and a half millions of acres have yet been disposed of;
and of these, seven and a half millions are grants in fief
and seigneurie by the crown of France. Of the remaining
four millions of acres of granted lands, many of which
are large grants — such as that of seven hundred thousand
acres in the eastern counties to the British American

312 RESERVED RIGHTS OF THE SEIGNEUR.

Land Company — only one and three quarter millions
are held by resident proprietors; and, of these, only about
six hundred thousand acres are in actual cultivation.
By far the largest portion — the great bulk of the land,
we may say — is held by the habitants under the
seigneurs ; and this comprises those tracts of country
which, in the early settlement, were considered the most
desirable — in fact, all the old-settled and originally
productive wheat-lands on the St Lawrence.

The rights reserved by the lords of the soil vary, I
believe, in kind and amount ; but a fine of one-twelfth*
upon every sale or succession, the right of pre-emption
by the seigneur in every case of sale, by payment of the
price offered by the highest bidder, and the annual
reserved rent, are the chief burdens to which the holder
is subjected.

In the first instance, the seignorial tenure is an
advantage to the farmer, and affords facilities for
settling in life to the young man who is destitute of
capital. He goes to the lord, obtains permission to
occupy a portion of wild land which is measured off, on
condition of paying a small annual rent ; builds himself a
hut with the help of his friends, and begins to clear and
sow. With a little provision, and a few tools, he can
thus begin the world with scarcely a penny of money in
his pocket. So far the seignorial tenure is favourable to
the poor Canadian, though it is unsuited to the wants

* It is interesting to observe how important a place the paj^meut of
a twelfth or a fourteenth used to occupy in the social arrangements of
our forefathers in purely agricultural districts. The Seigneur here
takes one-twelfth or one-fourteenth of the corn for grinding it at his
mill, to which, as on many estates still in our own island, the tenantry-
are bound to take their corn, and he receives a twelfth of the whole
value of the land at each death or sale {tods et rentes.) In Hungary,
at the present moment, near the course of the Danube, the rural
labourer receives one-fourteenth for cutting the corn, and again one-
fourteenth for thrashins; it.

AMOUNT AND EVIL OF RESERVED RENTS. 313

and wishes of the emigrant who, coming with a small
capital, wishes to buy the fee-simple of a farm he can
thenceforth call his own.

The reserved rent varies considerably. In the old
grants it is fixed at a mere nominal sum. The farms, as
I have already remarked, are long and narrow. They
are generally three lineal arp^nts in breadth, fronting
the road, and forty, thirty, or twenty, in depth. For
these lots, the reserved rent averages about twopence
sterling an acre ; but, in many recent concessions, it is as
high as fivepence sterling, or sixpence currency, an acre.
Added to the reserved twelfths, and other privileges of the
seigneur, this latter rent-charge is by no means a light
one in Canada. Such a money-charge, being fixed,
would not with us, in most places, seriously affect agri-
cultural improvement ; nor would it prove a serious
hindrance to the introduction of a better system of
culture in the exhausted flats of the St Lawrence, were
it not that the farmers are already very poor. This
small annual payment, therefore, is felt as a great
burden, and is a source of much and general complaint
— though I have not heard that they have actually, any-
where in Lower Canada, risen in special rebellion
against the payment of what must be considered to be
just debts, as their more enlightened and energetic
Protestant neighbours, the New Yorkers, lately did in
regard to the Renselaer rents. It is important, as
indicating the general feeling in regard to these
reserved rights, even among the French population, that
in the Eebellion of 1837, Dr Robert Nelson, in his
manifesto to the Lower Canadians, declared " for inde-
pendence, a republican government, the confiscation of
the crown and church lands and the possessions of the
Canada Company, the abolition of seignorial rights^ and
imprisonment for debt." This promised abolition was,
no doubt, intended as a bribe to those who had services

314 BRITISH AMERICAN LAND COMPANY.

to render in payment of the lands they held ; but it,
nevertheless, indicates that the existence of seignorial
rights is considered a grievance by the people, and that,
like our former tithe-payments, though strictly just, they
will stand in the way of the agricultural improvement of
the country. Every encouragement, therefore, should
be given to the buying up of the annual rent-charges,
and enfranchisement should be made compulsory as
regards the fines on transfers, the right of pre-emption,
of milling the corn, and other minor claims of the
seigneur.

Sherbrooke, on the River St Francis, and on the pro-
posed continuation beyond St Hyacinth of the St Law-
rence and Atlantic railway, is near the centre of the
grant made to the British American Land Company,
which T have already incidentally noticed. This com-
pany prefers to sell their lands at from 10s. to 15s. an
acre, to give credit to the purchaser for ten years, on
payment of 6 per cent interest on the purchase-money,
and, at the close of this period, to receive the price in
four yearly instalments, bearing interest also while un-
paid, at the rate of 6 per cent per annum. This tedious
and compHcated mode of payment does not appear to
have found much favour with purchasers or settlers, and,
with the inland situation of the district, and the neigh-
bourhood of a French population, has probably con-
tributed to the very slow rate at which land has been
disposed of in these eastern counties, and at which its
market-value has increased.

In the Report published by the Board of Registration
and Statistics at Montreal, in 1849, it is stated of the
county of Sherbrooke, that " the registrar does not know
of a single new settler having located himself in any of
the new townships of the county ; nor does he think
there has been any increase in the value of lands for ten
vears." This is a very unpromising account of the

FEW BRITISH SETTLERS. 315

district, in which a large part of the grant of the Land
Company is situated, and does not at all encourage
intending emigrants to settle there. Of the adjoining
county of Shefford, in which also they own much land,
it is said in the same report, that about 1000 acres of
the land sold during the year has been to new settlers,
at the rate of 15s. to 20s. currency an acre, and that the
increase in the value of land, within ten years, had been
5s. or 6s. an acre.

These eastern counties of Lower Canada were at one
time brought prominently before the British public, in
consequence of the late Mr Gait having gone out to
Canada as agent to the Land Company. But if we may
judge from the proclamation issued by Dr Nelson, during
the time of the Rebellion of 1837, such companies are not
very popular with the French Canadians, nor settlers
upon their lands regarded with much favour. And
without supposing that there is anything wrong either
in the existence or management of these companies, we
can understand why the old settlers should look with
disfavour upon bodies of men whose professed object is
to bring in emigrants of another blood, tongue, and
faith, and, at the same time, to lessen the facilities and
enhance the expense of settling their own increasing
families.

I regretted that my leisure did not permit me to visit
Sherbrooke, for the purpose of inspecting the district in
person. It is said, and I should think with much reason,
that the Company's grant, along with the whole of the
inland region of which it forms a part, will be greatly
benefited by the completion of the St Lawrence and
Atlantic railway now in progress.

Sept. 27. — Unable longer to avail myself of the kind
hospitality of Major Campbell, I left St Hilaire at 8 a.m.,
and returned by railway to Montreal, along with Mr
Wettenhall. I would strongly recommend flying visitors

316 FEENCH MORE HOME-LOVING.

to Montreal to devote a day to an excursion to St
Hilalre, and a climb to the top of Beloeil. They will
be able to procure agreeable accommodation at an hotel
which the seigneur was building at the time of my visit,
in a beautiful situation, for the accommodation of rail-
way tourists.

In the afternoon I visited, in company with some agri-
cultural friends, the brickmaker in whose hands the tile-
machine of Major Campbell had been placed. He had
this season made 40,000 tiles, all of which he expected
to sell at the price of six to eight dollars a thousand,
according to the size. It was chiefly a few British
farmers in the neighbourhood of Montreal who had
hitherto tried them, but so far with much advantage. I
am satisfied that, in all the St Lawrence flats, they are
to be a means of much agricultural improvement. As
they become more in demand, their price at the tile-work
will diminish, and the cost of executing thorough-drain-
age be in consequence lessened.

The plea will not be so generally urged here as it is
in the New England States, and in that of New York,
against the expenditure of money in improvement,
" that the land, when drained, will not sell for an equi-
valently increased price in the market." For, though it
may be equally true here as in the States, yet the
French Canadians are a more fixed, home-loving race of
people, not so given to change, and would therefore, if
they had the money, be more willing to expend it in
improving and embellishing the houses of themselves
and their children. But the vast number of mortgages
with which the farmers in Lower Canada are oppressed
may prove an obstacle, which only a board of " Com-
missioners for the Sale of Encumbered Estates" will be
able to overcome.

I had only time left to take a hasty drive up and
around the hill of Montreal — an excursion to which I

COUNTRY OF THE OTTOWA. 317

would gladly have devoted an entire day. The rocky
surface of the island consists, for the most part, of the
same Trenton limestone on which Kingston stands ; but
it is interstratified with greenstone trap, of which an
outburst forms the Mont Royal. Independent of the
drift, which deeply covers the hollows and slopes of the
island, and modifies its natural surface, there are in the
mingled debris of these two rocks materials enough to
account for the fertility which in ancient times made
it the central residence of the Indian tribes, and has
since secured it the frequent eulogies of French and
other writers.

At half-past six P.M., I went on board the steamboat
for Quebec. The weather was thick, dark, and rainy,
and as I knew no one on board, I retired to my state-
room at seven. After a rainy night-voyage of a hundred
and sixty miles, during which nothing of the country on
either side of the river was to be seen, I found myself
in twelve hours in a quiet pleasant room in the St
George's Hotel at Quebec.

In leaving Montreal, it was a matter of much regret
to me that I had been obliged to forego the pleasure of
making a tour up the Ottowa — a river which is inferior
in size only to the St Lawrence, which runs through a
country interesting in very many respects, and is the
natural outlet for the drainage of an area of eighty
thousand square miles. The vast region to which this
river and its branches afford the means of internal navi-
gation, and of communication with external markets, is
already extensively settled. It has also a rapidly increas-
ing commercial capital of 12,000 inhabitants at By town,
where the Rideau Canal — 150 miles in length — leaves
the Ottowa for Kingston, on Lake Ontario. When
the first period of settlement has passed over, during
which the lumber-trade occupies the sole attention of nearly
all the settlers, and the population shall have become

318 MIXTURE OF EACES AND

mainly agricultural, this district will assume a perma-
nent importance, in reference to Canadian strength and
resources, which will every year rise in public estima-
tion.

I have alluded but very slightly to the political differ-
ences and excitement of which Montreal was still, to
some degree, the scene at the period of my visit. I had
as yet enjoyed too few opportunities of acquiring a
knowledge of existing local and provincial circumstances,
feelings, and prejudices, and of their antecedents, to
enable me to form a satisfactory opinion as to the right
and the wrong of all that had been done.

In judging of public events that fall out in a place
like Montreal, however, much allowance ought to be
made for the peculiarly heterogeneous character of the
population, and the frequent opposition of their interests.
Thus the population of 50,000, which the city is said to
contain, consists approximately of —

French Canadians,

. 20,000

British Canadians,

. 10,000

British and Irish born ,

. 15,000

Germans — United States born. &c.

. 5,000

50,000

Out of these different nationalities arise, as separate
and opposing parties —

1. Those of British, or Arglo-Saxon, against those of
French blood.

2. The Canadians, born of British blood — the United
Empire Loyalists, &c. — against the home-born, or native
British. The seat of these parties is properly in Upper
Canada ; but Montreal contains a large section belonging
to each.

3. Among the French— the party of Papineau, op-
posed to British connection, against that of Lafontaine,
which at present is in favour of such connection.

PARTIES IN MONTREAL. 319

4. Then partly Interfering and partly coinciding with
these are the Radical and Conservative political parties.

5. The religious parties — the Protestant against the
Roman Catholic.

6. Also in Montreal, as a seat of commerce, there are
the agricultural and commercial parties ; among whom
the free-trade movement, as with us, but especially in
its relations to timber, and to reciprocity with the States,
has been a great bone of contention. It is the latter of
these parties which has mainly supported the Annexation
movement.

7. And, lastly, city and municipal affairs have formed
parties purely local, whose feelings on these matters
complicate the other differences.

In these numerous parties, among a small population
of 50,000, just large enough to furnish materials for
giving a certain degree of Importance and consistency
to each, without affording a marked preponderance to
any, there are surely abundant materials for easy dis-
order and sudden excitement. And if it be farther the
case, as I was generally Informed — correctly, as I should
judge from my own limited experience — that In Montreal
all these parties are very bitter against each other on
occasions of excitement, and^ even In ordinary times,
co-operate httle with each other, the wonder will be
rather that the city should have remained so long quiet,
than that a single boiling over should have satisfied a
perpetually simmering population.

It must be a very angelic Government, indeed, that
could please so divided a people, a very talented one
that could persuade, and a very powerful one that could
restrain or control them. Military men, like other
leeches, are naturally partial to their own mode of cure,
and blame the Government for want of energy and deci-
sion in not employing the strong arm to repress them
during the late disturbances. But people at home will

320 POLITICAL CONDUCT OF THE BRrnSH-BOrvN.

scarcely condemn a governor for preferring to attain Ills
ends by peaceful means, rather than by force of blood-
shed. So far as I have had the materials for forming a
judgment, it appears to me to have been not less wise
and prudent than humane to quit the city altogether,
and to leave it to make up its own intra-mural differences.
A punishment which must aifect their pockets will be
far more felt than one which might have robbed the city
of a few of its most worthless lives, and will sooner work
its way to the understandings of its inhabitants.

There was one point, however, in regard to the Cana-
dian differences, which, from my previous ignorance of
the province, was incomprehensible to me, and upon
which I anxiously sought to be enlightened. When the
rebellion broke out among the French Canadians, the
Upper Canadians, and generally those of British blood,
took part against them. But in the division in the
House of Assembly upon the Lower Canada Rebellion
Losses Bill — the cause of all the disturbance — a majority
of the Upper Canadian members, of British blood, and
many of them British-born, voted with the French mem-
bers of Lower Canada in favour of the measure. It was
not, therefore, a war of races, as it had been represented
at home. But how came those who were unanimous in
opposing the rebellion to be found voting with those who
had favoured, or actually supported and participated in
it? I put this question to a friend of mine, one of the
Upper Canada members, himself British-born, wlio had
voted for the obnoxious measure, and his explanation
was to the following effect : —

" For a long series of years, Upper Canada was under
the dominating rule of what was called the Family Com-
pact. Home-born Canadians, and a certain number of
high, officials, divided all offices and patronage among
themselves, and did everything in their power to keep
the British-born from participating in the exercise of

ALLEGED EEWAEDING OF REBELS. 321

Influence, or in the sweets of office. The few British
who gained access to the Assembly, therefore, were
naturally driven Into opposition, and, after the union of
the provinces, made common cause with the French
opposition to the Tory Government. By degrees, how-
ever, the British-born in Upper Canada increased in
strength, till at length the members of Assembly returned
by them exceeded those nominated and returned by the
Family Compact. They were then able, by the aid of
the opposition members of French blood, to drive their
enemies from office, and bring In that Government which
now holds the reins of power. It was no way surprising,
then, that a majority of British-born should be found
fighting side by side, when in office, against the same
parties whom they had joined to oppose before the reins
of Government were intrusted to their hands ; or that
our ousted opponents should be bitter, and say all man-
ner of evil against us.

" And then, as to this disputed measure, we never
believed or intended that any one who had aided or pro-
moted the rebellion should be compensated for the losses
he had sustained ; though some of our supporters spoke
foolishly, which we could not help, and our leaders were
not perfect by any means in their behaviour on some
occasions. How, then, could we abandon our old friends?
We felt. Indeed, that we had no cause ; and If we had
found a cause, we could not, amid the clamour that was
raised, have honourably taken advantage of it."

This defence places the question in a llgi||it I was too
ignorant of the circumstances to have been able to see
it in before. I could not reply to it ; and as I was only
asking for Information myself, I place it before my
readers, who may possibly be In the same state of happy
ignorance with myself, without committing myself either
for or against the statement of my Canadian friend.

VOL. I. X

CHAPTEE XII.

Land opposite Quebec. — Its quality and value. — Reserved rents consi-
dered oppressive. — Few immigrants into this region. — Roman Catho-
lic seminary at Quebec. — Professor Horan. — Self-sacrifice of the
teachers. — Falls of Montmorenci. — The natural steps. — Ice cone of
Montmorenci. — Sun-setting on Quebec. — RelatiA'e proportions of the
different sects in Quebec. — Comparative commercial prosperity of
Montreal and Quebec. — Autumn around Quebec. — Fires in the city.
— Journey down the St Lawrence. — Price of land and labour at St
Michel. — Flat lands of St Thomas, " the granary of the lower dis-
trict."— St Roque des Annais. — Long fanning streets. — Upper Bay of
Kamouraska. — Mode of drying grain. — Price of farms. — College of St
Anne. — Rapid increase of the French Canadian population.— Early
nmrriages of the French population. — Healthiness of the chmate. —
Comparative births and deaths in Lower Canada and in England. —
Corn-mills. — Kamouraska. — Riviere-du-Loup. — Comfort.able hotel. —
Village of Du Loup, and its future prospects. — High-road to New
Bniuswick. — Active Canadian horses. — Cacona.— Country apparently
thickly peopled. — Great extent of wild forest-land in these lower
counties. — Large families of the Canadian peasantry. — Subdivision of
farms. — Poor and difficult land on which they settle. — Resemblance
of the poorer habitants to the poorer Irish. — Desire to build fine
houses. — Extensive mortgages. — Wages of labour in the Rimouski
district. — Longitudinal valleys parallel with the St Lawrence. — Pecu-
liai'ity of the bog-earth in North America. — Difficulty in finding
quarters at Rimouski. — Irish landlord.— Scottish settlers at Mitis.

Friday^ September 28. — After breakfast the weather
improved, the sun shone brightly through the clouds, and
I was able to walk out into the strong city and citadel of
Quebec, where every gun and every soldier calls up the
memory of the immortal Wolfe. The place is certainly

SOIL OPPOSITE QUEBEC. 323

very strong by nature ; and no art seems to have been
spared to turn to account the advantages of natural
position. The only weakness, perhaps, is that the forti-
fications are too extensive ; and in the event of a war,
would require a larger force to maintain or defend them
than could easily be spared in so extensive a country.

Not having met with any of the persons to whom I
had brought letters, I crossed the river to Point Levi in
the afternoon ; and climbing the lofty bank, from which
the view of the city and river is very extensive and beau-
tiful, I made a short excursion on foot into the interior.

The rocks, which on this right bank rise up almost
precipitously from the river — like the high ground and
cliffs on which the city of Quebec stands — consist of
dark-coloured slates or indurated shales, having thin
beds of limestone, more or less pure, interstn ified with
them. They belong to the higher beds of \ le upper
Silurian — the Utica and Lorraine shales whic overlie
the Trenton limestone of Kingston and Montreal — and
are inclined at a very high angle. From the elevated
ground beyond the top of the bank, the country inland
appeared to be cleared to a great extent, and undu-
lated in long wave-like ridges, till the eye finally rested
on low mountains, which I supposed to be a prolonga-
tion of the Green Mountains of New Hampshire and
Vermont.

The soil was free, and comparatively light, being-
formed for the most part from the crumbling of the
shaly rock, of which many fragments were intermingled
with it. Indeed in some fields, where the rocks protru-
ded at intervals through the surface, the soil — like that
fertile country of which I have already spoken, near
Woodstock in New Brunswick, or the still richer fields
on the Onondaga green shales near Syracuse — con-
sisted almost entirely of visible fragments of the shivery
indurated shales.

324 RESERVED RENT OF LAND.

Potatoes were almost the only crop I saw now remain-
ing in the fields. On his knees, working with a diminu-
tive hoe, I found a French Canadian digging, from what
appeared a good soil, a scanty crop of small-sized pota-
toes. The man seemed satisfied, and considered the crop
good — perhaps it was, in comparison with those of the past
years of failure. Their size reminded me of the graphic
if not elegant terms in which a New Brunswick farmer,
on his return from Maine, described the potato-crop of
that State to a friend of mine, in the autumn of 1849 :
" Why, sir, the potatoes in Maine — I could put fourteen
of them into your mouth, and sixteen into that of any
other man. I could, by thunder ! — I have said it ! "

The peasantry obtain land from the farmers and pro-
prietors for their potato-crop — as is still the case in many
rural districts among ourselves — free from rent, on con-
dition of manuring and cleaning it. The owner takes a
crop of grain the following year, and again lets it for
potatoes on the same terms, if he can. Farther inland,
my informant said the land was let to tenants at so high
a rate that they were much kept down by it. On
further inquiry, he stated the rent to be a piastre the
arpent* — which meant a dollar for an arpent in front, and
perhaps thirty backwards — which is about twopence an
acre. What can be the condition of an agricultural
people, who, paying scarcely any taxes, feel themselves
weighed down by a rent of twopence an acre ?

I was here in the county of Dorchester, and though it
was situated directly opposite to Quebec, there had not
come into the county a single new settler during the year
1 848. The value of cleared land varies from £1 to £10
currency. There are two reasons for the custom, pre-
valent in all Lower Canada, of running the farms back
from the roads, with a narrow frontage. Society is

* Six ai'pents make about five imperial acres.

ITS VALUE IN DIFFERENT COUNTIES. 325

obtained, so necessary to the French, and many neigh-
bours close at hand, by living in one long street. Many
farms can also be laid out, with little expense in road-
making. Behind the first row of farms along the road, a
second row is surveyed ; and beyond these a second road,
and a third row of farms. These are spoken of as the
second and third Concessions. They are farther from
churches, markets, mills, &c., than the first Concession,
and are therefore less esteemed. In this county, at
present, the seigneurs grant the uncleared back-lands
for an annual charge of 15s. to 30s. currency for the
farm of 90 arpents — 3 in front, and 30 deep — or 2d. to
4d. an acre. This is considerably greater than it used
to be, as in this county the value of uncleared land has
risen much during the last ten years.

Immediately above this county, along the St Lawrence,
is that of Lotbiniere. Here cleared land sells for 50s.
an acre, and uncleared land has not increased in value
for ten years. Immediately below, again, is the county
of Bellechasse, in which also there are no new settlers.
Cleared farms, well situated, will sell for £400 to £600 ;
but the general value of land during the last ten years
has fallen 10 or 12 per cent.

Inland again, beyond and behind Dorchester, is the
county of Megantic, which is described as very flourish-
ing. There are no immigrants ; but the population is
rapidly augmenting by natural increase. It is a purely
French Canadian district. The average value of cleared
land is about 6s. 3d. an acre, though some sells as high
as 20s. It produces sheep, cattle, and butter for the
Quebec market. It will be recollected that the price of
cleared land is not that of the fee-simple, the rents and
rights of the seigneur being always reserved. Probably,
this form of holding is one of the causes by which immi-
grants are deterred from penetrating into these Lowxr
Canadian counties.

326

8ept. 29. — Among other places, I this morning visited
the Quebec Seminary, a Roman Catholic institution,
founded nearly two hundred years ago, which accom-
modates and instructs 180 boarders, and 120 day-
scholars — a number about equal to those taught in the
seminary at Montreal. The boarders pay £17, 10s.
currency per annum, and the day-scholars 20s. I was
much interested in the Professor of Natural History and
Chemistry, Mr Horan, who had visited and studied at the
universities of Cambridge in Massachusetts, and Yale
in Connecticut, with the view of obtaining instruction
which was beyond his reach in Canada. I found hira
and others fully alive to the importance of an improved
agriculture in Lower Canada, and anxious to aid in
introducing instruction in its principles into the elemen-
tary schools of the lower province.

I was never so much struck as upon this visit, and by
my conversations with Mr Horan, with the meritorious
and self-denying spirit of the teachers in some, at least, of
these Roman Catholic seminaries. This institution has
a small endowment, but is not rich like that of Montreal,
and barely makes ends meet. The professors, without
any prospect of ever rising to any position beyond the
walls of the seminary, devote their lives to the duty
of teacliing without remuneration. They are lodged,
fed, and clothed, and at vacation-time, if they choose to
visit anywhere, they are allowed twenty dollars for
expenses. Thus they live and labour from year to year,
with scarcely any society beyond the walls of the insti-
tution, shut out from the cordial of human sympathy,
and centring their affections on a brighter future. I do
not praise the system, regard it as natural, or consider
it the way in which talent may be best employed for the
benefit of our fellow-creatures ; but for the self-denying
spirit of the devoted clerical teachers, I could not help
feeling a sort of reverence. There were men of fine

AND THEIR CLERICAL TEACHERS. 327

minds, fresh affections, and warm feelings, capable of
attaining worldly distinction In their several walks, of
enjoying the intercourse of social life, of being happy
in the exercise of domestic affections — laying down all
worldly hopes and prospects, and sacrificing themselves
to the duty of instruction. While I pitied, I could
not but respect the men — feel there was something In
them higher and nobler than had moved myself in my
struggles through life ; and wlille I almost felt indig-
nant at the inhumanity of a system which could exact
it, my heart warmed the more towards my friend Horan,
who had been able voluntarily to sacrifice himself to it.

I know there are many mindless and heartless beings,
male and female, to whom such a devotion would prove
no sacrifice. I do not allude to such persons, nor to the
dry and unfeeling mummies into which the lapse of long
years of routine may convert even those who at first made
a true and priceful sacrifice. But 1 saw before me men
bright with intelligence, and with a capacity for appre-
ciating enjoyment still unseared ; and 1 could not but
honour them for their self-sacrifice, because I knew them
to be still human enough to feel that it was great.

In the afternoon, I drove nine miles down the left
bank of the St Lawrence, to visit the Falls of Mont-
morenci. Though tlie quantity of water Avliich descends Is
insignificant after Niagara, and smaller even than at the
Grand Falls on the St John River, yet it descends from
a height of nearly 250 feet, and the place is well deserv-
ing of a visit. The edges of the highly-Inclined slate
rocks are overlaid by nearly horizontal beds of impure
thin limestones, which are cut through by the river, and
eaten back for several hundred yards from the St Law-
rence, till a hard metamorphic gneissoid rock has arrested
the cutting process. Over this the water at present falls.
Upon the horizontal beds is a deposit of 10 to 30 feet of
drift ; and upon this, adjoining the St Lawrence, at a level

328 FALLS OF MONTMORENCI.

somewhat lower than the top of the Falls, a deposit of 1
to 6 feet of yellow marine sand, mixed with recent shells.

A mile above the Falls, on the same river, occm^
what are called the " natural steps," where the horizontal
beds of comparatively soft rock are cut by the water into
deep ravines or gullies of a very romantic character, and
in many places form series of natural steps, from which
the place derives its name.

The most peculiar circumstance in connection with the
Falls of Montmorenci is the appearance presented on the
channel of the river a short distance below the cascade,
when winter sets in. When the stream below becomes
covered with ice, the falling spray descends and collects
upon its surface in showers of snow, which cohere and
harden, and gradually accumulate into a lofty cone of
ice — having the living cataract behind, and the broad,
still, frozen plain of the St Lawrence in front.

This conical hill forms a natural " Montague Kusse,"
much frequented by the young people of Quebec, being
a convenient distance for sleighing parties even in the
shortest days of winter.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Quebec, land sells
high. For a little farm of 70 acres, on which his house
stands, immediately above Wolffe's Cove, Mr John Gil-
mour told me he had paid at the rate of £75 currency
an acre. Near all thriving towns, in the New World as
in the Old, land, even for farming purposes, brings a
comparatively high price. Near this city the land is very
good in many cases, and generally produces excellent
green crops. In both Canadas, as now in Ireland, such
crops are becoming more cultivated since the potato
became less certain. Mr Sheppard, the well-known
seedsman in Montreal, informed me he had this season
sold twice as much turnip-seed in Lower Canada, and
twenty times as much as usual in Upper Canada. Of
mangold-wurzel seed, four times as much as usual had

SUNSET AT QUEBEC. 329

been purchased by the Lower Canadians, as experience
had shown it to be better adapted to the climate. This
may be because of the extreme heat of the summers on
the river St Lawrence.

Formed from softish, somewhat calcareous slates, which
in many places are near the surface and crumble readily,
the soil is inclined to be heavy, and rests often on an
impervious bottom. Drainage, therefore, generally, and
the use of lime in many places, are indicated as means
of improvement. The latter, if I may judge by the
frequent lime-kilns I passed on my way to Montmorenci,
is tried to some extent by the farmers around Quebec.

New settlers seldom remain in this county. The
average value of uncleared land is about 5s., and of
cleared from 15s. to 17s. 6d. an acre. During the last
ten years, the value of land has increased one-fourth.

On my way back from Montmorenci, about six in the
evening, the quickly setting sun shone on the tinned roofs
and spires and glittering windows of Quebec, pro-
ducing an ever-varying but very beautiful effect. I had
in my life before seen only two sunsets more striking,
and of which it reminded me — that of Paris from Mont-
martre, on a clear autumnal evening, when the sinking
rays of the sun lingered still on the Panthee, on Notre
Dame, and other prominent objects, singling them out
as individual pictures from the countless mass of objects
of less elevation ; and that of Moscow from the Sparrow
Hills, when its thousand domes of gold and silver, with
intermingled green and azure, and its ten thousand orna-
mental crosses, glittered around the ancient Kremlin, and
the massive central palace-fortress itself rose as a huge
dark pile, frowning from its Eastern towers on the con-
gregated churches and other buildings of the city beneath.

Sunday^ Sept. 30. — After a brief visit to the Boman
Catholic cathedral, where I saw the venerable, white-
haired, old Archbishop of Quebec, the Primate of the

330 SECTS AND PARTIES AT QUEBEC.

North American provinces — since dead, I believe —
assisting at early service, in the midst of a large and
apparently devout congregation, I went to the Scotch
Presbyterian church, where I heard an excellent sermon.
In the churches already in use, and in the appearance of
the new ones in course of erection, there are no signs
either of pecuniary depression or of a want of general
zeal in matters of I'eligion.

The relative numbers of the several religious sects in
Quebec is considerably different from what it is in Mont-
real. In 1844, the last published census, the Koman
Catholics formed seven-ninths of the whole population,
then 46,000, now probably upwards of 50,000. Those
of the Church of England formed only one-ninth, and of
the Church of Scotland one-eighteenth — all the other
sects made up the remaining eighteenth. It is, perhaps,
because the predominance of the Roman Catholic French
Canadian population is so great that party differences,
whether political or religious, are represented as being
much less bitter here than at Montreal.

If I were to judge from my own experience only, I
should say that political differences of opinion, in refe-
rence to recent events, were at least as bitter as they
could be at Montreal. During my short stay in Quebec,
I met at dinner a native of Great Britain, but an old
resident and a prosperous merchant in that city, who, after
discussing the Eebellion Losses Bill and the Governor's
conduct respecting it, hastily wound up his observations
by observing, " that he would himself have helped to tar-
and-feather him." I laughed, and said it amazed me
much to hear such a person as he talk so violently.
He evidently had not meant what he said, and remarked,
" Well, I have never spoken so violently before ; on the
contrary, I am considered too moderate, and am obliged
to keep arms in my house to defend myself, in appre-
hension of an attack from the violent people, because of

TRADE OF MONTREAL AND QUEBEC. 331

my moderation." " If the moderate people of Quebec
talk as you do," I said, " I wonder what your violent
men can say."

It is feeling, and not judgment, that has led to the
excitement and extreme language and action of these
British Canadians. I could not help remarking to myself,
in reference to the Quebec merchants, that if, in their
ordinary affairs, these successful and prudent men were
to show a tithe of the want of consideration displayed in
their political conversation, neither their own nor other
people's business would so prosper in their hands.

But I feel that I should be wrong to judge of the
opinions of the people of Quebec from my own limited
experience, or to estimate the sentiments even of a single
British resident from a hasty after-dinner expression.
There are at present reasons of an economical kind why
the mercantile community in Montreal should be in a
more excitable condition than that of Quebec, and which
reasons may possibly go far to explain the angry freaks
of the population of the former city. From some cause
or other, which it is not necessary here to investigate,
the trade of Montreal had, for several years before the
late emeute^ been seriously declining, while that of Quebec
had been largely increasing. This will be seen by the
following comparison of the Imports into the two places
in pounds sterling : —

Montreal. Quebec.

1841, . . c£l,699,837 ^179,109

1845, . . 2,153,631 585,533

1847, . . 1,695,978 655,000

1848, . . 1,217,604 514,393

I have Inserted only as many years as were necessary
to show that the imports of Quebec have greatly increased
during the last ten years, while those of Montreal, not-
withstanding the rapid growth of the province, have
rather diminished. The commerce of the former city is

332 CHANGE OF THE LEAF.

in a more flourishing condition, therefore, than that of
the latter. And though, in the dull year of 1848, the
imports into Quebec fell off considerably, it was only for
that one year, while, from 1845, those of Montreal had
been rapidly lessening. In the exports, also, from the
two places, there was a much greater comparative falling
off in Montreal than in Quebec during the year 1848.

Every observer of the political atmosphere knows well
that, under such circumstances, governments, whether
home or provincial, are always thought to display less
ability, and their measures to be much less suited to the
wants of the times and to the regard which ought ever
to be had to the rights and liberties of the subject, than
they are generally esteemed to be when harvests are
good and commerce flourishes.

Autumn had now fairly set in in the province of
Quebec. About Kingston and Montreal, and upon the
banks of the St Lawrence, as I descended the river, the
leaves were still green upon the trees, the weather gene-
rally mild, and the mid-day sun hot and powerful. But
the beautiful amphitheatre of mountains towards the
north and east, which gives one of its peculiar features
to the striking scenery around Quebec, had this morning
clothed itself in the bright autumnal tints — of which I
have already spoken as characterising the woods of North
America in the/a/Zof the year. Like our Highland hills
in summer, when the heather is in bloom, the mountain
ridges appeared more cheerful and lively for the change,
and their outlines and varying features were more dis-
tinctly brought out to the eye than when the universal
green covered with a common hue both mountain and
plain, and blended together narrow ravine, wide retreat-
ing hollow, rocky escarpment, and rounded outlying hill,
in the hard and less distinguishable outline of a lofty,
dark-coloured, and frowning rampart. The sharp air, too,
indicated that the season for summer clothing was nearly

FIRES IN QUEBEC. 333

over, and that blanket-coats and homespun cloth, and even
buffalo-robes and dresses, must be speedily provided.

All Europe is aware of the superior ease and expedi-
tion with which the people of Quebec contrive to enlighten
and enliven their wooden city with frequent fires. Three
successive times the fire-bell had already rung since my
arrival ; but the affairs had been small, all of them during
the day, and had attracted little general attention. But
things were differently managed to-night. As I was
falling into my first dose, the bells began to sing out,
a running of many feet followed, and then the clattering
of engines, and by-and-by a light began to fill my bed-
room ; and as I lay in bed, the playing of a huge flame
became gradually visible, rising and falling above the
houses on the opposite side of the square in which the
hotel was situated. All night long, the fire and the light,
and the varying flame, and the noise of the bells, and the
mingling tones of many sounds and voices, continued,
and when daylight returned, four houses were already
consumed. But the flames were subdued and danger
over ; and as I emerged into the street to prepare for my
departure from the city, the weary firemen and their
soiled engines were again on their way homewards.

Monday^ Oct. 1. — After an early breakfast, I crossed
the river to Point Levi, and soon after nine A.M. was
on my way down the right bank of the St Lawrence
in a light caleche, guided by a French Canadian, and
drawn by a single horse. I proposed to descend the
river as far as the Mitis, and thence to cross the
province of Gaspe, by what is called the Kempt Road, to
the Restigouche River in New Brunswick. All this I
proposed to accomplish in the course of the week, and to
arrive at the town of Campbelton on the Restlgouche on
the evening of Saturday.

Among the more striking objects of this day's journey
was the Fall of MontmorencI, which I had visited on

334 VALUE OF LAND AND LABOUR.

Saturday. During the latter half of the first stage, as I
descended towards the Isle d'Orleans, the mouth of this
river gradually opened on the other side of the St
Lawrence, and the morning sun, shining on the broad
white sheet of its falling waters, made it, in some respects,
a more striking and impressive feature in the land-
scape, than when seen, with its accompanying roar and
mist, from the immediately adjoining rocks over which it
is precipitated.

By half-past two, I had reached St Thomas — a
distance of thirty miles. The land, in general, was
good ; for the most part lig' t, and easily worked, but
sometimes of a stiff clay. As I passed through the
parish of St Michel, eight or ten miles below Point Levi,
I was informed that the crops it yielded were somewhat
less than two hundred bushels of potatoes, or a ton of
hay, an acre, and that it sold from four to four and a half
dollars. It is let sometimes on halves, or for a money
rent of eight shiUings an arpent. Labour costs one
shilling and eightpence to two shillings currency a-day
in summer ; but in the short days of winter not more
than one shilling a-day. Men are hired by the year at
eight to ten pounds currency, with board and lodging.
Labour, therefore, is cheaper here than in either Upper
Canada or New Brunswick — perhaps the services of
French Canadians are in reality not so valuable.

In the back or more inland country, where the land
belongs to the province, new Concessions are being
established by the Government, in which sixty-acre farms
— two acres in front and thirty backwards — are offered
in fee-simple for thirty dollars, or at the rate of two
shillings sterling an acre. There are no new settlers
in these counties ; but the native proprietors, as my
informant stated, readily save money enough to establish
their sons on such new farms. Where a man has
several sons, he is allowed to select adjoining grants for

GRANARY OF THE LOWER DISTRICT. 335

each of them. Old cleared well-situated farms sell at
four hundred to six hundred pounds currency in this
county of Bellechasse, though of late years they have,
both in this and in the adjoining county of Flslet,
considerably lessened in value.

At St Thomas— where the South Eiver empties itself
into the larger river St Francis, before their united
waters descend to the St Lawrence — a large breadth of
flat and apparently rich country intervenes between the
mountains and the great river. At St Thomas, there
are falls on the St Francis, upon which a Scotch settler
has erected mills, which grind up the produce of this rich
flat, formerly called the " granary of the lower district."
Its produce is less now than it used to be ; but the land
is still very capable of yielding remunerative crops.

Skirting the St Lawrence still, 1 drove on through
the county of ITslet to St Jean du Port Joll, through
which I passed as the evening was coming on. It is a
cheerful clean little village, with many nice-looking two-
story houses, of considerable size and some architectural
pretensions; and several new houses were building, which
must be regarded as tokens of prosperity. At nine
P.M. I stopped for the night at St Eoque des Annais,
having come altogether only sixty-three miles. The
last twenty miles I had travelled in the rain, and, for the
most part, in the dark ; it was, therefore, a greater
disappointment to find I had got into bad quarters for
the night. I would recommend those who may travel
this road after me to endeavour so to arrange their
route as to fix their night-quarters at some other spot
than at St Roque des Annais.

As long as daylight continued, I was still travelling
in the county of ITslet ; and although, as I have already
said, the value of land, both in this county and in that of
Bellechasse, has diminished of late years in consequence
of the failure of the crops, yet I passed, during the day,

336 CHURCHES AND PRESBYTERES.

in these counties, not only miicli fine land, and a thickly
settled country, but what appeared to me, as a mere
passer-by, to be many indications of prosperity and com-
parative comfort. About every two leagues, often nearer,
rose a large church, and beside it a comfortable
parsonage or preshytere^ and houses enough to form a
considerable village or church-town. Many small rivers
flow into the St Lawrence in the county of Tlslet,
which are navigable for short distances ; and the new
houses building in many places indicated that, notwith-
standing the failure of crops, and the alleged scarcity of
employment, all gleams of prosperity had not yet left
this part of the lower province.

The stranger will here also see illustrated, what I had
already become familiar with in Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, the peculiar love of society and neighbour-
hood by which the French population are distinguished.
Continuous rows of houses, separated by one or two
intervening fields, accompany him for miles along his
road. In fact, wherever the country is fully settled,
this is the case, unless the traveller happens to turn up a
cross-road, when a couple of miles may occasionally be
passed without meeting with a farmer's house. This
close neighbourhood is obtained by the method already
described, of dividing the land into long stripes, or
narrow adjoining farms. It is much to be wished that
those who really have the agricultural improvement of
the French Canadian holdings at heart, should
endeavour to have this system discontinued. The
amount of labour, both for men and horses, is greatly
Increased by placing the centre of operations and the
home of the labourers and stock at the extremity of these
stripes of land ; and the difficulty is greater in properly
superintending and executing all the necessary operations
of the farm. Separated more widely from each other,
they might possibly gossip less and labour more.

UPPER BAY OF KAJ[OURASKA. 337

Tuesday^ Oct. 2. — Much rain had fallen during
the night and the early morning, but it had cleared off
before I started at half-past eight a.m. The fall of
rain, however, was unfortunate for me, as it made the
roads heavy as well as dirty, and delayed my advance
very much.

Soon after leaving St Eoque, I entered the county of
Kamouraska. To this county, which is not densely
peopled, a few new settlers have recently come, though
I am not aware if any of them are from the British
Isles. Uncleared land sells generally at half-a-crown an
acre ; cleared land as high as two pounds an acre, and,
in some places, considerably higher.

Two bays distinguish the river coast of this county,
called respectively the Upper and Lower Bays of
Kamouraska. At St Anne la Pocati^re the upper bay
commences. It is encircled by a ridge of romantic
rocky hills, against which, at some ancient period, the
waters of the St Lawrence washed, but which is now
some miles from the water's edge. The intervening
space consists of a broad flat of rich land, in some
places still marshy and wet, but where it is sufficiently
elevated, bearing magnificent crops of hay and of oats,
wheat and potatoes. The road runs through this flat
for six or eight miles, and at the lower end of the bay
crosses the river Quelle by a bridge of considerable
length. Through banks of rich alluvial matter this
river here falls into the St Lawrence, and forms a small
harbour, which is the shipping-place for the rich land
of the valley.

Though marshy, I was informed that this flat is
exceedingly healthy — as most places in Lower Canada
and New Brimswick are said to be — even where in Great
Britain fever and ague would inevitably prevail. But
nevertheless, for agricultural reasons, it is a fit locality

VOL. I. Y

338 SPKEADING OF CORN TO DEY.

for the introduction of a general thoroLigli-drainage.
The narrow nine-foot ridges so common in Canada, the
open furrows between them, and the large main-drains
or ditches around the fields, are all insufficient to remove
the water which falls and accumulates in the land. To
keep the two sets of open ditches in order must here, as
elsewhere, annually cost much more than the interest of
the suras which the construction of covered drains would
require.

Yesterday {1st Oct.) I had seen much hay in the
act of being led, and to-day I passed many fields of oats
still uncut, and a few of wheat, barley, and pease.
Many of the fields of oats which were cut, but not car-
ried— and such was the case upon this flat — were spread
out in the fields, as in the grassing of flax, at the
mercy of the wet weather, which appeared now to have
set in. I did not see a single sheaf or stook during the
whole day. This method of spreading out, instead of
binding up the corn when cut, is nearly exploded, I am
told, even in the higher parts of Canada East ; but in
these lower counties it appears to be still universal.

Five hundred pounds was stated to me to be the value
of a farm on this land, two arpents wide by forty deep.
This is £400 sterling for sixty-six acres, including house
and farm-buildings — or at the rate of £6 sterling an
acre. Along the coast from this point, indeed, this sum
was frequently named to me as the value of improved
farms, w^ith good houses upon them ; and it appears to be
a kind of average price among the French Canadians of
the Lower St Lawrence.

Towards the northern extremity of the ridge of hills
which girdles this bay, and looking down upon the belt
of rich land of which I have spoken, stands the college
or seminary of St Anne. The building is large, hand-
some, and beautifully situated. It accommodates, and is
occupied by, about a hundred and eighty students. The

SEMINARY OF ST ANNE. 339

rate of board is £17, 10s., as at Quebec, and the whole
expenses about £20 a-year. I was surprised to find in
so remote a spot a college containing so many pupils,
and interested in the fact that so many of the habitants
should be in a condition to pay even so comparatively
moderate a sum for the education of their children.
This institution enjoys a considerable reputation, and
has pupils from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
There are twenty such seminaries, it is said, in Lower
Canada; and it was formerly objected, as a matter of
reproach to the habitants, that too many of their young
men received at these numerous seminaries a classical
education, unfitting them for ordinary rural labour,
while too few received that elementary education which
our common schools are intended to impart. This
reproach is still in some degree applicable ; but the
influence of the United States and of Upper Canada
must by degrees bring the school-system of the Lower
St Lawrence more into conformity with the general
tendencies of the age in which we live.

Near Kamouraska church and faubourg, the lower
bay of this name also contains good flat land, and, with
occasional interruptions, similar land stretches along the
shore as we descend. Inland valleys also, parallel to the
St Lawrence, exist behind the rocky ridges which suc-
cessively occur as we advance into the interior, in which
good laud, more or less granted and settled, prevails.
Should foreign settlers continue to shun this region,
there is ample room for the natural expansion of the
native population for many years to come.

And yet the French habitants in this cold region of
North America increase very rapidly. For this increase
there are several reasons. One is, the early marriages
to which both sexes are addicted among the people of
French descent. At Kamouraska I had stopped a few
moments to obtain a fresh horse and carriage, and, on

340

starting, expressed to my new cocher my admiration of
his pretty young wife, and inquired her age. " One-
and-twenty." " And how long have you been married ? "
^' Six years 5 and she was a widow when 1 married her!"
Fourteen and fifteen is a common age for the marriage
of females, and eighteen for males, on the shores of the
St Lawrence. These early marriages are the more likely
to accelerate the increase of the French Canadian popu-
lation, as the females retain their vigour, and continue
prolific, to a comparatively advanced period of life.

Another cause is the healthiness of the climate. I
have already adverted to the general opinion upon this
subject, in regard even to localities such as in Great
Britain are usually unhealthy. But the statistical
returns for Lower Canada, in relation to births and
deaths, bears out this general opinion. Thus, the pro-
portion of births and deaths in the upper and lower
districts of the St Lawrence — those of Montreal and
Quebec — compared with Great Britain, are, according
to the best existing data, nearly as follows : —

Births.

Deaths.

District of Montreal, 1844, ,

. 1 in 20

1 in 51

District of Quebec,

. ... 20

... 41

Whole of Lower Canada, ...

. ... 21

... 53

Whole of England, 1848, ,

. ... 33

... 45

Thus, while the births in Canada add yearly 5 per
cent to the population, those of England add only 3 per
cent; and while the deaths lessen the population in
England by 2y per cent, those of Lower Canada lessen
it only by l/o. If we deduct these opposing numbers
from each other, as in the following table, we find the
yearly Increase in the two countries to be —

Increase by births.
Decrease by deaths,

Yearly increase,

Lower Canada.

5 in 100
lA in 100

England.

3 in 100
2i in 100

3A- in 100

i in 100

AND ITS COMPARATIVE HEALTHINESS. 341

By natural Increase, therefore, there are added to the
French-Canadian population of Lower Canada four
persons for every one that is added to the population of
England. Not only are the people naturally prolific,
therefore, but the country is pre-eminently healthy.

Another consideration will place this latter remark in
a still stronger light. In England there died of the
whole people yearly, in

1700, one out of every 25

1801, 35

1811, 38

1848, 45

— that is, while England was undrained, and sanatory
measures unattended to, and medical skill less exten-
sively or generally available, the proportion of deaths
was nearly double what it is now. Were it still as
great as it was in 1700, and the births not more
numerous, four out of every hundred would die yearly,
while only three to every hundred are born. The
population, that is, would decrease more rapidly than it
is at present increasing. But Lower Canada, in its
natural condition — undrained, innocent of sanatory
associations or commissioners of sewers, and sparsely
provided with medical men — is more healthy than Eng-
land, with all the appliances which w^ealth, science, and
civilisation have yet brought to bear upon her sanatory
condition.

This is a very satisfactory result, not only as it
explains why the French population of Lower Canada
rapidly increases, but because of its bearing on the future
prospects of the province, and the chances of health and
longevity to those who may select it as their future
home.

Among other agricultural observations I had made
to-day and yesterday, I may mention the numerous

342 TOWN OF KAMOURASKA.

small wlnd-maclilnes, for grinding their corn, wliich I
had seen attached to the barns of the habitants. Farms
of 80 and 160 arpents possessed them; but I had not
the satisfaction of seeing any of them in operation.
Many of them looked old, and of somewhat primitive
construction, so that the introduction of these mills must
be of comparatively ancient date. The large mill of
a seigneur comes to appear as a real advantage to a
neighbourhood — even though the moulire be heavy —
when we see how many other machines it supersedes,
and how much labour and anxiety it saves.

Kamouraska, at the mouth of a river of the same
name, and a county town, is rendered lively in summer
by sea-bathing visitors. It is considered one of the
healthiest places in Lower Canada. Opposite to it are
a few rocky islands, of little value, between which and
the mainland the bed of the river is nearly dry at low
water. From the shore to the mountains a flat of
recent deposits extends, studded at intervals w^ith knolls
of granite and gneissoid rocks, almost destitute of soil,
and covered, like the rocks of Scandinavia, with dwarf
and stunted pines. If any doubt remained as to this
flat having been anciently submerged beneath the level
of the St Lawrence, it would be removed by the appear-
ance of the islands, and the almost dry inter-channels
which lie opposite to the modern town. Lift up the
present bed of the river some fifty feet more, and a new
stripe of similar land, studded with similar rocky
eminences, would be added to the existing land.

I had travelled through rain above and mud below
for several hours, when, about 5 P.M., I reached the
river Du Loup, twelve miles beyond Kamonraska,
having accomplished only eighteen leagues during the
day. I found the inn very comfortable, however ; and
as I was informed that I must proceed nine leagues
farther before tolerable quarters were to be obtained, I

THE TOWN OF DU LOUP. 343

made up my mind to stay here, and recruit for a long
day on the morrow. I had soon a nice fire in a clean
room, and a well-arranged dinner-table before me ; and
I felt very grateful to the good people of Quebec for the
summer patronage they bestow upon the place during
the season for bathing, since to a careful provision for
their wants I was chiefly indebted for the well-served
table and delightful night's quarters which I enjoyed at
this hotel.

Oct. 3. — Du Loup, at the mouth of the river of
that name, is a village of about a thousand inhabitants :
it contains many good houses, a good hotel, and a
larger proportion of British settlers than any other
town in Lower Canada, with the exception of Quebec.
It owes its actual prosperity, and the promise of future
increase and importance, chiefly to its position. At the
mouth of a small river, it has a harbour into which
vessels can enter, and by means of which foreign trafiic
can be maintained. It is also at the end of the Grand
Portage, as it is called — the highroad between Lower
Canada and New Brunswick. The road to Canada, of
which I have already spoken — as commencing at Little
Falls, or Edmonston, on the upper St John River, in
Madawaska, New Brunswick — leads along the Lake
Temiscouata in a northerly direction, and reaches the
St Lawrence at Du Loup, a distance from Little Falls
of seventy-six miles. As the port not only of a large
district of Lower Canada, but also of the upper waters
of the St John River, and the more northerly portions
of Western New Brunswick, this little place, as the
population increases, and facilities of communication
extend, must constantly Increase In importance. At
present also it is, in the summer season, the resort of
sea-bathing parties from Quebec, whom the change of
air, the romantic scenery, the beautiful views of the
river St Lawrence, here upwards of twenty miles wide,

344 CANADIAN HORSES.

studded with islands, and skirted on its opposite shore
bj lofty mountains, and the facilities of a steamboat
which, in the hot months, plies from Quebec, allure to
this, in British ideas, comparatively distant spot.

About half-past seven A. M. I left Du Loup, keeping
still along the south shore of the St Lawrence. The
morning was gloomy, and the air oppressed with fog,
but fortunately the rain kept off for the greater part of
the day. I found the habitants, with whom I engaged
for horses and waggons from this point, each anxious to
carry me farther than his horses were able to go.
Though badly fed, indeed, it is astonishing how much
work these active little horses can do. They rarely
receive oats, unless they are to be put to unusually hard
work ; and, by way of preparation for the long journey
of this morning, my first driver had overfed his horse,
and actually unfitted him for a fair day's work. Not-
withstanding bad and heavy roads, however, he persisted
in whipping on till we had accomplished twelve leagues,
when, after frequent remonstrances on my part, he was
himself compelled to confess that his horse could do
no more, and I unwillingly to send him back. The
next horse carried me ten leagues, and, about eight
p. M., brought me to the town of Rimouski, where I
with difiiculty found quarters for the night.

The road from Du Loup lay through a thickly-peopled
country as far as St Simon, and a few miles beyond ; it
then entered upon a new clearing, called the Portage,
along which, nearly the whole way to Rimouski,
scarcely a single house existed twenty years ago.

Cacona, a rocky peninsula, about ten miles below Du
Loup, which we passed on our left, rivals the latter as
a sea-bathing station for the people of Quebec. It has
the same views of the St Lawrence, and a Salter water,
but is not so romantically situated as Du Loup. Oppo-
site to it is Green Island, on which stands one of the few

APPARENTLY DENSE POPULATION. 345

lighthouses with which the St Lawrence has hitherto
been provided. It is lighted up from the middle of
April till the middle of December.

I have said that, for a considerable part of my day's
journey, until I reached what is called the Portage, I
passed through a thickly-peopled country ; and so it
really seems to the traveller who drives merely along
the high-road, and judges, as one is inclined to do, only
from what he sees. To pass house succeeding house, at
distances of one or two fields only, for a whole morning,
creates the impression of a dense population of small
farmers; and although the woods appear to close in
behind each small farm at no great distance, yet know-
ing that each farmer keeps many acres in wood for
his winter's fuel, we naturally conclude that beyond
these reserved woods other farms are cleared and culti-
vated in numberless Concessions behind. But this is the
case as yet only to a small extent ; and the vast area of
the still untouched Lower Canadian wilderness, as well
as the comparatively small fraction of the surface which
has yet been subdued by the hand of man, may be
judged of from the following table. The four counties
of Bellechasse, I'lslet, Kamouraska, and Rimouski are
those through which I passed, on my way from Quebec
to Mitis, along the south shore of the St Lawrence.
The area of these four counties is represented in square
miles and in acres in the first and second columns ; and
the extent of each actually surveyed as yet, and laid out
in square miles, is indicated by the numbers set down in
the third column.

Area in

Laid out in

Square MUes,

Acres.

Square Miles.

Bellechasse,

1083

693,020

726

L'Islet,

1220

730,800

560

Kamouraska,

1090

6,976,000

568

Rimouski,

8200

5,248,000

2240

In the first of these counties, that opposite the Falls

346 EXTENT OF WILD LAND.

of Montmorenci, about three-fourths of the whole sur-
face has been surveyed, and probably, for the most part,
granted. In I'Islet and Kamouraska, about one-half
has been surveyed ; but of that of Rimouski, only one-
fourth. Of that which has been surveyed, probably a
large portion is still ungranted ; and of tlie granted, at
least two-thirds is still uncleared. But in Rimouski
alone, there are still four millions of acres of unexplored,
and, except to the lumberers, almost unknown wilderness.
In this county, in 1848, about 8,000 acres of land were
sold, one-third of it to new settlers ; and the value of
cleared land, within the last ten years, has increased 15
per cent. Even this remote county is advancing, there-
fore ; but, at this rate of increase, how very many years
must pass before all the available land can be subjected
to the plough ?

But the rapidity of settlement even where, as in these
counties, it chiefly depends on the natural increase of
the population, advances in a geometrical progression.
Land and subsistence are easily obtained on the seigno-
ries, and the climate is healthy ; the habitants marry
young, and have large families. The clearings through
which I passed to-day were all made by French Cana-
dians. My driver was one of fourteen children — was
himself the father of fourteen, and assured me that from
eight to sixteen was the usual number of the farmers'
families. He even named one or two women who had
brought their husbands five-and-twenty, and threatened
" le vingt-sixi^me pour le pretre." I expressed my
surprise at these large families. " Oui, Monsieur," said
he, " vous avez raison. Nous sommes terribles pour les
enfants ! "

The eldest son usually succeeds to the father's farm ;
the younger sons are placed upon new farms, which the
father helps to buy or clear. The rate at which the
Government land is sold is half-a-dollar an acre — thirty

SUBDIVISION OF FARMS. 347

or forty dollars for a farm one acre broad and thirty or
forty deep — four years being allowed to make the pay-
ment. The seigneurs in this district concede for a
yearly reserved rent of half-a-dollar for the lot, and
one-twelfth of the value at each change of ownersliip.

But it is not all parents who are thus provident for
their children, or in all localities that land can be
obtained so near the paternal home that the children
shall not object to remove it. According to the French
law, the father's property is shared out among his
children when he dies ; and thus, in many cases, instead
of leaving the home-farm wholly to the eldest son,
the family of sons parcel it out among themselves.
Four sons will divide a farm of two arpeuts in front,
and thirty or forty backwards, into four long stripes of
half an arpent broad in front, and thirty or forty in
length. Thus the evils necessarily attendant upon the
original shape of the farms become manifold increased ;
the morcellement proceeds, unhappily, in some localities,
as it has already done in so many districts of France
and Belgium : and the poverty of the people advances
in proportion. It is the exact counterpart of the sub-
division into long stripes which has led to such evil
results among the sub-tenantry on many estates in
Ireland — a similar Celtic population.

The effect which such a subdivision, followed by the
building of houses along the road-side upon each lot,
must have upon the apparent populousness of the coun-
try, in the eye of the traveller, cannot fail to strike
the reader.

The system of clearing adopted in Lower Canada
seems to be nearly the same as I had already seen in
New Brunswick ; and the log-cabins upon the new
clearings are quite as poor, and as poorly provided, as
those of the Irish immigrants into that province.

In this day's ride, however, I was struck with the

348 EESEMBLANCE TO THE IRISH.

apparently very unpromising places in which some of
the new settlers had built their log-houses, and were
beginning to clear the land. In rocky spots, and along
damp boggy hollows, where little available land ap-
peared, the love of a neighbouring home, I suppose, of
society, and of being near their relations, had caused
many to select their farms and fix their future dwellings.
The solitude of the remote clearing, where the land is
better — into which even the Irishman with his family,
supported and sustained by his passion for the " bit of
land," will boldly venture — is unsuited to the less ener-
getic and self-dependent habits of the French Canadian
and his superstitiously-religious feelings.

The monuments of their industry, however — as in
some of the rocky parts of Ireland — are every now and
then conspicuous in these unpromising places. The
piles of stones, of all sizes, I saw collected here and
there, as I drove through the clearings, spoke strongly
not only for their industry but for their perseverance.
The fields, when thus cleared, often afford good land ;
but the expense of labour in clearing these unpromising
spots must be enormous, and is quite beyond the ability
of immigrant settlers from a foreign country.

I was struck to-day with a general resemblance in the
outward appearance of this people to our poorer Irish.
The broken panes in the windows of the houses were
stuffed with old hats, and the clothes on the backs of the
peasantry were often in tatters. On the other hand,
the stylish French character of the improved houses,
whitened over with quicklime, and the evident desire
everywhere to build these better houses, showed an
apparent aversion to live in misery and filth, for which
the humbler Irish are by no means distinguished. Even
here, however, the likeness may be thought to hold.
These externally fine houses are anything but clean and
comfortable — according to our notions — within j and the

PEEVALEXCE OF MORTGAGES. 349

love of this kind of display too often leads the poorer
farmer to spend upon a house what he must raise by a
mortgage upon his farm, and is frequently the cause of
his losing both house and farm to a pressing mortgagee,
and being compelled to begin the world in a log-house
anew.

Among the matters of social economy, indeed, which
have struck me most, not only in the British provinces,
but in iSI"ew England and in the eastern States of the
Union, is the very wide extent to which, according to the
information I received, the property of these small farm
proprietors is mortgaged. The surest way of obtaining
possession of a coveted farm is to advance money on it
by mortgage, as, in a very large majority of cases, the
unhappy borrower is unable to pay off his debt. It may
be the consequence of the failures of crops of late years,
or of that general imprudence of the farmers in the
lumbering districts to which I alluded in my former
chapters on New Brunswick ; but that these records of
debt and difficulty among the farming community of
North America generally are at the present time very
numerous, there is no reason to doubt.

This Eimouski district is a lumbering country still to
some extent, and, in consequence, labour is dearer than
in the other counties. From £18 to £25 currency, with
board and lodging, are the wages of a farm-servant 5
while carpenters and other handicraftsmen receive a
dollar a-day. That wages should be so much higher
here than they are a couple of days' journey up the
river, shows either how unwilling the natives are to
leave their own neighbourhood, or how little is the
intercourse which exists between the inhabitants of the
different counties.

The whole drive down the St Lawrence — in fact, the
course of the river itself — is along the strike of the older
Silurian beds. The country which the road traverses

350 BOG-STUFF OF THE SAVANNAHS.

consists of flats along the shores of the river, or of longi-
tudinal valleys between opposite hilly ridges, more or
less rocky, from between which the edges of softer beds
have probably been scooped out before the latest uplift-
ings of the whole land took place. Inland the country
consists, for a great distance, of alternate ridges and
valleys — a prolongation of the mountains of Vermont
and New Hampshire.

In occasionally passing from one of these valleys to
another, we ascended and travelled for some distance
along the upland. Where the slates happened to be soft
and crumbly, the soil of these uplands was almost always
good ; while it was rocky, stony, or light, and of little
depth, where the slates were harder, or of a more meta-
morphic character. In the bottoms of the valleys, as in
this climate we should expect, bogs were frequent —
savannahs, as they are here called — of a deep black
earth, formed in the same way as our peat-bogs, but
different in the physical qualities of the material of which
they consist. The fibrous tenacity of our peat is wholly
wanting ; a spungy but crumbling black vegetable
mould is the almost universal material of the North
American bogs — unfit for the manufacture of peat, but
of great use to the farmer, and highly valued for the
preparation of fertilising composts. The absence of the
heaths and mosses, of which our bogs are formed, and
the roots of which long remain undecayed in the brown,
and even in the black peat, together with the greater
extremes of summer and winter temperature to which
the decaying matter is exposed in North iVmerica, are
probably the main causes to which the difference in the
physical qualities of the bog-stufi:' in Europe and America
are to be ascribed. Travellers in New England, who
are interested in agriculture, will be surprised to hear
this black bog-earth universally spoken of in conversa-
tion, and in agricultural books, under the name of imich.

DIFFICULTIES OF EIMOUSKI. 351

It is a mark of the condition of agriculture in these
countries, that the old word muck, (never mentioned now
to ears polite,) which means the same thing as manure,
should have obtained a specific application to this black
earth. It shows not only how much in general has been
neglected among them, but to what kind of muck of
nature's making, when they at length found it necessary
to apply something to their land, they were content to
intrust the safety and productiveness of their crops.

It was already becoming dark when I reached the
town of Eimouski, and I was driven up in succession to
several French houses where strangers were said to be
received, but was dismissed unceremoniously from one
after another. At length I pulled up at a shop kept
by an Irishman, where strangers were accustomed
to lodge ; but here, too, I was told that no enter-
tainment could be had. Through the kindness of my
friend. Professor Horan, of the seminary at Quebec, I
had been provided with a letter of general recommenda-
tion to the Koman Catholic clergy on my route, which
I meant to use only in case of an emergency arising ;
and I was about to order my cocker to drive to the pres-
hytcre^ which was large, comfortable-looking, and near
at hand, when a female came to the door of the house.
The sound of an English tongue in her ears soon
smoothed all difficulties, and I was speedily admitted,
and made as welcome as her means would admit. But
her husband was a sad screw, and provoked me much
by the detention he caused on the following morning, in
failing to procure for me, according to promise, the
means of advancing on my journey.

The reason of my being bandied about from house to
house proved to be, that my French companion took me
from one French house to another, where they refused to
receive me because I was English ; and then, when I got
to the Irishman's house, I was refused again, because,

352 SCOTCH SETTLEES AT MITIS.

till I began to speak for myself, I was believed to be
French.

Oct. 5. — After an unpleasant delay in procuring a
conveyance, I was again on my way from the little town
of E-imouski towards Mitis. A tolerably good road — the
latter part of it close to the river — a good horse and an
intelligent driver, made the morning's drive agreeable,
and I reached Mitis about one o'clock. By the way
were many French settlements scattered at intervals,
and now and then a superior-looking house. My driver,
himself a thriving farmer, informed me that here, as else-
where, his countrymen often built houses beyond their
means. Passing one of more than ordinary pretension,
which had cost £500, he remarked that the owner had
contracted much debt in building it, and that, when his
farm came to be sold, it would not bring more than the
sum which the new dwelling-house alone had cost.

Around Mitis, which is not even a village, there is
much good hardwood — maple-land. About thirty years
ago the first house was built in this neighbourhood, and
now there is a large settlement of prosperous farmers,
the greater part of them Scotch, who settled here a
number of years ago. Few settlers from Scotland have
come to this place during the last few years ; but the
habitants are flocking to it from the higher parts of the
St Lawrence, partly because the land is good and crops
excellent, and partly because some of it at least can be
obtained in freehold. The greater part of the land
around Mitis is held from the seigneur, but the Govern-
ment also possesses land which is sold at from Is. to 4s.
an acre. From the conversations I had with the natives,
they seemed to value highly the freedom from annual
payments, and from the droits de vent^ or as they
expressed it, " being the seigneurs of their own land."

Mitis lies at the northern extremity of what is called
the Kempt Eoad, which connects the waters of the

THE KExMPT ROAD. 353

Eestlgoiiche with those of the St Lawrence. Along
this road there are as yet scarcely any settlements, the
population of the Lower St Lawrence being chiefly con-
fined as yet to a stripe of a few miles broad along the
river. The extra produce in grain, &c., is shipped to
Quebec, from whence all necessary supplies are obtained
in return. A merchant located at Mitis, and with whom
I took up my quarters, serves as the medium of com-
munication between the farmers of the district and the
importers of Quebec. In autumn he gathers in his debts,
in the form of produce, from his neighbours; and in
return for these, obtains his winter's supply of tea,
coffee, and clothing from the capital of the province.

These supplies, during the winter and spring, he again
sells chiefly on credit, and waits for his payment till
harvest comes. The system is worse for the farmer than
the merchant, whose profits are large.

I found it necessary here to engage a horse and light
waggon to take me all the way across the peninsula
traversed by the Kempt Road, a distance of eighty miles,
as neither horse nor conveyance were likely to be obtamed
by the way. I was glad to find that nothing was said
as to the practicability of conveying myself and my port-
manteau along this route, which my friends in New
Brunswick had assured me I should find next to impos-
sible. But difliculties always lessen when you look them
fairly in the face ; and I had afterwards occasion to find
that, in regard to many other things having a relation to
their own country, the New Bruns wickers knew quite as
little as I did myself.

I found it impossible, however, to arrange for proceed-
ing further to-day, and was therefore obliged to postpone
my departure from Mitis to an early hour to-morrovv^

VOL. I.

CHAPTEE XIII.

Ideas generally entertained of American fertility and agricultural
resources. — Reports of travellers. — Desire to obtain accurate infor-
mation.— Condition of agriculture as an art in North America. —
Contrast between Europe and America. — General effect of an exhaust-
ing culture upon the soil. — Effect sometimes produced very slowly. —
Instance of old abbey -lands. — Claim of monasteries to the manure of
their tenants' stables. — Effect of general exhaustion on the production
of staple crops. — Its effect on the wheat-lands of North America. —
Their retreat towards the west. — Liability of plants to disease on
impoverished lands. — Remarkable change of cultivation in Lower
Canada during the last twenty years. — Great diminution in the wheat
and increase in the oat crop. — Loss and disaster which must have
accompanied such a change. — Effect of this change on the corn-
markets of the world. — Lower Canada become wheat-importing and
oat-consuming. — Disastrous effect of the potato failure. — Similar
changes threaten to follow similar modes of culture in other parts of
North America. — The wheat -exporting capability will diminish —
Manuring system of Scottish farmers who sell or carry off their
crops as is done in America. — Possible continued and extensive
supply of Indian corn. — Import-duty in the United States upon corn
from Canada : should it be I'emoved 1 — Would it on the whole be
beneficial to Canada 1 — Zeal for improvement in Upper Canada. — ■
Why do Rochester millers compete with the Canadian in Liverpool,
in flour made from Canadian wheat 1 — Occasional low freights of the
New York liners. — Use of Canadian wheat for mixing. — Alleged
large mercantile profits expected in Canada, — Profits derived from
dealings in land.— Profit of a direct trade in flour between Montreal
and Liverpool. — Growth of flax in Canada, and export of linseed. —
Instance of the close relation of disco vei'ies in science to the profits
of agriculture, and the agricultural capabilities of a country, — Com-
parative freights by the St Lawrence to Liverpool, and by the Erie
Canal through New York.— St Lawrence the natural outlet of the
lake-bordering countries. — Great expertness with which the Erie

HOME NOTIONS OF AMERICAN FERTILITY. 355

Canal is worked. — Overflow of traffic upon that canal. — Great exer-
tions of Canada in the construction of canals. — The Welland Canal.
— Canals along the rapids of the St Lawrence; their extent and cost.
— Energy of Canada compared with that of New York. — St Law-
rence route now takes less time than that by the P]rie Canal. — Money
cost of transport is also less. — Ohio wheat will take the St Lawrence
instead of the Mississippi route. — Importance of this route to the
political independence of the free North-western States. — Difficulties
in the navigation of the Lower St Lawrence. — Structure of its bed
and channels. — Risks, and high insurance. — Need of lighthouses and
depots of stores at the mouth of the river. — Traffic by the Richelieu
Canal and Lake Champlain. — Rising importance of this. — Projected
new ship-canal. — Future prospects of the St Lawrence navigation.

Before I leave the shores of the St Lawrence, there
are a few points in connection with the agriculture and
national economy of Canada which have been the sub-
jects of observation and of interesting consideration to
myself, and which most of those readers who have accom-
panied me thus far in my book will not regret to have
their attention drawn to. Until I personally visited
North America, my own notions as to the agricultural
condition, capabilities, and resources of the several new
provinces and States, were, I now find, notwithstanding
all I had heard and read, of the crudest, most general,
and indefinite character. The exaggerations of inter-
ested natives and settlers, and the repetition of such
exaggerations by travellers who knew nothing of
agriculture themselves, and, like myself some dozen years
ago, could scarcely distinguish bad land from good —
these w^ere all the information our journals and yearly
literature afforded us. That wheat and Indian corn
poured in upon us at times from those regions, we knew ;
that some portions of the country were rich and fertile,
we could not doubt ; and the general conclusion in the
public mind was, that these new countries were generally
fertile — that inferior land was the exception — that large
crops were everywhere reaped — that the fertility of the
whole region was inexhaustible — that the supply of

356 CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE

wheat it could send us was without bounds — and that if
those who tilled the land and raised the corn in these
countries were not so skilful as the average of our own
farmers, this was only another evidence that nature there
was kinder to the tiller of the soil than she is in our own
country, and did not demand at his hands either the
same amount of knowledge, or the same unwearied
application of ceaseless toil.

One of my objects in visiting North America was to
remove the mistiness of my own ideas as to the agricul-
tural character and condition of its several great regions,
to test the seeming exaggerations in which, as if by some
natural law, the natives and residents of this northern
part of the Ncav World are inclined to indulge. I was
desirous, also, of obtaining a clear idea of the relation
which American practice bears to English practice; the
prospects and success of Individual American to those of
individual English and Scotch farmers ; American past
and future surplus wheat to the state and demands of the
English market; the life of the settler in these new
countries to the life he would have led had he remained
at home. On a few of these points I have arrived at
clear and definite notions — not hastily, I believe — though
some of them may still be incorrect. It is some remarks
upon these I wish briefly to put down in this place.

And first, as to the condition of agriculture as an
art of life, it cannot be denied that, in this region, as a
whole, it is in a very primitive condition. Before the
first Puritan emigrants landed at Plymouth, the Indians
planted and hoed and reaped their corn much as the
white settlers do now, and, like them, deserted old land
for new when the crops began to fail. Many operations,
it is true, are now performed upon existing farms which
were unknown to the Indian races ; but a similar absence
of skill and forethought is generally observable in refer-
ence both to the mode of performing them and to their

AS AN ART IN NORTH AMERICA. 357

after effect upon the land. I speak, it will be borne in
mind, in these remarks, of the newly settled parts of
North America ; and the more newly settled the more
closely will they apply. I would not be understood to
calumniate those longer cultivated districts in which — the
first stage of their agricultural history being past — new
life and energy are now being brought to bear upon the
culture of the land, and by which the errors of past
ignorance and want of skill may by-and-by be repaired,
or of those happier new districts which men of knowledge
and capital are redeeming from a state of nature, and at
once submitting to a rational system of culture, capable
of being carried on for an indefinite period without injury
to the land.

Were the population as fond of their homes, and as
stationary in numbers, as in the central regions of north-
ern Europe — as quiescent in character, their labour as
small in money-value, and everywhere as abundant, and
their institutions as repressive of exuberant energy — this
primitive condition of the agricultural practice would be
both less felt among themselves, and be a matter of less
observation to foreign countries. As in Poland and
Russia, land which had become unproductive would be
abandoned to nature, and new land broken up year by
year. Thus supplies of food comparatively uniform
would be yearly reaped, sufficient not only to meet the
wants of the native population, but to pour a large annual
surplus into foreign markets, wherever a demand might
happen to exist.

But all these things are different in North America.
The population increases rapidly, not only by natural
growth, but by the crowding in of immigrants from the
various countries of Europe ; and thus the mouths are
greatly multiplied which are to be filled by the native
produce of the land. Labour is comparatively dear, so
that new land cannot be cleared and brought into culti-

358 GRADUAL EXHAUSTION OF THE LAND.

vation as fast as the old Is worn out, were new land even
everywhere available, which in the more settled parts of
the country, already divided into small farms, it usually
is not. Besides, the majority of those who boast of
Anglo-Saxon blood are generally energetic, and their
institutions incline them to push everything forward as
in a race — their wide continent holding out to them many
dazzling hopes and sources of gain. They labour, there-
fore, those who till the soil, to make as much and take
as much out of the land as they can, and in the least
possible time ; probably without either thinking or wish-
ing that their actual residence is to be the future home
either of themselves or of their children, but rather that
interest or expediency may by-and-by carry them all to
happier homes in the farther west.

The result or effect, therefore, of this condition of the
rural art, and of the agricultural population, upon the
state of the soil, is to bring it by degrees into a state of
more or less complete exhaustion. Whatever be its
quality or natural fertility, this is the final and inevitable
result. In land which is very rich, the effect is produced
more slowly — so slow, that those who hold land which for
fifty or a hundred years has yielded crops of corn without
the addition of manure, will scarcely believe in the pos-
sibility of its ceasing at last to give its wonted returns.
But old experience and modern science alike demon-
strate that the richest soils, by constant cropping, without
the addition of manuring substances to replace what the
crops carry off, must ultimately arrive at a state of com-
parative barrenness.

It is not to be wondered at that men should be faith-
less upon this point, when it is considered how grateful
the soil is for kind treatment, and how very long, in some
cases, it is before it begins to resent a contrary course of
procedure. The lifetime of one man may be spent in gra-
dually improving and enriching a field by skilful manage-

OLD ABBEY -LANDS. 359

ment, and the whole lives of two successors may be
employed in impoverishing it again without reducing it
to the low condition from which it had originally been
raised.

We have in England many remarkable instances of
this latter fact j. which, in the neighbourhood in which they
occur, are often considered inexplicable. Near the ruins
of old abbeys and monasteries, for example, which have
been long demolished, a few fields are often observed
which exceed in fertility all the adjoining land, and,
though treated no better than the rest, have ever within
the memory of man given better crops. Facts of this
kind are to be explained by a reference to the customs
of the time when the ecclesiastical buildings still flou-
rished. It was the habit of the officials of the church or
monastery to collect, as a due, all the manure made by
the cattle and sheep of the cottars or tenants who held
under it, and to apply it to the home farm, which was
cultivated for the immediate use of the church. The
holders of land, byway of rent, for every four acres they
held, were in some instances bound to plough one acre
for the church ; and to this, and to the grass land kept in
their own hands, the servants of the church applied the
manure which they took from the tenantry.* It cannot,

* Illustrations are to be found in the following extracts from the
Chronicles of Jocelyn of Brahelond, pp. 29 and 30 : —

" And it was done accordingly, and confirmed by our charter, that
there be given to them another quittance from a certain customary pay-
ment, which is called sorpeni* for four shillings, payable at the same
term. The cellarer was also used to receive one penny, by the year,
for every cow belonging to the men of the town for their dung, (unless,
perchance, they happened to be the cows of the chaplains or the ser-
vants at the court lodge ;) and these cows he was used to impound, and
occupied himself much in such matters. .....

" The cellarer was to have the ploughings and the other services — to

* Sorpeni. This -word is the same as scharpennj' or scharnpenny — that is, dung-pennj',
from schearn, dung. By this it seems the tenants were bound, as being originally bond-
men, to pen up their cattle at night in the pound or yard of their lord, for the benefit of
their dung ; and if they did not do so, they paid this dung-penny as a compensation.

360 THEIR VERY GRADUAL EXHAUSTION.

I think, be doubted, that the differences still observed
in the fertility of lands adjoining the ruins of monastic
houses, are in part to be ascribed to the long continuance
of a practice bj which the natural fertilising substances of
a whole neighbourhood were lavished on a comparatively
restricted space. That it is very long since this marked
distinction was made in favour of the abbey home-farm,
is the point I wish to bring out. It shows that land is
very grateful, and that when once enriched, either by
nature or by the hand of man, it may long resist exhaus-
tion, and maintain a decided superiority over that which
adjoins it. But its doing so is no proof that, though
later, it will not also be finally exhausted, if submitted
to inconsiderate and selfish modes of culture.

The first practical or economical consequence of this
exhaustion of the land is, that it gradually ceases to pro-
duce a remunerative return of those crops Avhich have
been specially cultivated upon, and have been the imme-
diate means of exhausting it. In North America, gene-
rally, this crop has been wheat — as this has always been
the kind of grain for which the most ready market could
be obtained, or which could be most certainly exchanged
for the West India produce and the manufactured articles
which the settler required. As the exhausting culture

Avit, the ploughing of one rood for each acre, without meals, (which
custom is still observed,) and was to have the folds where all the men
of the town, except the steward, who has his own fold, are bound to put

their sheep, (which custom, also, is still observed.)

" Also, the cellarer was used freely to take all the dunghills in every
street, before the doors of those who were holding overland ; for to
them only was it allowable to collect dung, and to keep it. This custom
was not enforced in the time of the Abbot Hugh, up to the period when
Dennis and Roger of Hingham became cellarers, who, being desirous of
reviving the ancient custom, took the cars of the burgesses, laden with
dung, and made them unload ; but a multitude of the burgesses resist-
ing, and being too strong for them, every one in his own tenement now
collects his dung in a heap, and the poor sell theirs when and to whom
they choose."

SHIFTING OF THE WHEAT- REGION. 361

proceeded, therefore the quantity of wheat raised beyond
the demands of the state or colony — that is, the surplus
for exportation — gradually decreased.

I need not enter into details upon this point ; the grand
consequence is such as I have described, and the general
proof of it is, that the wheat-exporting regions of North
America have, as I have already stated in my remarks
upon western New York, been gradually shifting their
locality, and retiring inland and towards the west. The
flats of the Lower St Lawrence were the granary of
America in the times of French dominion ; western New
York succeeded these ; next came Canada West ; and
now the chief surplus exists, and the main supplies for
the markets of Europe are drawn from the newer regions
beyond the lakes. These in their turn, as the first virgin
freshness passes away, will cease to be productive of
abundant wheat, and eastern America must then look for
its supplies of this grain either to a better culture of its
own exhausted soil, or to regions still nearer the setting
sun.

This natural consequence of an exhausting system of
culture has been aided and hastened by other causes, the
study of which Is full of interest and instruction. I may
advert to one of these.

When a soil becomes unfavourable to the growth of
a plant, the plant. If made to grow upon it, comes up
weak, and is liable to disease and to the attacks of
insects and parasitic plants. Whether as a natural con-
sequence of this kind, arising naturally from the exhaus-
tion of the soil and the w^eakenlng of the wdieat-plant,
or as the effect of some other cause not understood, it is
an important fact that the attacks of the wheat-midge
have, in Lower Canada, been lending their aid for many
years to diminish the wheat-crop in quantity, and to
render it less certain. A gradual revolution, therefore,
has been taking place, not only in the husbandry, but

362 EEMARKABLE CHANGE OF PRODUCE

in the food of the people also, and in the kind as well as
quantity of the surplus produce they have been able to
bring to market. I know, indeed, of no well-ascertained
facts in the agricultural history of any country which are
more striking in these respects than those which are pre-
sented by a comparison of the quantities — relative and
absolute — of the different kinds of grain produced in
Lower Canada, at successive periods, during the last
twenty-five years.

The following table, published by^ the Canadian Board
of Statistics in 1849, exhibits the amount of this produce
in bushels in the years 1827, 1831, and 1844, respec-
tively : —

1827.

1831.

1844.

Wheat, .

2,931,249

3,404,756

942,835

Barley, .

363,117

394,795

1,195,456

Oats, .

2,341,529

3,142,274

7,238,753

Rye, .

217,543

234,529

333,446

Indian corn.

333,150

339,633

141,003

Buckwheat, .

121,397

106,050

374,809

Pease, .

823,318

948,758

1,219,420

Potatoes,

6,796,300

7,357,416

9,918,869

In this table we see that from 1827 to 1831, and pro-
bably somewhat later, a similar state of things existed,
and that a gradual increase took place in the amount of
all the crops raised ; a natural consequence of the
increasing population, and of the larger breadth of land
every year subjected to the plough. The wheat-crop
increased by 500,000 bushels, the oat crop by 800,000,
and the potato crop by 500,000. In these quantities we
see a slight tendency to an increase, in the proportion of
oats grown, above that of wheat or potatoes ; but in the
other crops there is nothing to arrest especial attention.

In 1844, however, a very different state of things pre-
sents itself. During the interval of thirteen years (from
1831 to 1844,) the wheat-crop, instead of increasing
2,000,000 bushels, as it ought to have done, had dimi-

IN LOWER CANADA. 363

nislied from 3,500,000 (Its amount In 1831) to less
than 1,000,000 bushels. The barley crop, on the
other hand, had increased by 800,000 bushels, that of
pease by 400,000, of potatoes by 2,500,000, and of oats
by the enormous quantity of 4,000,000 bushels.

Whoever is acquainted with the practical operations of
husbandry, will be able to conceive how many anxieties
and losses, and repeated failures of usual crops, must have
beset the unhappy farmer, before his course of cropping
could be so changed as almost entirely to substitute oats
for wheat in the fields he had set aside for grain. The
wheat was clung to by the Canadians Tvith the more
pertinacity, because it was the crop which brought in
the annual supplies of money and other foreign articles,
and because it formed a considerable part of their usual
food. The failure of this source of supply brought debts
and mortgages, and transference of property ; and to it
is to be ascribed a considerable proportion of the mort-
gages which, as I have said, hang round the necks of
the rural population, over so much of this part of north-
eastern America.

In relation to the corn-markets of the world, this change
converted Lower Canada, on the whole, from an exporter
into an importer of wheat — as it no longer produced
enough for its own consumption ; and in reference to a
large part of its own population, which was unable to buy
wheat, turned them from the consumption of this grain to
that of potatoes and oats, with a lesser quantity of pease
and barley. This was before the failure of the potato
crop ; and In this state of things, when, by the previous
failure of the wheat, the potato had become doubly pre-
cious, it will be understood how the potato disease must
have produced a more intense amount of suffering among
the Lower Canadians. The French population naturally
dislike the oat for food, and consume very unsightly and
distasteful varieties of soft bread, rather than live upon

364 NATURAL FAILURE OF STAPLE CROPS.

oatmeal. But late years have loosened their prejudices
very much; and both in Canada and New Brunswick
the oat is now becoming an article of extensive consump-
tion, even among the inhabitants of French descent.

The case of Lower Canada illustrateSj in an exagge-
rated degree, what I believe is the natural consequence
— perhaps we may say the natural sequence of events —
in countries where the agricultural practice, for a series
of generations, is such as it has hitherto been in North
America generally. The staple crops — the supposed staff
and agricultural strength of the country — first fall off, and
then change ; and with this change the food of the masses,
and the relations of the country as a whole with foreign
markets, change also.

This has already been the case in the longer settled
portions of the North American continent ; and the same
consummation is preparing for the more newly settled
parts, unless a change of system take place. The new
wheat-exporting — so called — granary districts and States
will by-and-by gradually lessen in number and extent,
and probably lose altogether the ability to export, unless
when unusual harvests occur. And if the population of
North America continue to advance at its present rapid
rate — especially In the older States of the Union — if large
mining and manufacturing populations spring up, the
ability to export wheat to Europe will lessen still more
rapidly. This diminution may be delayed for a time, by
the rapid settling of new western States, which, from their
virgin soils, will draw easy returns of grain ; but every
step westward adds to the cost of transporting produce
to the Atlantic border, while it brings it nearer to that
far western California, which, as some predict, will in a
few years afford an ample market for all the corn and
cattle which the Western States can send it.

In their relation to English markets, therefore, and the
prospects and profits of the British farmer, my persuasion

MANURING NEAR EDINBURGH. 365

is til at, year by year, our Transatlantic cousins will
become less and less able — except in extraordinary
seasons — to send large supplies of wheat to our island
ports ; and that, when the virgin freshness shall have been
rubbed off their new lands, they will be unable, loith their
jyresent knoicledge and methods^ to send wheat to the
British market so cheap as the more skilful farmers of
Great Britain and Ireland can do.

If any one less familiar with practical agriculture
doubts that such must be the final effect of the exhausting
system now followed on all the lands of North America,
1 need only inform him that the celebrated Lothian
farmers, in the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh,
who carry all their crops off the land — as the North
American farmers now do — return, on an average, ten tons
of well-rotted manure every year to every acre, while the
American farmer returns nothing.* If the Edinburgh
farmer finds this quantity necessary to keep his land In
condition, that of the American farmer must go out of
condition, and produce inferior crops In a time which will
bear a relation to the original richness of the soil, and to
the weight of crop it has been in the habit of producing.
And when this exhaustion has come, a more costly system
of generous husbandry must be introduced, if the crops
are to be kept up ; and in this more generous system, my
belief is, that the British farmers will have the victory.

I have spoken, the reader will bear in mind, of wheat
only. Make it an object to the Central States to send
their maize to England, instead of converting it into pork
for the packers of Cincinnati ; and, as I have not examined
those States, I do not know wha"t limit should be placed
to the quantity they could continue to send us for many

* The Edinburgh farmer sells all ofif— turnips, potatoes, straw, grain,
and hay. But he manui es his turnips with thirty, and his potatoes
with forty loads of manure, in a rotation consistmg of potatoes, wheat,
turnips, barley, hay, and oats.

366 IMPORT -DUTY ON WHEAT.

years to come. But Indian corn will never become the
staple food of our people ; nor is it desirable that it
should. The importation of this grain will not directly
interfere, therefore, with the home market for wheat.

The view I have taken of this question has a material
bearing upon other topics which interest us at home, but
which are at present peculiarly exciting to the people of
Upper Canada. Take the import-duty of 20 per cent
upon provincial produce, when brought into the United
States, for an example. Wheat, like all other unmanu-
factured articles, pays this duty. In present circumstances,
the impost on this article does not concern Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, or Lower Canada. They are wheat-
importing countries, and are therefore indifferent about
it. But Upper Canada produces fine wheat, and has still
a large surplus, which, as a nearer and more convenient
market, the Upper Canadian merchants are anxious to
introduce into Rochester and Oswego free of duty. I
have in a previous chapter expressed my opinion that a
free commercial intercourse, between the opposite shores
of the St Lawrence and of the great lakes, is desirable
on general grounds; but, in order to obtain this free
intercourse, it does not appear to me that Canada
ought to be over-anxiously urgent with the officials at
Washington, or rashly to offer concessions which may
ultimately prove to be far beyond the value of the reci-
procal advantage they now wish to obtain.

In regard to wheat, there are two or three points
which are worthy of careful consideration. First, the
power of exporting wheat resides at present only in the
newer and richer parts of Canada West. Supposing
that the result expected by the wheat-growers and
corn-merchants of this part of the colony were to follow
from this wished-for free importation of grain into the
United States — namely, a considerable elevation in the
price of wheat — would it be for the good of Canada, as

PROSPECTS OF UPPER CANADA. 367

a whole, that the price of flour should, in consequence, be
raised to that large tract of country, on the Lower St
Lawrence, which has ceased to raise enough for its own
consumption ?

Again, if the conclusions be well founded that the
existing system of culture is an exhausting one, and that
the wheat-exporting regions are, in consequence, retiring
more and more towards the west, the same fate awaits
Upper Canada which has already overtaken the equally
fertile State of New York. The surplus of wheat
beyond the wants of the home population — the ability
to export, that is to say — will gradually lessen, and,
except in extraordinary seasons, will finally cease. It
is true that a larger proportion — about 80 per cent, it
is said — of the population of the Canadas is engaged
in agriculture than in the State of New York, and is
therefore producing food ; but against this is to be
placed the fact, that so large a proportion of these agri-
culturists are already purchasers of flour. The proba-
bility, therefore, is really great, that Canada, as a
wJiole^ will fall off" in the production of wheat, in com-
parison with the wants of its population, quite as
rapidly as the State of New York has done. *

It is quite true that Upper Canada can boast of much
zeal for agricultural improvement, and many enlight-
ened and anxious promoters of rural advancement — as

* I have stated elsewhere, in the text, that I speak with reserve of
Upper Canada, as I have not had the oppoi^tunity of visiting enough of
it to form a satisfactory opinion. But the view given in the text is
much confirmed by a passage in the address of the president of the
Agricultural Association of this province, delivered in September 1850.
" The farms," he says, " on the whole line iu the old settled townships,
from Montreal to Hamilton, and round the banks of the lakes, rivers,
and bays, for a space of eight hundred or nine hundred miles, with few
exceptions, are what is termed in Canada ' worn out,' and may be
purchased at from £3 to £10 an acre." Suppose that better culture
can restore this laud, yet wheat can never be raised on it as cheaply
as at first.

368 FLOUR- MILLS IN CANADA.

the State of New York also can — and I would not, in
the slightest degree, undervalue the results to which
their labours and example may lead, but would express
my belief rather that much good to both countries will
grow out of their exertions. At the same time, it is a
thing to be calmly weighed, whether the anticipated
pecuniary advantage of a portion of Canada only, and
for a limited time, is worthy of any large sacrifice, on
the part of the whole province, which sacrifice will be
permanent and irrevocable.

Lastly, when speaking of the Rochester mills and
millers, I have alluded to the apparent anomaly, that the
owners of these mills can buy wheat at Toronto, pay
the 20 per cent on importing it into Rochester, convert
it into flour, send this flour to New York, from whence
it makes its way to Liverpool, and, at this latter mar-
ket, can still compete with the Canadian flour made
from the same wheat.

Now, the large flour-mills of Montreal and of Upper
Canada — as I was informed by an English fellow-tra-
veller on the St Lawrence, who professed to be cunning
in mills, and had visited both for the express purpose of
comparing them with one another — are much superior ^
to those of Rochester and Oswego ; and, as another
competent authority assured me, they can grind flour
15 per cent cheaper than the mills of these two places.
Further, the average freight to Liverpool, down the St
Lawrence, is not so great as the cost of transport from
Rochester to Liverpool. If England, therefore, be the
market to which nearly all the surplus flour of the
United States which finds a sale in Europe is first sent,
surely in that market the Canadian, coming directly
from his own ports, should be able successfully to com-
pete with the merchant from Rochester, who brings his
flour to Liverpool by way of New York.

It may, indeed, be answered, that the constant sailing

LAEGE TRADE -PKOFITS IN CANADA. 369

of the regular liners from New York, often with little
cargo, affords frequent opportunities of sending grain
and flour to Liverpool at a cost exceeding very little the
ordinary Stevedor's charges ;*^ but this cannot materially
affect the average freight of the flour, as a whole, which
is annually shipped from that port to England. Or it
may be said that the Rochester and Oswego millers make
use of the fine Toronto wheat for the purpose of mixing
only, and can therefore afford to give a higher price for
it than the Canadian millers, who use unmixed Canadian
wheat for the manufacture of their flour. But we can
scarcely suppose that parcels bought for mixing would
seriously affect the wheat market of Canada as a whole ;
or, if so, that the Canadian millers cannot mix and use
up different wheats as profitably as those of Rochester.

Allowing, however, their full weight to these and
similar considerations, I have been unable to satisfy
myself that if the exporters of lumber — whose traffic
has of late fallen off, and occasioned discontent — instead
of countenancing or exciting political turmoil, would
push the direct home trade in corn and flour, in place
of that in timber, an equal commerce on the whole, and
equally profitable to the colony, might be still main-
tained with the mother country.

One of the obstacles which, so far as I have obtained
the means of judging, stands in the way of the energetic
opening up of a direct wheat and flour traffic with
Great Britain, is to be found in the large returns of
profit which the merchants look for, and to which, I
suppose, they must hitherto have been accustomed.
What I have stated in a previous page, as having been
told me by a Rochester miller, that the wheat-growers
and millers of the United States are unable to com-

* For loading and unloading.
VOL. I. 2 A

370 PROFITS ON LAND IN CANADA.

pete with Canada in the foreign markets, I mentioned
to an extensive miller whom I met with in Upper
Canada, on occasion of his complaining that the Eoches-
ter millers came over and bought the fine white wheat
of Toronto at prices which he could not afford to pay.
On this he remarked, after some hesitation, that " the
Canadian would have to learn to be content with a
profit of 5 per cent, when he had hitherto been accus-
tomed to 50!" Large profits and long credits are
always the characteristics of an infantile and circum-
scribed commerce in a new country like this. Facility
and rapidity of communication, by shortening credits,
and enabhng the same capital to go farther, make large
reductions in the rate of profit consistent with equal
gains, on the whole, to the enterprising and intelligent
merchant.

I have had other occasions to feel surprise at the
large profits expected in Canada from the investment
of capital. It having been mentioned to me that a
friend of mine in Lower Canada had expended £15,000
in the purchase of a seignory, and that the return was
£1500 a-year, or 10 per cent on the outlay, I — natu-
rally enough, as we should think in this country —
expressed my surprise at so large a return from invest-
ments in land. An influential member of the Canadian
Legislature, who was present, on the other hand, con-
sidered it small, was surprised that similar investments
in England did not yield so much, and stated that, were
he to invest £15,000 in land in his own district of
Upper Canada, he should expect from it a return of
.£^3000 a-year, or 20 per cent. In what way, whether
by farming it himself, or by letting it or selling it to
others, he was to reaHse this return, I did not learn;
but the possibility of doing so, except in some special
case, I very much doubt.

But that some persons, at least, are satisfied of the

GROWTH OF FLAX. 371

possibility of profitably conducting a direct traffic with
England in Canadian flour was proved by the fact, that,
while I was at Montreal, a vessel from the Ontario,
containing seventeen thousand bushels of the best
Toronto white wheat, lay opposite Goold's Mills — one of
those of which I have spoken as being superior to the
average of the Rochester and Oswego mills — to be
ground, on merchants' account, for the Liverpool
market. If properly cultivated, this trade may, I think,
make both the growers and grinders of Canadian wheat
very indifferent as to the 20 per cent duties of the
States.

Among the articles of export from Lower Canada,
linseed is one which used formerly to occupy a not
unimportant place, though now, so far as I can learn,
the export of this grain to England has almost
ceased. The French Canadians used formerly to grow
flax extensively for home consumption 5 and most of the
Lower Canadian farmers still raise enough to employ
and clothe their own families. The diminution in the
growth and export of seed may be owing, in some
degree, to the gradual substitution of cotton for linen in
articles for domestic use; partly to the general exhaustion
of the soil, of which I have spoken ; and partly to the
growing taste for finer cloth, which will necessitate the
growth of a finer quality of flax. The first and third of
these causes are probably the most influential. Now, it
Is known to all flax-growers that hitherto a fine fibre
has been considered Incompatible with a strong, rank,
heavy crop of flax, or with the ripening of the seed.
Hence the taste for fine flax would cause the sowing of
much seed, that the plant might spring up thick — the
selection of poor or exhausted land that it might not
come up rank, or grow tall and strong — and the pulling
of the plant before the seed was ripe. The more these
practices for the improvement of the fibre were followed.

372 EXPORTATION OF LINSEED.

the less would be the quantity of linseed brought to
market.

It is one of those advances which the arts owe to
scientific research, and deserves the consideration of
those who affect to despise, or altogether deny, the use of
science to agriculture, that the new method (Schenck's)
of steeping flax in hot water promises to render all these
precautions unnecessary, to extract as fine a fibre from the
rank coarse ripe flax-plant, as from the slender unripe
plant hitherto privileged alone to yield the finer thread.
This method of steeping is certain and constant in its
results, and is performed in as few days as the old
method required of weeks.

The general introduction of this method of manu-
facturing the plant will simplify the farmer's treatment
of the crop, will enable him to cultivate flax as he does
any other plant he grows, to reap a profit from it in
proportion to its total weight, and, as in other crops, to
ripen his seed either for home use or for exportation. It
may regenerate the flax -husbandry in Canada, and
revive, without exhausting the land, the ancient trade In
the seed as an article of export.*

I have said that the average freights from the
Canadian ports, direct to Liverpool and other ports in
Great Britain, cannot be greater than the cost of
transmitting produce from the shores of Lake Ontario,
through the port of New York. This direct freight
ought in reality to be less ; and in a few years it will
almost certainly become so. This statement naturally
leads me to make a few remarks on the navigation of
the St Lawrence, its importance to Canadian interests,
and the influence it is destined hereafter to exercise on
the general revenues of the Canadas.

* Canadian seed ought to be as good as Riga flax seed, of which
5000 barrels have been imported into Newry, and 15,000 into Belfast,
during the present season.

THE ERIE CANAL. 373

The natural outlet of the vast region of North
America, which is drained by the great lakes and their
tributary streams, is, as I have already remarked, by the
river St Lawrence. This was early recognised ; but
the natural obstructions which existed in the channel of
this river, have, with other obstacles, hitherto prevented
it from being so easily and generally available as it is
now likely to become.

In the first place, the rapids and falls of Niagara
prevented the passage of vessels between the lakes Erie
and Ontario. Thus, the Lower St Lawrence was inac-
cessible to the rapidly-settling western portions of Penn-
sylvania and Ohio. The idea of a canal from Lake Erie
to the Hudson, through the low country of western New
York, was therefore suggested, and was finally entertained
by the New York State Legislature. The Erie Canal was
the result ; and up to nearly the present time this canal
has formed the high-road between the upper lakes and
the Atlantic, and has been a source of great wealth, and
the cause of a very rapid prosperity, not only to the city,
but to the whole State of New York. As the western
country was cleared, and its population increased, the
traffic along this canal augmented in a degree which the
most sanguine had never contemplated, and extra-
ordinary exertions have been made, from time to time,
to facilitate the traffic, and to hasten the passage of the
vessels with which it is crowded. The degree of expert-
ness to which the working of this canal has been brought
may be judged of from the fact, that, in the single
month of October 1847, 6930 lockages were executed
above Schenectady, which gives less than 6J minutes
for each lockage, Sundays included.

But every year causes new increase of traffic, and new
delay in the transmission of produce and merchandise,
and larger quantities are, in consequence, detained over
'hen the frost has put a stop to the navigation

374 CANADIAN canals:

of the canal. The great traffic, and already immense
population of the Western States, and the mineral and
other produce of the upper lakes, now demand other
ways of access to the Atlantic and to Europe.

Meanwhile the Canadian authorities, those of Upper
Canada especially, have not been idle. Indeed, I helleve
they have done more to promote internal water-commu-
nication than any State of the Union — I may safely say,
than any country in Europe — considering the Infancy
of their country, the extent to which its material
I'esources have been developed, and the actual amount
of Its revenue and population.

First, the Welland Canal has been constructed, by
which a direct communication for large vessels is
established between the lakes Erie and Ontario. Thus
the borders of the upper lakes were connected by a
single freightage with the ports of western New York
and with those of Upper Canada, along the borders of
the Ontario, and down the St Lawrence, as far as
Prescott on the Canadian, and Ogdensburg on the
New York side, below which places the first rapids on
that river occur. Upon this great work about
d^'l, 400,000 currency have been expended ; and, though
still incomplete, it is already yielding a revenue of
c^30,000 a-year.

Next, the numerous rapids on the river, between
Prescott and Montreal, have been flanked by canals,
shorter or longer according to circumstances, by which
the transit for large and loaded vessels, either upwards
or downwards, has been rendered easy and secure.

Of these canals, the most important are : —

Miles.

Locks.

Cost.

Williamsbury, four
short canals, .

}'

6

^245,000

Cornwall,

114

7

75,000

Beauharnais, .

24

9

310,000

Lachine,

9

...

350,000

MONEY EXPENDED ON THEM. 375

Below Montreal, the works in Lake St Peter cost
£75fi00, and the harbour of Montreal itself £131,000.
I do not include, of course, as executed by the province
the Rideau Canal, between the foot of Lake Erie and
the upper waters of the Ottawa, as this was executed
by the Home Government. It is a hundred and thirty
miles in length, has forty-seven locks, and cost £800,000.
Though intended chiefly as a military work, it will
prove of immense benefit to the future development of
the natural resources of the more northerly parts of
Upper Canada in the great basin of the Ottawa.

Altogether, on the execution of canals and river-
improvements necessary to the direct navigation of the
St Lawrence from the upper lakes to the Atlantic,
upwards of £3,000,000 currency, or twelve millions of
dollars, have been expended by the Legislatures of
Upper and Lower Canada. This sum is not only large
absolutely or in itself, but it is especially so, compared
with the amount of revenue hitherto at the disposal of
the provincial Legislature of the Canadas. When we
consider, also, that the whole canal debt of the State of
New York is under seventeen millions of dollars, while
the Canadas have burdened themselves with a debt of
twelve millions, we shall be willing to allow that the
amount of energy displayed by the people north of
Lake Ontario and of the Thousand Isles is not less than
has been manifested even in the State of New York,
nor their faith less in the future growth and greatness
of their rising country.

The result of all these improvements has been, that
more and more of the direct European traffic with the
great lakes has been making its way every year down
the St Lawrence, instead of by the Erie Canal — even
while that canal has been still able to overtake the
whole of the traffic. But now that it has become
evident that this canal, however it may be enlarged.

376 ADVANTAGES OF THE ST LAWRENCE

and however energetically managed, will soon be wholly-
inadequate to the demands of the western trade, the
value of the St Lawrence, and the certainty of its being
very extensively used, becomes every day more clear.

Other considerations also are likely to hasten this
result.

For laden vessels coming down Lake Erie with
cargoes for Europe, the two points of destination are
either Buffalo, at the mouth of the Erie Canal, on the
'New York side— or Port Maitland, at the mouth of the
Welland Canal, on the Canadian side. If the vessel
make for Buffalo, its cargo must be transhipped, sent
364 miles by canal, and down the Hudson to New
York, and be again transhipped at least once before it
can be despatched to Europe. If it enter Port Mait-
land, it passes the canals without breaking bulk, and
descends to Quebec in four days. Thence the same
vessel mav proceed direct to Europe, or the cargo may
be transhipped, and with a fair wind may pass the
banks of Newfoundland before it could reach New York
by the way of the Erie Canal. Thus, independent of
possible detention on this canal, it appears that time is
saved by the St Lawrence route ; and every merchant
knows the value of this element in commercial
affairs.

Again, the cost of transport from Albany to Buffalo
is 7 1 dollars per ton, while from Montreal to Port
Maitland, ascending the river, it is only three dollars a
ton — and the difference is greater in descending the
river ; so that the St Lawrence is also a cheaper route
than that by Lake Erie. A fellow-passenger of mine
across the Atlantic informed me that, in bringing Tail-
road iron from Liverpool to Cleveland in Ohio, (on
Lake Erie,) he found that, independent of speed, the
route of the St Lawrence was 10s. a ton cheaper than
anv other he could take.

COMPARED WITH THE ERIE CANALS. 377

As less cost both in time and money, therefore, attend
this route, it appears certain that the traffic will be
increased upon it, not only by the surplus which the
Erie Canal cannot convey, but by the diversion from
that canal of a portion — perhaps a large portion — of
the traffic it has hitherto monopolised. In other words,
whatever the amount of traffic may be, the river St
Lawrence will henceforth be able to compete success-
fully with the Erie Canal.

But this greater cheapness of transport, and the
facility of establishing direct communication, and with-
out transhipment, between Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago,
&c.,and Liverpool, will draw also into this eastern channel
a large traffic which never sought Lake Erie, but made
its long and tedious way down the Ohio and the Missis-
sippi. The wheat and other produce of the valley of
the Ohio, which was intended for the European markets,
has hitherto, for the most part, descended those rivers,
and, after a voyage of some thousands of miles, has
reached New Orleans, whence it was reshipped to its
European destination. But this long water-carriage, in
the hot and humid climate of the regions through which
tliese rivers flow, is found to affect the quality of the
vv^heat ; so that it rarely reaches Europe in so good a
condition, or reahses so high a price, as similar wheat
does which has been conveyed through the Eastern
States to the shores of the Atlantic.

It is easy now, however, to transport by railway to
the harbour of Cleveland (on Lake Erie) the produce
of the Ohio Valley ; and as soon as it is generally
known that the passage to Europe from that port, by
way of the St Lawrence, is not only much shorter in
time, but is also cheaper in money-cost, and brings the
grain to market in better condition, it is clear that a
portion, at least, of the European commerce with the
Ohio Valley will be diverted into this channeh

378 PROSPECTS OF CANADIAN NAVIGATION.

I only allude to another circumstance and possible
event which may dispose the free North-western States
to cultivate this eastern route of the St Lawrence. At
present, their main communication with the European
markets is by the Mississippi, the mouth and keys of
which are in the hands of the slave-owners of the south.
Should a crisis between the free and slave States arise,
this channel of intercourse might be shut up, and the
prosperity of the States on the upper river and its tribu-
taries thus greatly arrested. But if, in the meanwhile,
this channel by the St Lawrence be cultivated, any
contingency of that kind would fall less heavily upon
the States affected by it, and the dread of its occur-
rence would seriously influence neither their policy nor
fheir prospects.

To this view of the St Lawrence navigation, as
bearing upon their own future condition and indepen-
dence, both political and commercial, the free North-
western States cannot be indifferent, and they will,
therefore, be anxious, I think, both to promote it
generally, and to secure its advantages to themselves as
cheaply, and at as early a period, as possible.

Altogether, therefore, the prospects of the Canadian
canals, and the general St Lawrence navigation, are
exceedingly encouraging ; and though, as I have said,
I would not advocate, in these times, the creation of
exclusive advantages on either side of the river and
lakes, yet those which Canada now possesses ought not,
with these bright prospects, to be lightly resigned to
the United States, or without receiving a satisfactory
equivalent.

But the Lower St Lawrence presents difficulties to
navigation not yet alluded to, and which demand, at the
hands of the Canadian Legislature, still further exertions,
with a view to its improvement, and to the more
effectually securing of the advantages which the

CHANNEL OF THE ST LAWEENCE. 379

commerce of the river is destined to confer upon the
province.

The geological structure of Lower Canada, to which
I have already in general terms alluded, affects the
navigable character of the St Lawrence below Quebec.
I have described the strike of the beds on the south side
of the river as running nearly parallel with the course
of the river from Quebec to the district of Gaspe, and
the inland country as consisting of parallel ridges of
more or less hard rock, with intervening valleys of
varying breadth and depth. The bed of the St Law-
rence is of a similar character. The channel runs along
the strike of the upturned metamorphic beds, and con-
sists of alternate ridges and hollows, as the dry land
does. Where the ridges are elevated they form islands,
rocks, and longitudinal reefs ; while the valleys form the
channels along which vessels proceed.

But from this description it will be understood that
the deep water-channels, formed by the washing away of
the softer parts or beds of rocks, must, such as these are,
be irregular in width and direction. Where the river
is broad, there may be several channels or parallel longi-
tudinal valleys, any one or all of which may be inter-
rupted by narrow and shallow reefs, which will render
navigation, intricate, difficult, and — when the tides run
with great velocity — dangerous.

Such is really the case in the St Lawrence. About
five miles below Quebec, the Isle d'Orleans divides the
river into the north and south channels, and beyond this
island, which has a length of twenty miles, it is divided
into three irregular — the north, middle, and south —
channels, by parallel ridges, the highest points of which
form islands, and the lower, rocky or sandy reefs, visible
only at low-water. Shoals also, at various points, stretch
out from the south shore, which narrow and give still
more intricacy to these channels. Hence, at a place

380 LIGHTHOUSES AND PROVISION -DEPOTS.

called the Traverse or Narrows, about fifty-five miles
below Quebec, though the river is there thirteen miles
wide, the channel usually selected by pilots is only 1800
yards in width, and, to add to the difficulty, the ebb-tide
runs through it at the rate of seven, and the flood of five
or six miles an hour, and there is no anchorage.

From such circumstances as this arises the risk usually
understood to attend the navigation of the St Lawrence,
and which is one cause of the higher rates of insurance
usually demanded for vessels which sail to or from this
river.

The mouth of the river also has its dangers ; and
among the consequences of these, the most distressing
are the shipwrecks which occasionally occur, after the
winter season has set in, and when unhappy crews,
having saved their lives from the sea, are thrown upon
frozen shores or islands, far from human sympathy, or
necessary supplies of food, fuel, or clothing.

To obviate the dangers arising from the intricacy of
the navigation, lighthouses have already been erected at
various points ; but the number of these is still insuffi-
cient ; and a people who have expended the large sums
I have mentioned in improving the upper parts of the
river cannot hesitate — now that their sacrifices are begin-
ning to be appreciated, and are likely to meet with their
reward — to organise and maintain a sufficiently extensive
lighthouse department, to give confidence and security
to the navigator.

It is not more on behalf of humanity, than as a matter
of wise economy, that I would suggest the establishment
of fixed depots of provisions, and other stores, in charge
of the necessary number of people, at different points on
the islands or coasts about the mouth of the St Lawrence,
where shipwrecks most frequently occur — that those
appalling evils may be averted, which to us, who live in
more genial climes, appear among the most fearful to

CHAMBLY CANAL AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 381

which castaway mariners can be subjected. The
expense of such winter depots would be only small,
while they would create In the breasts of seamen such
a feeling of confidence as would often prevent the
disasters, the consequences of which they are designed
to relieve.

No legislative Interference, of course, can ward off
icebergs from the banks of Newfoundland, or make the
seas more safe in the bay of the St Lawrence, In early
spring, and when winter approaches ; but greater skill
and care In the masters of vessels may lessen the casual-
ties arising from these sources. The proposed examina-
tion of master mariners, the advantages of which have
already been frequently discussed in the Home Parlia-
ment, will go some way towards securing this greater
care and skill.

There is still one branch of the internal navigation of
Canada which Is likely to tend not only to the extension
of the traffic on the St Lawrence, but to the improve-
ment also of the general commerce of the province.

I have already spoken of the river Eichelleu as flow-
ing from Lake Champlain, in a northerly direction,
through the once fertile flat country in which Chambly,
St Hilaire, and other villages stand, and out of which
rises Beloeil, and the other Isolated mountains, which add
so much to the picturesque character of the district.
This river falls into the St Lawrence at Sorel, forty-five
miles below Montreal. From this point upwards to
Lake Champlain, the Richelieu has been made navigable
by the lock or dam of St Ours, and the canal of Cham-
bly, extending a distance of eleven and a half miles from
the town of Chambly to St John, between which places
considerable interruptions occur in the bed of the river.
This canal cost £120,000; and though it has hitherto
returned comparatively little revenue, the state of the
trade on the Erie Canal is likely very soon to give It au

382 FUTURE INFLUENCE OF CANADA.

important part of the traffic between the western country
and New York.

I have ah'eady adverted to the excessive crowding of
the Erie Canal, and the delays to which merchandise is
occasionally in consequence subjected. But to descend
to Montreal and Sorel is easy, and can be done without
transhipment ; and, in consequence of this and other
advantages, it has been found that goods can by this
route — down the St Lawrence, then up the E-ichelieu to
Lake Cham plain, and thence by canal to the river
Hudson — be carried to New York as cheaply, and with
more certainty as to time, than by the hitherto exclusive
line of the Erie Canal. It may, therefore, be confidently
predicted, that a portion of the internal traffic of the
States will hereafter pass by the river Richelieu, and
enrich and increase the value of land in the district
through w^hich it passes.

A shorter ship-canal has also been projected direct
from Caughnawaga — opposite to Montreal, but above
the rapids — direct to Lake Champlain. Should this be
executed, there can be no doubt that much of the traffic
between the western regions and the Atlantic borders
would pass, without changing bottoms, in this direction^ —
greatly adding, of course, to the income of the provincial
canals, and to the commercial establishments and inter-
course along the river.

On the whole, therefore, it appears certain that the
river St Lawrence is destined ere long to become a most
important medium of intercourse between the various
sections of the New World, as well as between the Old
World and the New, and to give to the province of
Canada a far more extensive and commanding influence
over the commercial operations of North America than
any State east of Louisiana can ever aspire to.*

* I am happy to learn tliat, so far as the present year 1850 is concerned,
the anticipations of the text have been fully confirmed. The revenue

FUTURE INFLUENCE OF CANADA. 383

I do not in this place introduce any remarks in rela-
tion to the railroad communications with the Atlantic
which are now projected or in progress, as the observa-
tions I subsequently made in New Brunswick will natu-
rally suggest some considerations in connection with this
important means of colonial development.

from public works, during the first ten months of 1849, was £64,601,
while, during the same ten months of 1850, it has been £76,672, an
increase of nearly one-fifth. This, with the other abundant symptoms
of prosperity experienced in the colony during the present yeai', will, I
hope, hush the cry of discontent and disloyalty for some time to come.

CHAPTEK XIV.

Leave Mitis for the Restigouche. — Nature of the road through the
forest. — Clearings and accommodation by the way. — Moimtainous
character of the country. — Frazer's. — Elevated table-land. — Great
Metapediac Lake. — Rich flat land around it. — Brechut's. — Little
Metapediac Lake. — John Low's. — Rough road. — Dark night. — Burned
forests. — Burned bridges. — Cause of the burnings. — Their effect on
the landscape and on the soil. — Noble's.— Evans's Hollow. — Solitary
life in the forest. — Hardwood ridges. — First green fields and clear-
ings.— Home thoughts and associations. — Scottish settlers twelve
hundred feet above the sea.^How such spots become known at
home. — Beautiful scenery. — Fine land and farms. — Dixon's. — Abun-
dant wheat a thousand feet above the sea. — Yankee phrenologists,
soapmakers, and other adventui-ers ; their luck in the provinces. —
Campbelton.— Mr Ferguson of Atholl House. — Changes in a new
country during a single lifetime. — River Restigouche. — Good land on
either side. — Excursion up the river.— Flat lands. — Views on the
river. — Scottish settlers from Arran. — General prosperity of these
settlers. — Attachment to home recollections. — Goatfell. — Ilfracombe
and the Causeyside. — Good land on the Upper Restigouche. —
Alleged home ignorance of provincial geography. — Similar real
ignorance in the colonies. — Indian settlement opposite Campbelton.
— Progress of the Indians in farming. — Their winter employments. —
Want of a school. — Sugar-loaf Movmtain, and the view from it. —
Geological reason for the quality of the land. — Good land on the
Canadian side, in the county of Bonaventure. — Agricultural societies
in this remote region. — Encouragement given to such societies by
the Canadian Legislature. — Agricultural show on the Restigouche. — ■
Prosperity of the lumber ti-ade on this I'iver. — Historical recollections
of the river and bay.— Old French settlements. — Town of Dalhousie.
— Increase in the growth of wheat in this district. — High price of
Canadian flour. — Fossiliferous limestone at Daliiousie. — Settlers on
the Eel River. — Their prospei'ity. — Gi'eat success of the potato
culture.— Supposed superiority of the lumberer over the farmer. — •
Greater value of the resident farmer to the pi'ovince. — Effects of a

ROAD FROM MITIS TO CAMPBELTOX. 385

failing lumber-trade on the permanent welfare of the country. — ■
Illustration of certain social and domestic differences between the
United States and the colonies.

October 6. — Having yesterday arranged with a habitant,
bearing the illustrious name of Dumas, to convey me
across the peninsula of Gaspe for £6 currency, I rose
from a short sleep at one o'clock this morning, and,
after a drive of three miles inland from Mitis — for a
considerable part of the way over a bog, upon a fearful
corduroy road — reached the house of Dumas. Having
transferred myself and luggage into the waggon I was
to occupy for the next two days, we ascended a hill
which separated us from all further communication,
even by sight, with the river St Lawrence, and in about
half-an-hour had entered the forest. Under the shadow
of perpetual trees we continued, from this point, for a
distance of eighty miles, emerging only to come within
sight of the river Restigouche.

This road between the two rivers is a very rude and
difficult one. It is barely blocked out of sufficient width
to allow a waggon with one horse to pass. The trees
are cut down and hauled off, boulder-stones and small
inequalities removed, and bridges built where they are
absolutely necessary. Only the horses of the country,
which all their lives have been trained to it, could
conduct even light waggons across the numerous steep
hills over which the road passes. 1 had been told in
New Brunswick that the road was impassable for
carriages, and that my portmanteau would have to be
carried, while I walked on foot myself a considerable
part of the way ; and I did think that my luggage, my
conductor, and myself were a very heavy load for the
little Canadian horse, till I afterwards saw other horses
compelled to drag at least twice the load along the
same road.

VOL. I. 2 B

386 STATIONS ON THE KEMPT EOAD.

The traverse from Mitis to Campbelton is usually
accomplished, in these light waggons, in three days.
By starting at the early hour of one in the morning, I
was enabled to perform the entire journey by the
evening of the second day, and thus to avoid the
disagreeables of two ensuing nights of wilderness
accommodation.

The houses met with in the forest are very few, and
their relative distances nearly as follows : —

To Frazer's, a log-hut attached to a small clear-
ance in the wood, is from Mitis about seventeen
miles.
To Brechut's — a house and clearing on the Metapediac
Lake. In this house there is one inferior bed for
strangers. When I passed, it was inhabited by
three men, without any female. A change of
horses can sometimes be got here, but it is not to
be depended on, and could not have been got at
the time of my visit. Nine miles.
To John Low's — a log-hut and small clearing on the
Little Metapediac Lake, inhabited by John Low
and his wife — eighteen miles.
This man was about to remove to a new clearance
he was making five or six miles nearer Brechut's;
while a son of the latter was to settle in Low's house,
on the little lake, so that future travellers will pro-
bably find more settlers along this road than it was my
fortune to meet with.

To Noble's — a larger house, better provided than
Brechut's, and where a night may be spent, as my
conductor said, " sans grand 7msere " — eight miles.
To Evans' — a solitary resident in a log-hut, in a
wild small hollow of flattish land, surrounded by
high, steep, pine-timbered mountains, almost preci-
pices, on the banks of the White River^ as it is
called by the Canadians — twenty miles.

DIFFICULT MOUNTAIN-ROAD. 387

To tlie nearest clearing from this towards the Resti-
gouche, on fine hardwood land, twelve hundred
feet above the level of the sea — twelve miles.
To Dixon's — a clean and comfortable inn kept by a
Scotchman, Mr Dixon, surveyor of the road, mail-
contractor, and the owner of eight hundred acres
of excellent land, in one of the most beautifully
picturesque situations in all Canada — four miles.
To the Restigouche ferry — a rapid descent from
Dixon's to the river — eight miles.
The whole distance being about 100 miles, during 80
of which the road runs through a continuous, almost
untraversed forest. With the single exception of the
postman in his one-horse car, who passes along once
a-week, we did not meet a single individual the whole
way through the forest.

The first five leagues, as far as Frazer's, were ex-
ceedingly mountainous and difficult. I have already
described the interior country of Lower Canada, bor-
dering the vSt Lawrence, as consisting of a series of
ridges running parallel with the river, and separated
by intervening more or less narrow valleys. Such is
the country as far as Frazer's. It is a prolongation of
the New England mountains towards the promontory
of Gaspe — a succession of steep climbs and difficult
descents, the latter being often not less painful and
oppressive to the horse than the former.

Frazer's is situated at the commencement of a table-
land, which extends for nearly three leagues, forming
the best and most easy part of the whole Kempt Road.
From this table-land, a long gentle descent brought us
down to the level of the Metapediac Lake, on the edge
of which stood the house and farm of Brechut.

Around this lake there is much flat land — generally,
so far as I could see, either a stiffish light-coloured
clay, or more or less soft, wet, and black swamp.

388 LAKE METAPEDIAC.

All, however, is covered with wood, with the exception
of some of the drier parts at the one end, which Brechut
has cleared and brought into cultivation. Blocks of
limestone are scattered about the shores of the lake ; and
the same rock, resting upon a white sandstone, occurs
in situ along its south-western border. This limestone
contains fossils, and is considered, by Mr Murray of the
Canadian Geological Survey, to be an extension of the
limestone formation which, with intermixed, often green-
ish calcareous shales, forms stupendous sea-cliffs, 700
feet in height, at Gaspe Promontory, and, altogether,
attains a thickness of 2000 feet. I had not an oppor-
tunity of ascertaining whether the age of this limestone
had been exactly made out by Mr Murray, but the
fossils he mentions indicate that this extensive calca-
reous formation of Gaspe is closely related to the Hel-
derberg series of the New York geologists.

If such be the age of this limestone, a belt of very
good land ought to extend in a north-east and south-
westerly direction, from Gaspe Promontory, through
this part of Lower Canada. From what I saw of the
borders of the lake, it appeared to me certain that, wild
as it now looks, and remotely as it is situated, the time
will yet arrive when drainage and the use of lime will
make fertile wheat-land of the flat country which
fringes this extensive sheet of water. A natural outlet
for its produce exists down the Metapediac River, to the
Restigouche on the south ; and should the road be im-
proved towards the north, by following the course of
the streams instead of crossing all the ridges, as the
Kempt Eoad does, the access to the St Lawrence will
be made at least equally easy. A grant of 50,000
selected acres here now, would be a fine fortune for a
family some three generations hence.

About nine in the morning we arrived at Brechut's,
and, after breakfasting, and resting our horse for an

BLACK AND BUENED COUNTRY. 389

hour, we started again for John Low's, on the small or
lower lake. This part of the road is not beset by so
many high hills and steep descents as between Mitis
and Frazer's ; but it is in many places nearly overrun
again with a natural growth of young trees, and the
roads are deep, stony, and full of holes, so that our pro-
gress was slow, and shaky in a very unpleasant degree.
The borders of this lower lake are not void of beauty ;
but it is a solitary abode for a small family, and neither
man nor wife in this hut looked as if they were spending
a happy life.

From Low's to Noble's, a distance of eight miles,
though not hilly, was the most disagreeable of the
whole traverse. After a mile of tolerable road, came
two miles of the roughest and stoniest I ever travelled.
Every yard had its own jolt and shake in store for us,
which sixteen hours upon a hard seat had not prepared
me, at least, to undergo with a great degree of equani-
mity. And when we were clear of this bed of stones,
and were beginning to mend our pace a little, the sun
set, and the brief twilight had already nearly passed
away, when we came upon a gloomy, miserable-looking
burnt tract of land, sloping rapidly towards the Meta-
pediac River, blackened by thousands of charred stumps,
and intersected by numerous deep narrow valleys, often
mere gullies, with little streamlets descending through
the dark peaty soil which covered their bottoms.

As we almost groped our way over this melancholy
tract, we found ourselves suddenly upon one extremity
of a bridge, the other end of which yawned like a black
gulf before us, and proved to have been burned. The
eyes of my Canadian companion were fortunately better
than my own, and the horse was pulled up in time to
prevent our being all precipitated into the brook below.
Having dismounted, we found an awkward steep descent
to the edge of the water, and by means of a temporary

390 BURNED BRIDGES.

bridge of logs, and then a steep climb, we gained the
road on the opposite side of the ravine. I was congra-
tulating myself that this difficulty had been got over
before the darkness had become more intense, when we
arrived at the top of a much steeper bank above another
burned bridge, and had again to grope our way on foot,
down one precipitous bank and up another — a labour
which, with the waggon behind it, our active and will-
ing little horse, much to my surprise, though with con-
siderable difficulty, accomplished. It was the steepest
breasting of a bank by a horse with anything behind
it I have ever seen, either before or since. It was a
help to us, in these difficult circumstances, that the
bridges along this road were all painted white, a cir-
cumstance known to my conductor, and which enabled
him to discover, before we came to the burned places,
that something was not as it should be in advance. I
was not sorry, however, when, in about half-an-hour
from this last bridge, through the midst of to me im-
penetrable darkness, the sound of a dog barking, and
soon after the gleam of a blazing fire through an open
door, announced that we had reached the end of this
long day's journey.

The burning of the forests through all this country,
along the borders of the Metapediac Eiver, not only
renders it black and melancholy to look upon, but
actually injures the surface-soil in quality, renders it
incapable of easy settlement, and prevents the explorer
from judging, by the nature of the timber, what the
prospects of a cultivator on such land would be.
Through the carelessness of lumberers, Indians, and
other rovers in the woods, these forests have been
burned over and over again. This want of care there
is as yet no law to punish. The extraordinary heat
and drought of the present summer have particularly
favoured the spread of fires, and increased, beyond their

A NIGHT AT NOBLE'S. 391

average amount, the number of public casualties, which
the provincial authorities are required to repair. Hence
it is, I suppose, that, although the bridges I have spoken
of were burned in June or July, the Canadian Govern-
ment has as yet left them unrepaired. It is in winter,
also, that large timber for such works can be most
economically cut, and hauled from the place of its
growth to the spot where it is required.

When this road was first opened and made a mail-
route, this station of Noble's and that of Brechut, on
Lake Metapediac, were fixed upon by the Provincial
Government, and the two present occupiers placed
in them, with small pensions, to keep open house for
strangers and to facilitate the weekly progress of the
post. This pension, much to his dissatisfaction, as he
was at pains to inform me, had been withdrawn from
Noble, but he still lingers in his wilderness home, sur-
rounded by a flourishing family, apparently ignorant of
serious privation, and receiving and accommodating
gladly any traveller who is willing to pay — a quality
the want of which, he assured me, was always to be sus-
pected when the guest had French Canadian blood in
his veins. I found myself therefore very comfortable
under his roof — as travelling goes in the wilderness. A
huge log-fire in the kitchen, tea I had brought with me
from Quebec, fish from the Metapediac — which flowed
past the house — potatoes from Noble's garden, new bread
baked on a hot plate for the occasion, and finally a
clean, and not uncomfortable bed, wound up the adven-
tures of the day.

Saturday^ Oct. 6. — Rested and refreshed, I arose
at five ; and by six o'clock had breakfasted, and was
again on my way — as from Noble's to the ferry on the
Restigouche, I was assured, was a good twelve hours'
journey.

From Noble's to the solitary hollow — for it cannot be

392 SOLITARY EVANS.

called a valley — In which Evans was located Is twenty
miles. Several very long hills, and many very steep
ascents and descents of a shorter kind, were passed dm'ing
these twenty miles. As in the latter half of yesterday's
drive,. the soft or pine and birchwood forests, generally
unbroken, still accompanied me ; though here and there
patches or ridges, more or less broad, of hardwood or
broad-leaved trees occurred, which will hereafter be
selected as centres for settlement, and from which the na-
tural expansion of a growing population will gradually
spread the arts of rural life over less promising districts.

This morning there had been frost enough to produce
ice half-an-inch thick, and to make me, in addition to a
Canadian home-spun coat over my English great coat,
feel thankful for a Buffalo coat also, which my landlord
on the Mitis had kindly thrust upon me for the journey.
The hoar-frost which covered the woods through which
we passed lingered upon the trees, and made the air
around us chilly till far on in the day — when the sun
became high enough at last to peep into the narrow
forest channel through which we were sailing, and restore
the green colours again to the snowy leaves.

Evans — solitary, and still young — we found digging
and pitting potatoes, of which, for a single man, he had
a good supply. He had also some oats, which were
alreadv cut. He had been a lumberer, and, like his com-
panions, given to drink when occasion presented. In
their society, he found he could neither alter his habits
nor accumulate money. " I therefore foreswore liquor,"
he said, " and settled in this lonely spot." For four
years he had lived here, and though he had liquor in his
house, as he showed me, yet for four years he had
abstained. In the autumn, he made a little money by
going to the settlements to aid at the harvest. But the
solitude had at last become too intense for him, and he
was about to remove twelve miles nearer the Resti-

ESCAPE FROM THE FOREST. 393

gouche, to a ridge of good land where there were akeady
many settlers, and where the sounds and sights and
sympathies of civilised life would be within his reach.
Of strong-minded men, like this Evans, capable under
emergencies of great self-control and self-denial, these
wilderness countries exhibit to the traveller many
striking examples.

In Evans' hut, I made tea for the whole trio ; and
then, having fed our horse with a bottle of his new
oats, we again proceeded. Twelve miles beyond, the
, country changed. It became broken with distinct hills
and ridges. The forest trees altered also. Instead of
pine and white birch, maple, red birch, and hornbeam,
mingled with rarer pines, hung out their broad leaves —
already assuming their autumn tints — to the declining
sun. We had come upon what was called a hardwood
ridge of strong fertile land ; and I cannot express the
welcome feeling with which, while still two thousand feet
above the sea, I looked far forward along the narrow
road, chiselled as it were out of the old forest, upon a
green field in the distance — the first symptom of our
approach to a region where art and human intelligence
were successfully striving with the long mastery which
unbridled nature had been exercising over the submis-
sive soil.

We had some time before passed the culminating point
of this extensive traverse, and were now descending a
long slope looking towards the south. This descent
brought us, in what I now thought a short period of
time, to the final limits of the primeval forest. I almost
felt unwiUing to leave behind me its more cheerful
broad-leaved beauty, as we emerged among cleared
fields, where the still golden stubble indicated that wheat,
or oats, or rye, had recently been reaped ; and where the
large green leaves of the turnip, and the blooming tops
of the potato, still covered the ground.

394 HOME VOICES AND ASSOCIATIONS.

After emerging frora eighty miles of scarcely broken
forest, it was to me a very interestmg sight, upon the
first green spot of fenced land which caught my eye, to
discover a field of dark green broad-leaved turnips.
Home thoughts spontaneously awoke with many home
associations. 'Home pictures sprang up before me, and
home culture and home improvement were called to
mind by the sudden sight of these healthy and luxuriant
crops of what, without a pun, may be truly called the
root of agricultural improvement. Home breeds of stock
also, though mixed — the sound of Scottish voices — a
Scottish ploughman behind a Scottish plough — and
females, not disdaining to assist In raising the potato
which a kind Providence had this year preserved for
them — all spoke of my own land, and of those rural
districts where educated intelligence and contented In-
dustry unite in spreading the happy results of better
husbandry. Even the noisy and troublesome cur, rushing
out with his boisterous salute, was welcome to us, as we
emerged from the soundless woods, where three or four
rare birds were the only wild things we had seen In all
our journey. And yet the autumn-tinted maple-groves,
bordering the green fields, gave a peculiarity to the
landscape which commingled foreign with home feelings,
and kept still present before me the realities of my
actual position. Along with all these pleasant Imagin-
ings too, it was a great relief' to think that the more
uncertain and unpleasant part of my present journey w^as
over, and that for some time to come I might hope to
to see the accompaniments of civilised life, and the
evidences of human skill and Industry around me.

These first settlements we came to are about eight
miles north, in a straight line, from the banks of the
Restigouche River, and 1250 feet above the level of the
sea. That the crops and culture and farming I saw
here should be possible at so high a level, shows, not

REMOTE AND ELEVATED COUNTRY. 395

only that the land is naturally good, but that this
northern climate must be far more propitious to vegeta-
tion than is generally believed.

One thing the traveller through a region like this
is surprised at, when he stumbles on a settled and culti-
vated tract of land, such as I was now passing through.
He wonders how the people came to find it out. Who
induced all these men and women to leave remote corners
of Scotland, and settle in this remoter corner of south-
eastern Canada ? The Avhole line of country is a terra
incognita at Quebec and at Fredericton. At the seats of
Government of both provinces, where they complain of
how little we know of their geography at home, the spot
I speak of was absolutely unknown ; and yet humble
Scotchmen and their families had made choice of it, and
already fixed upon it their future homes. There is an
under-current of knowledge flowing among the masses,
chiefly through the literary communications of far dis-
tant blood relations, of which public literature knows
nothing, and even Governments are unaware.

To Dixon's, which is four miles from the first clearing,
we passed through a succession of new farms — for all this
tract is newly settled — for the most part upon good land,
and descended about 200 feet, being now on the slope
towards the Restigouche. On approaching his house
and farm, which are still 1000 feet above the level
of the sea, the view of the mountainous regions towards
the south and west was truly beautiful. *Trap rocks or
mountains, in this direction, rise up among the stratified
deposits, and give a new and magnificent character to
the landscape, as seen from this comparatively lofty eleva-
tion. An amphitheatre of peaks stretches almost as far
as the eye can reach ; while, in the foreground, single
elevations cheered the eye with the warm tints of the
hardwood growth that covered them. I regretted that I
could not spare even a single hour at Dixon's, to enjoy

396 dixon's high-land farm.

more fully the passing mountain scenery which glided so
rapidly before my eye, as the carriage hastened on. On
leaving St John, six weeks before, for my tour through
w^estern New York and Canada, I had made an
appointment to meet my two New Brunswick travelling
companions this very evening, on the shores of the
Eestigouche ; and I had still eight miles and a ferry to
cross, before I should arrive at Campbelton, the end of
my journey.

From Dixon, I obtained most favourable accounts of
the quality and productiveness of the land at this high
elevation of 1000 feet. He is the possessor of 800 acres,
and farms what is cleared of these. Besides turnips,
potatoes, and green crops generally, for which his land is
admirably adapted, he grows wheat yearly without fail.
His wheat ripens well. The wheat-midge has never
visited him as yet, though he is occasionally troubled
with rust ; and he has reaped upwards of 50 bushels an
acre. Indian corn, he said, would ripen with him in such
a season as this. It is to be hoped that, in clearing this
fine district of country, the necessity of shelter will not
be forgotten ; and that the certainty of the harvests, now
that the fields are surrounded by the native forests, may
not be sacrificed by laying them too open to the cold
winds fi-om the Bay de Chaleur.

At Dixon's, I met with a Yankee phreriologist, and a
Yankee maker of daguerreotypes, who, after a successful
campaign in New Brunswick, were so far on their way
to Lower Canada, to experiment on the heads and faces
of the habitants along the shore of the St Lawrence,
A certain number of these peripatetic philosophers find
the British provinces a profitable country to explore. I
dare not venture to put down the number of dollars I
afterwards learned that these men had carried with them
from Campbelton, the little town to which I was going.
Such men as these not unfrequently hunt in couples j

PERIPATETIC YANKEES. 397

and the French Canadians are capital game for them.
To reach this race of men, they rarely come by the
remote route which these two were taking. By Lake
Champlain the road is shorter from New England, and
the heart of the country more easily accessible. While I
was on my short visit to St Hilaire from Montreal, two
of these experimenters approached the St Lawrence
through the eastern counties, by way of St Hyacinth
and the railroad. One of them, for two dollars, taught
how to convert a barrel of flour into a barrel of soap, in
ten minutes ! and the other sold, at a dollar a gallon, a
black varnish, which was the best in the world. We
are here in England as gullible as any nation on earth ;
but the guWers generally arise from among ourselves. It
may not be, therefore, that a better education would
protect the Lower Canadians much from this class of
impostors. They are far out of the world, and simple,
because they are so ; but education is a good thing in
many other ways, and it may be fairly tried as a giver of
greater practical wisdom too.

Dixon himself drove me down the last eight miles to
the ferry, which I reached just as the twilight ended.
Half-an-hour more took me across to the town of Camp-
belton, where I arrived about 7 P. M., having finished
this journey in six days, as I hoped to do when I left
Quebec on Monday morning. Hotels are not abundant,
but I obtained tolerable quarters for the night ; and on
the following day, through the hospitality of my New
Brunswick friends, was provided with excellent accom-
modation.

Monday^ Oct. S.^The only church at Campbelton is
a Presbyterian, and the clergymen being from home
yesterday, there was no service. I therefore walked up
the river two or three miles to AthoU House, where I
was induced to remain for a couple of days under the
hospitable roof of Mr Ferguson. To all who have ever

398 THE ElVER EESTIGOUCHE.

visited the Restlgouche, this gentleman, by character
at least, is known. He was one of the first British
settlers in this part of the colony, and one of its most
energetic improvers and explorers. Mrs Ferguson was
the first child of British parents born upon the Resti-
gouche. Where there are now so many old farms, and
comfortably settled inhabitants, it was very interesting to
find the first explorers still alive, and witnesses of the
pleasing results of their early exertions.

The Restigouche is here the boundary between Canada
and New Brunswick. Flowing from the west, it rises
partly in the Canadian and partly in the New Brunswick
highlands. It receives various tributaries, of which the
Upsalquitch is the most important from the New
Brunswick, and, six miles lower down, the Metapediac
from the Canadian side. Soon after the junction of the
latter stream, the Restigouche widens out into a
spacious harbour about two miles in breadth, and four-
and- twenty miles in length. The mouth of the harbour
or river is at Dalhousie, sixteen miles below Campbel-
ton, and it is deep and navigable for the largest ships
almost as far as the tide ascends, which is six miles
above Campbelton. It is bordered on either hand by a
belt eight or ten miles broad, of excellent hardwood
upland, resembling in quality that which I had passed
through on the Canadian side after I had emerged from
the forest. Along the river are margins of flat intervale,
sometimes narrowing to a mere fringe, at others
expanding into fertile alluvial tracts containing hundreds
of acres. Of the upland, the greater portion is still
under virgin forests ; but the flat lands, for a long way
up the river, are granted to actual or intending settlers,
aud are more or less under cultivation. Below Dalhousie
the harbour widens further into what is called Resti-
gouche Bay, and, finally, into what the early French
discoverers named the Baie de Chaleur.

VIEW ON THE RIVER. 399

We devoted this forenoon to an excursion up the
river six or seven miles, to what are called the Flat Lands^
par excellence. These consist of about five hundred
acres of alluvial flats and terraces, which skirt the river
chiefly on its left bank, forming fine arable farms. The
day was fine, the air clear, and from some of the hills
v*^hich skirt the road along the river, the view was very
beautiful. At the head of the tide-water, where the
harbour narrows into the river, its bosom is studded
with upwards of twenty small islands. These little
sunny wooded islands immediately beneath our feet ; the
interminable river stretching upwards, now seen, now
lost amid the hills and forests ; the far view to the right,
carrying the eye beyond the harbour and river-bay till
it lost itself towards Miscou Island, where the waters of
the Bay de Chaleur intermingle with those of the Gulf
of St Lawrence ; and more near, the Sugar-loaf
Mountain lifting its solitary bulk on the right bank
between us and Campbelton ; while lower down, on the
Canadian side, the loftier Tragadegash, wooded to the
very summit, towered over the entire channel : all this,
in the clear sunshine of this climate, formed a delightful
picture. And the beauty of this picture was heightened
by the frame-work of high lands on each side, between
which it was all enclosed. Enlivened by the autumnal
tints which characterise the hardwood forests of North
America, the mountain-ranges on either hand seemed to
rejoice in the bright warm rays from the sunny sky,
while they spoke to the instructed observer of agricultural
capabilities in the yet untouched wilderness, which we
Europeans are little accustomed to look for in so remote
a region as this.

The settlers on the front Concession along the river,
above and below Campbelton, are chiefly from the
Scotch island of Arran ; and they are all thriving — not
laying up money, but independent — and bringing up

400 SETTLERS FROM ARRAN.

their families, which are usually large, in comfort and
plenty. The progress of settlement in this promising
district may be judged of from the fact that, six years
ago, the front Concession or row of farms was scarcely
occupied, whereas now there are settlers as far back as
the third Concession. And yet there has been no rush of
emigration to this point, the arrivals of new settlers
being small and gradual, and rather of a drojy^nng
character. The back-settlers are chiefly Irish. Those
of this nation who do come here appear generally to
thrive, as there is not a single pauper in the whole large
county of Restigouche, with the exception of a straggling
French Canadian now and then, from the opposite
Gaspe country, on the Bay de Chaleur, or an unsteady
and idle Irish immigrant.

I went into several of the houses, generally of small
pretensions, of the settlers on the banks of the Resti-
gouche at this upper part. They were Scotch, English,
and Irish. All expressed themselves as being happy
and contented, and their children looked healthy. Very
old people abounded, which also spoke for the health of
the climate ; and it was said to be rare for children to
to die young.

Few things are more interesting In a strange and
distant land — carrying you sooner into the hearts of the
people, and giving you with them the position and
familiarity of an old friend — than to be able to talk to
them about their old haunts at home. In one cottage
the mistress was now a widow : she was from Devon-
shire, and had been many years before a servant of the
incumbent of Linton. I spoke to her of Bideford and the
Valley of Rocks, and Ilfracombe. It was holding up to
her a picture of old and happy days. "Oh sir!" she
said, as I left her, " I do so like to hear about Ilfracombe
and Combe Martin, and all them places."

But a broad Lowland Scotch tongue, and a knowledge

THE CAUSEYSIDE OF PAISLEY. 401

of Scottish localities, will make a man at home in a
greater number of houses in New Brunswick than
almost any other qualification which a Briton can
possess ; and I think I spoke more broad Scotch during
my three months' tour in New Brunswick than I had
done during twenty years of my life before.

On my previous tour upon the St John Biver, as we
were driving through a new settlement, a farmer and hi%
staff, who were cutting oats, stopped to look at us. I
was told he had come from Paisley, so we pulled up to
talk to him. " Would you raither be staunin there, or
at the corner o' the Causeyside ?" I said to him. This
unexpected allusion to his native place went straight to
his heart. He stood for some time without reply, and
then said, — " Ah, sir, the Causeyside's a bonny place."
Those who know the kind of beauty possessed by the
Causeyside of Paisley will understand how much heart
and home affection was expressed by this word
" bonny."

Among the Arran settlers on the Bestigouche, the
love of country which bound them to their island-home
has been transferred to the similar land of " mountain
and flood " in which they are located. After other lively
talk with a middle-aged thriving farmer, and comments
on the country, and comparisons with home, — " An"* is
na that hill like Goatfell?" pointing to the lofty
Tragadegash on the opposite Canadian shore. He could
scarcely express his assent ; and after our conversation
was ended, and I and my friend had entered the
carriage, he came warmly forward with his outstretched
hand, — " I maun hae anither shake o' yer ban', sir ;
ye're a real Scotchman."

Above the flat lands there are settlers scattered along
the river some ten miles farther up, as far as the mouth
of the Upsalquitch, which I have already mentioned as
VOL. I. 2 C

402 HOME KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROVINCES.

an important tributary of the Restigouche. The flat
lands at the month of this tributary are chiefly on the
Canadian side ; and there Mr Ritchie, the most extensive
lumber-merchant on the river, has a farm on which he
has this year raised five thousand bushels of oats, and
where green crops are said to thrive well. This gentle-
man informed me that, about fifty miles higher up, the
^river passes for ten or twelve miles through an undulat-
ing tract of land of considerable breadth of the richest
quality, and, as he thought, one of the most promising in
the province. His lumbering expeditions gave him
opportunities of seeing and judging of the country not
possessed by other parties ; and I insert these and other
particulars regarding this river because it struck me,
from its natural beauty and fertility, and from the
peculiarly healthy tone of character displayed by its
present rural population, to be more worthy of the
attention of those desirous of changing their homes
than either we or the New Brunswickers generally are
in the habit of supposing.

As I have above remarked, the people of the colonies
sometimes express great indignation that we at home
know so little about their capabilities, or even their
geography. But my own experience in New Bruns-
wick— which province I explored the most thoroughly
— is, that the provincials themselves know their own
country little better than we do at home. I may even
doubt if they know some parts of it so well. But
supposing our ignorance as great as some incline to
represent it, this answer to the complaint might be
made. The whole of the vast territory of New Bruns-
wick contains little more than half the population of the
cities of Manchester or Glasgow. A single street in
either city contains more people than the majority of
their towns and cities. As well, therefore, might the
householder in an obscure lane in any of our great cities

GEOGRAPHY OF THE PROVINCIALS. 403

complain that his countrymen did him wrong in not
making themselves familiar with the local geography
and whereabouts of his humble residence, as the colonial
villages grumble that they have no place in the geogra-
phical recollections of the people and Legislature at
home.

At the Governor's table one day at Fredericton, I sat
next to a lady, said to be a great heiress, the daughter
of an Englishman born, who was complaining loudly ot
the little that was known of their country at home.
" Allow me,'' I said, " to try your geography ? Is Ire-
land to the east or west of Great Britain ? " She could
not answer me ; and it was unnecessary for me further
to defend, on that day at least, our home knowledge in
geography against the attacks of the provincials.

In the afternoon I crossed the harbour from Atholl
House to Mission Point, to visit the priest, Mr Olscamps,
and the Indian settlement he has charge of upon the
adjoining land. This is a settlement of Micmacs, which
the priest has very much the merit of keeping in peace
and sobriety; and to his exertions it is mainly owing
that the Indians have been induced to settle upon the
land assigned to them by the Government, and to attend
to the operations of farming.

Ninety-four families, comprising in all 410 indivi-
duals, are here located upon 800 acres of flat land, lying
between the mountains and the river. Five years ago,
when Mr Olscamps came among them, they were nearly
all drunkards ; but he has succeeded in greatly improv-
ing their habits and condition since his arrival. He
speaks their language, and had previously been four
years among the Indians of the Hudson's Bay territory,
and had learned the art of influencing them. There are
still many idle ones among his flock, and many who will
not settle to regular labour, preferring hunting and
fishing to steady work upon the land ; but the greater

404 VILLAGE OF INDIAN FARMERS.

number cultivate their small farms, and raise potatoes,
oats, beans, and Indian corn, sufficient for their own
consumption.

I went into the houses of some of these Indian
farmers; and though thej had still the habits and
peculiarities of their race, I found them industriously
engaged with their potatoes and Indian corn. The
largest cleared farm held by one individual was 30
acres ; another had 25 cleared ; a third 20 ; many 15,
10, and so on, down to 2 or 3 acres. One of the chiefs
I visited had 20 sheep, and others had smaller numbers.
The greatest difficulty of the cure lay in his inability to
prevent the people of Campbelton, on the opposite side
of the river, from selling jire-icater to his thoughtless
flock.

In winter they work in the woods, cutting firewood
or lumbering, as many of the young men are excellent
axemen, and are in request as woodcutters. The older
men hunt martens, and sometimes make considerable
sums of money in this employment. Many prefer
wintering in the woods with their families to living in
their houses. At home, indeed, we have no idea of the
superior warmth and comfort found amid the shelter
of the woods during the w^inters of these northern
countries.

Maple-trees abound on the hardwood land of this
region, so that in spring all go to the sugar-making.
Some families make from six hundred to a thousand lb.,
which they sell at 5d. to 6d. per lb. They require all
this money to buy necessaries, as they do not as yet
raise food enough for their own consumption ; and in
spring, flour sells at Campbelton and Dalhousie as high
as eight or nine dollars a barrel.

There were four ploughs in the settlement, all of
good construction. On one of them I saw irons with
the name of " Wilkie, Uddingstone, near Glasgow,"

SUGAR-LOAF MOUNTAIN. 405

upon tliem. I sympathised with the wishes expressed
by the priest to be able to maintaiu a permanent school
among them. Difficulties stand in the way of a Govern-
ment grant, inasmuch as, by the Canadian regulations,
aid is given only to schools which have a certain
minimum number of pupils. It is in forming the school,
and breaking in the children to attend at all, that the
main difficulty lies. When formed, it might possibly
be made self-supporting. So far as I have learned,
all the provincial Governments have been anxious to
minister, as far as their means and knowledge go, to
the comfort and improvement of these vanishing races
of people ; though individual feeling and party bias
in the provinces, as at home, occasionally obstruct for
a time the adoption of the most judicious and beneficent
proposals.

Tuesday^ Oct. 9. — After breakfast this morning we
climbed the sugar-loaf mountain — a warm, difficult, and
steep ascent over rocks, stones, and windfalls. It is
upwards of eight hundred feet in height, though not high
enough, as I had expected, to give us a view over the
uplands towards the south, though these are not so high
as those on the Canadian side. The prospect from the
summit was extensive and beautiful. Up the river, the
eye penetrated as far as the gorge through which the
Metapediac enters the Restigouche from the north, and
down — beyond Campbelton and Dalhousie on the one
side, and the Tragadegash Mountain on the other — far
along the Bay de Chaleur, almost to its mouth. North
and south, hardwood ridges, with intervening valleys,
extended as far as our elevation permitted us to see.
It was clear that, for many miles on either side of the
river, the land was naturally favourable to agricultural
settlements, and partook in a great degree of the good
qualities of the soils I had passed over on my way from
the Canadian forest to the ferry on the Restigouche.

406 GEOLOGICAL STEUCTUEE AND FEETILITY.

It is interesting to observe how geological structure
is connected with and explains all this. Over the lime-
stone formation, which is observed about the upper
Metapediac Lake, lies a thick deposit of sandstone, which
forms the surface of the pine-clad country I passed
through for a considerable distance on my way towards
the south. To this succeed a series of beds of a more
mixed, shaly, calcareous, and sandy nature, which form
the improved hardwood lands that border the shores of
the Restigouche River, harbour, and bay, and of the
broader Bay de Chaleur. They comprehend the repre-
sentatives of the Devonian and mountain limestone
systems, though, in a new country like this, so little
explored, and, from its covering of forest, so difficult to
explore, the limits or details of these two formations, or
of their subdivisions, have not as yet been made out.
But it is to the presence of these formations that the
good land of this region is to be ascribed, and by their
extent, in a great measure, that it is limited. Climate,
therefore, unless it be extreme, is by no means the most
influential element in determining the agricultural capa-
bilities of a country. Its geological character has still
more to do with its economical prospects, and is deserving
of a study not less careful and minute, both by natives
and foreigners, than is usually given to climatic con-
ditions.

The part of Lower Canada to which I have so often
alluded as forming the northern shores of the Restigouche
and of the Bay de Chaleur, constitutes what is called the
county of Bonaventure. In this county, especially along
the shore towards the east, there is much good land,
many villages or towns, intelligent settlers, and extensive
settlements. From all I saw and learned, I believe it to
be one of the most favourable parts of Lower Canada for
the homes of British settlers. It is far from the seat of
Government, and on that account more likely to suffer

AGEICULTUKAL SOCIETIES. 407

neglect ; but it is somewhat nearer to us, and more
accessible from our British ports, chiefly through vessels
which bring the yearly supplies of timber to the British
islands.

Agricultural improvement is not unthought of even
here. I crossed over this afternoon to the north side of
the harbour, to be present at an agricultural show for
the western part of the county. There were altogether
130 articles exhibited — cattle, some Durhams, but chiefly
Ayrshires ; sheep, and horses, which were very creditable
to so new a country. The potatoes, turnips, and cab-
bages, &c., also were all excellent. It is complained, as
in some parts of the States, that the market for mutton
does not increase so fast as the production of sheep.
The societies, therefore, are beginning to agitate the
propriety of encouraging the introduction and rearing of
merinos, for the sake of the wool, or, in the meantime,
as more immediately attainable, of a cross between the
Leicester and the South Down.

If not always a sure indication of progress, this exis-
tence of agricultural societies in all these remote places
is a sign that, in the minds of a certain number of per-
sons, there exists a desire to progress. There are two
of these societies in this remote Canadian county of
Bonaventure, and others in the county of Gaspe. The
Canadian Legislature add £3 to every £1 which is
subscribed by the members of a society, provided that
the whole sum given to the county from the pro-
vincial purse do not exceed £160 a-year. Thus, £25
raised on the spot secure £100 to give away in prizes.
Each great district, also — of which there are four in
Lower Canada — receives in succession the large grant of
£500, which is given in prizes at the great quadrennial
shows held in succession in these several districts. The
district of Montreal has the advantage of this grant dur-
ing the present year.

408 PROSPEEOUS LUMBER-TRADE.

The soil at tlie foot of the hills in this neighbourhood
is much infested with the Galeopsis tetraJiit — the day-
nettle, as it is called here. And the curious thing about
it is, that the seeds of this weed are often turned up in
hoards or nests, of handfuls at a time, especially upon
new land. Some animal of course has collected them,
and stored them away for winter food.

Crossing again to the New Brunswick side, I started
for Dalhousie, sixteen miles down the river, and at the
mouth of the harbour. Both Campbelton and Dalhousie
are new towns. Twenty years ago there were only
three houses in Dalhousie, and only one old house where
Campbelton now stands. Both are already considerable
places, and contain together upwards of 2000 of a fixed, ,
besides the less stationary lumbering population.

The lumber-trade, which in so many other parts of
New Brunswick has failed, and given rise to much dis-
content, was described to me as being on the Kestigouche
as prosperous as ever. But the mode of conducting it
has been changed. Instead of making advances, as
formerly, to persons who led out parties into the woods,
and delivered the timber in spring to the merchant at
a price, the merchant now engages his own gangs of
cutters, places his foremen over them, provides their
supplies, and the logs when they arrive are his own.
Measures are taken also to diminish or do away alto-
gether with the enormous commissions and agents'
charges, which, on both sides of the Atlantic, have
hitherto stood so much in the way of a steady and fairly
profitable transaction of business on the part of the
manufacturer, or of the merchant exporter.

The Bay de Ohaleur, and Restigouche harbour and
bay, are somewhat famous in the history of this colony.
The French first colonised this river, and established
forts and settlements upon it. British fleets and troops
have fought in it, and the remains of French defences

PRICE OF FLOUR. 409

are still to be seen on many of the points most suitable
for defence. Mr Ferguson preserves around Atholl
House several large guns, which had been buried and
left behind on the site of an old battery upon the Cana-
dian shore, a few miles above his residence.

Oct. 11. — Immediately behind Dalhousie rises Challe-
fours Hill, from which an extensive view is obtained,
not only of the river-scenery already described, but of
the newly-opened country up the Eel River, a stream
which flows into the bay a few miles below Dalhousie.
Up this river there are many new settlers, all Scotch at
the settlement of Dundee, and a mixture of Scotcii and
Irish at that of Colebrook. These have all been located
within these five or six years, and are all prospering.
Every kind of grain ripens. Even Indian corn —
the short eight-rowed yellow variety — is a sure crop.
Only nine years ago, when the local agricultural society
was established, it was believed that wheat could not be
grown ; now most farmers grow not only enough for
their own consumption, but have some for sale. The
variety sown is a hardy red chaifed spring wheat, with
a long red beard^ known as the Red Russian. This
variety has hitherto escaped the midge, and is less subject
to be shaken when over-ripe.

Still the lumberers, and the Indians, and the towns-
people, and the new settlers require imported flour ; and
it shows how imperfect the means of transport still are
about the mouth of the St Lawrence, or how scarce
capital or mercantile competition, that when flour sells
at Quebec at 20s. a barrel, it brings here 3os., and that
on the closing of the river it rises here at once to 50s. a
barrel. At this time of my visit, though still early in
October, it is 40s. a barrel for cash at Dalhousie. One
of the benefits of the harder times on the North Ame-
rican rivers will be, to wean the lumberers from their
attachment to the finest and fairest flour. They have

410 FOSSILIFEROUS LIJtlESTONE.

grown up under the idea that the darker flour produced
from their home-grown red wheats was inferior in nutri-
tive quality, and not good enough for their subsistence.
The sooner all parties are disabused of this erroneous
impression the better — the less of imported flour will be
required in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Lower
Canada — the more self-sustaining they will become —
and the more prosperous the agricultural interest of
the colonies.

Oats imported from Prince Edward's Island are here
selling at Is. 8d. currency per bushel, the freight being
usually 4d. a bushel from that island, and 3d. from
Quebec. This grain is extensively imported from Prince
Edward's Island to New Brunswick. Labour is said to
be cheaper there — £15 to £18, with food, being the
wages of men, who, on the Restigouche, would ask £25
to £35 currency. But labour is always higher where
lumbering is carried on to any extent.

The old red sandstones are seen in a nearly horizontal
position on many parts of this coast. Along the shore,
about a mile below Dalhousie, an interesting cliff" section
is exhibited of highly inclined rocks, consisting of lime-
stones and calcareous shales, full of fossils, intermingled
with harder, somewhat metamorphic beds — altered pos-
sibly by the neighbourhood of trap-rocks, which also
abound along the south shore of the bay. Among the
fossils were abundant large madrepores, cyathophylla,
and productae, with tubipores, branched corals, delthyris,
&c. ; but whether the beds were upper silurian or moun-
tain limestone, as they are coloured by Lyell — I suppose
from Logan's survey — I had not leisure to collect fossils
.enough satisfactorily to determine. Any scientific
geologist who may hereafter visit the Bay de Chaleur
will find this an interesting point to examine.

This morning being fine, Mr Campbell of Dalhousie
was kind enough to drive me up the Eel Eiver as far

LUMBERERS BECOME FARMERS. 411

as the newest settlements lately planted there. We
penetrated to the very farthest log-huts at the extremity
of the last new road driven into the forest. The settlers
are not altogether without society ; and when of the
same country and religion, as they suffer alike, so they
sympathise deeply with each other, and are ever ready
to give a hearty and willing assistance to a distressed
neighbour. Though not so close together as in the
French settlements, where the long narrow farm system
prevails, yet 80 or 100, or even 200 acre lots, do not
separate people very widely, and the habit of erecting
two log huts opposite each other on farms separated only
by the road, gives one near neighbour at least in a dis-
trict which is rapidly filling up. To the enjoyment of a
fair measure of happiness, only a few intimate friends are
necessary ; and we who live among a thickly crowded
population know little how strongly, in a wilderness
country, the hearts of neighbours become knit together
where those external influences of more civilised life
are excluded by which differences and discontent are
most frequently awakened.

The idea I have formerly alluded to as being enter-
tained in New Brunswick, that lumbering — spending the
winter in the woods cutting down trees with the axe,
and the spring in guiding the logs and rafts down the
swollen streams — is the more dignified occupation, and
that the lumberer degrades himself when he becomes a
farmer — such an idea calls up a smile on our faces at
home. Such, however, was everywhere, till recently,
the notion entertained by the active enterprising young
men on the North American rivers. But bad times, and
perhaps other influences, are correcting these notions,
while, at the same time, they are improving their morals.
They begin now to consume tea Instead of ardent spirits.
They thus save money ; and seeing that the farmers —
though they cannot show so much ready money as they

412 INFLUENCE OF THE MERCANTILE INTEREST.

are themselves sometimes master of — are, on the whole,
more independent, and less liable to great vicissitudes
than themselves, they now look to farming as a pur-
suit to settle down in, are buying land, spending their
spring leisure In clearing it, and, when they have pre-
pared it for their families, in placing them permanently
upon it. Of this class of settlers are many of those
v/hose farms I saw on my excursion up the Eel River
to-day, and It is In this way that what has been called
the failure of the lumber-trade — which, at the shipping
ports, has made the merchants exclaim loudly against
the change of the timber-duties at home, and has even
put the cry of Annexation into the mouths of many^s
really leading to the most permanently beneficial results
for the colonies themselves. The steady settled farmer
is worth, to the future welfare and prosperity of the
colony, a dozen unsettled lumberers, who this season
may cut timber on the provincial rivers for the merchants
of St John or Quebec ; the next may be off to the Aroos-
took or the Penobscot, in the service of the merchants of
Bangor or Portland ; and the third may be found in
Georgia, toiling among the pine-barrens for the lumber-
merchants of Boston ; and who, If they remained in the
colony, would continue an unsteady and unthrifty race.
It Is not denied that the mercantile interest has hitherto
exercised, in some of the North American colonies, more
than a due share in the management of affairs, and that
past legislation has been biassed considerably by this
dominant Influence. It cannot be doubted that the same
Influence has also operated, through the press and
the hustings, in creating, or endeavouring to create, an
impression In the provincial mind as to the feelings of
people at home, and as to the purpose and ultimate
tendency of home legislation, which will not, I think,
be justified by further knowledge and experience.

To show the natural capability of the new land these

PKODUCE OF POTATOES. 413

men settle upon, and how, at this time of potato-failure,
they have husbanded their seed-potatoes, 1 may mention
the returns obtained this year by several of these settlers
on the forks of the Eel Eiver, as I took them down from
their own mouths. One of them planted 4 barrels, cut
into small sets, and dug up 142 barrels ; another planted
3 barrels and housed 60, besides eating of the crop
all summer ; a third planted 3J, and took up 60, besides
consuming, since the 1st of August, what were required
by a family of six children three times a-day. These
large crops are given by land on which the wood is cut
in the fall, the trees burned in spring, the ashes spread,
and the seed put in. The comparative greatness of the
returns may be judged of by the fact that, in the highly
farmed and highly manured land around Edinburgh, 4
bolls, or 16 cwt., are usually planted ; and 6 to 8 tons
(8 to 10 fold) are reckoned large crops to raise on the
West coast. In Ireland 10 to 12 tons are frequent,
but even this return is small compared to that of these
necessity-compelled, thrifty New Brunswickers.

I went into the furthest log -hut upon the last clearing.
It was warm and comfortable ; and a good stove in it
not only kept the inmates warm, but gave them the
means of cooking. These cooking stoves are found very
convenient in North America. Numerous varieties of
them are exhibited at the larger agricultural shows, and
some of them do their work with a great economy of
fuel — an article which lavish expenditure in past years
is beginning to make scarce and dear in many of the
more densely-settled districts.

I found the wife and five clean healthy children in the
hut. She was very content, and would not go home if
she had an opportunity. It was foolishness which
brought them away ; and they are not so well off yet as
when at home, but hoped in a short time to be better off,
as I have no doubt industry would soon make them.

414 DISOBEDIENCE OF CHILDREN.

Potatoes, oats, and turnips were the crops growing on
their first year's clearing — ail luxuriant and healthy.

An anecdote told me by a friend at Dalhousie
illustrates very graphically one of the most important of
the social and domestic differences by which our own
homes, and those of most of our colonies, are distinguished
from those of the United States. " A settler of many
years at Dalhousie, a shoemaker by trade, had saved
£500 in money, and had five or six boys growing up,
when he took it in his head to go off to Wisconsin. Six
months after his departure, a small vessel from Quebec
entered the harbour of Dalhousie, and, when evening
came on, a depressed-looking man in shabby clothing
landed from the vessel, and walked up to my house.
When he came in, I was surprised to recognise my old
neighbour the shoemaker. ' You are surprised,' he said ;
' but though I was a fool to go away, I have had courage
enough to come back. When I had got to Wisconsin,
my boys — who had been good boys here — began to
neglect their work, and disregard me. I durst not
correct them, sir, or I should have been mobbed. They
soon learned this, and my authority was gone. My heart
was sore, my money was melting away, my children
were a sorrow instead of a comfort to me, and talked
of starting for themselves. I sold off and came down to
Canada. " Now, my boys," says I, " I have got you
under the British flag again, and we'll have no more
rebellion." So I kept my boys in hand, but we didn't
get on as we used to do ; and, at last, I determined to
come back to Dalhousie. What's the world to me, sir,
if my boys are to be a vexation to me ? But I haven't
a penny of money ; and our clothing is so scanty that I
am ashamed to bring them all ashore in daylight.' *

* How differeut this picture of the domestic relations, in these new
States, from the representations which have come down to us regarding
the ancient republics of Greece and Rome ! How different, for example,

ANCIENT EEPUBLICS AND MODERN. 415

" So I gave him," added my informant, " the use of
a house of mine that happened to be empt j j his wife and
bojs were brought ashore the same night, and they are
again an Industrious, if not so united a family as before."

from that fine old picture presented us by Cicero {De Senectute) of
Appius Claudius, who, after being five years censor, having brought
water into the city of Rome, and having built the famous Appian Way,
had at last become blind, and retired into the bosom of his family. He
thus makes Cato speak of the old man — "Quatuor robustos filios, quinque
filias, tantam domum, tantas clientelas, Appius regebat et senex et
coecus. Intentum animum tamquam arcum habebat, nee languescens
sticcumbebat senectuti. Tenebat non modo auctoritatem sed etiam
imperium in suos, metuebant servi, verebantur liberi, casum omnes
habebant ; vigebat in illo domo patrius mos et disciplina." Love, fear,
and reverence were entertained towards the ancient father in that old
republic — what better things can have taken their place in the new ?

END OF VOL. I.

PRINTED BV WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBUUGH.

t«^

D

MAR 2 0 1930