X V^^ \^ ^\%* -» IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1.1 lit Itt u «* ■ 140 11.25 i 1.4 m 1.6 6" FhotogFa{^ ^Sdeoces CorpcHBtion 23 WtS! ViAiN STI WIISTn,N.y. 14SM (7l6)37a-4S03 CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHIVI/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical MIcrorrproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques ^ Tttchnical and Bibliographic Notas/Notas tachniquaa at bibliographiquaa Tha inatituta liaa attamptad to obtain tha baat original copy availabia for filming. Faaturaa of thia copy which may ba bibliographically uniqua, which may altar any of tha imagaa In tha raproduction, or which may aignificantly changa tha uaual mathod of filming, ara chackaid balow. 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Tha last racordad frama on aach mic^'oficha shall contain tha symbol — ^ (moaning "CON- TINUED"), or tha aymbol ▼ (moaning "END"), whichavar applias. Maps, piatM, charta, ate, may ba filmad at diffarant raduction ratioa. Thosa too larga to ba antiraly Includad in ona axpoaura ara filmad baginning in tha uppar laft hand cornar, laft to right and top to bottom, aa many framas aa raquirad. Tha following diagrama illustrata tha mathod: L'axamplaira film* fut raproduit grAca A la gdnAroaitA da: La bibliothAqua das Archives publiquas du Canada Las imagaa suivantas ont At* raproduitas avac la plus grand soin, compta tanu da la condition at da la nattat« da I'axampialra film«, at an conformity avac las conditions du contrat de filmaga. Las axampiairas originaux dont la couvartura en papiar est imprim«a sont filmte an commen9ant par la premier plat at en terminant soit par la darnlAre paga qui comporte une empreinte d'impreasion ou d 'illustration, soit par la second piat, selon le cas. Tous las autres enemplaires originaux sbnt filmte an commandant par la pramlAre paga qui comporte une empreinte d'impreasion ou d'illustration at en terminant par la darnlAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un dea symboles suivants apparaftra sur la darnlAre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le aymbola — ► aignifia "A SUIVRE". *e symbols y signifie "FIN". Les cartas, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent fttre fiimte A dea taux de r«duction diff«rents. Loniqua le document eat trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul ciich*, 11 est film* A partir de I'angia supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant la nombre d'imagea nAcaaaaira. Les diagrammes suivants illustrant la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 IV TH] IMPOR WHO RE) LONDO C A N A D A IN THE YEARS 1832, 1833, AND 1834. CONTAININO IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS TO PERSONS INTENDING TO EMIGRATE THITHER IN 1835. BY AN EX-SETTLER, WHO RESIDED CHIEFLY " IN THE BUSH " FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS. DUBLIN: PHILIP DIXON HARDY. LONDON: RICHARD OROOMBRIDGE, PANYER-ALLEY, PATERNOSTER-ROW. MDCCCXXXV. #: I • 'ir^^^X: ' ADVERT.^ 3EME NT. The writer of the following" pages has resided in Canada, chiefly in " the Bush," for the last two years ; he has had some experience of the life of a Settler, and has seen some> thing of the inducements and the advantages the country OiToTs to such. Extrinsic circumstances have caused his return to Ireland, which he does not again intend to leave for Ame-ica ; and believing himself thereby free from any unfair bias, he has written a few of the most prominent remarks on the subject, his experience has suggested, which he now offers to the better classes of those who intend emigrating thither the ensuing Spring. Dublin, January, 1835. Aware that the British public have, in many instances, been made the dupes of individuals interested in " Emi- gration speculations," by the publication of works calcu- lated to mislead them ; as the gentleman who is the author of the following pages, does not wish his name to appear ill the title, I feel called upon thus to authenticate the work, which may be relied on, as written by the indi- vidual circumstanced as stated in the foregoing paragraph, and giving a fair and impartial statement of things as they are at the present moment in British America. I may, I trust, be allowed to add, without any charge of un- fairness to others, that I have been induced to publish the little work, from the conviction that it contains much im- portant practical information, and many hints for persona intending to emigrate, not to be met with in any other work yet published. P. DIXON HARDY, 37, Stephen's Green, Dublin. January, IS35. m. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Pilte Emigration— Canadian Prospects — Difference in the management of Farms— Danger of being defrauded in the purchase of Land— Value of Land— Mills and Mill-streams— Comparative desirability of « the Bush" and of a « cleared Farm"— Incivility and rudeness of the lower classes 4 CHAPTER n. Equipments — Route — Time of Departure— Game in America— Bank of Upper Canada— Hotels— Time for getting in Crops 31 CHAPTER III. Choice of Land and Situation— Prices of Land 46 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Page On Clearing Land— Cost of Clearing— Wages— Fencing «5 CHAPTER V, On Cattle and Live Stock— Browse for Cattle— Pigs— Canada Pigs— Difficulty of keeping Sheep in Canada —Purchase and Sale of Cattle— Price and Advantage of Horses ^3 CHAPTER VL Barn— Hous&— Sawing Timber— Root Houses — Dairies —"Bees"— Garden— Crops: Wheat, Oats, Indian Corn, Potatoes, Turnips— Price of Wheat —Barter System 103 CANADA. CHAPTER I. EMIGRATION—CANADIAN PROSPECTS, Ke. Within the last three or four years very many persons have emigrated to Upper Canada^ among whom were no few of .the class I would address ; that several of these have met with a degree of success, sufficient to justify the step they have talcen is, no doubt, perfectly true ; but that a great number have failed in doing so, and have been much disappointed, is equally true. I mention this " in limine," not for the purpose of founding thereon any general arguments, but because that I have remarked the idea of failure is seldom at all connected with Canada ; on the contrary, that country has become invested with such glowing colours, as not only to bid defiance to the fear of disappointment, but also to have induced many to tf 6 EMIGRATION. 1 turn their thoughts to it, as a residence, who were in no wise so necessitated, and who, but a short time previously, liad hardly known there was such a place. This I ascribe much to works lately written by interested individuals, in which all the advantages attending on an emigration thither arc strenuously set forth, and which abundantly quote instances of satisfaction and success: gentlemen purchase these, without sufficiently remembering the object for which they have been written, and the class for whom they are chiefly intended, viz. labourers ; and reading them with very great in- terest, imbibe from them ideas not always the most just. Now, Canada is pre-eminently a country for the labourer— universally to him it may be said, " Be sober and industrious, and you will surely rise, not to independence only, but to affluence ;" remember that is, the affluence of a labourer. To a gentleman, on the contrary, it might be said with as much earnestness and truth : " you will certainly not rise — but be active, energetic, and prudent, and in a few years you will be independent, that is, you will have abundance of all the necessaries and comforts of life ; you can eat, drink, «i"jcl «leep, and be clothed in a plain manner ; and you will possess a few hundred acres of forest, not very valuable, and not very readily converted into cash, but which, while you remain on them, will supply CANADIAN PBOhPECTS, &c. you to tliis extent." This is tlie goal that may bo termed " success," and in order to attain it you have every need of energy, activity and prudence; or a great deal of money, in favour of which there is ever an exception, " dives est omnia I" It is only, therefore, as long as emigration is confined to gen- tlemen, possessing such qualities, and satisfied with the ultimate prospect of such success, that it may be strictly deemed applicable to their class, and desirable to them as a pursuit. However, were I asked even by them, the question so often asked of me — " would you advise us to go to Ca- nada ?" I should answer it, using an Irishman's privilege, by two other questions : first, "do your circumstances and situation here demand a change?" and secondly, "are you prepared to meet sundry little privations and roughnesses, such as we seldom meet in Ireland ?" That the lat- ter is quite unavoidable, I rather think the testi- mony of every gentleman settler will readily cor- roborate ; and unless the former be equally so, you are very unwise to leave your country. I am perfectly q,ware of the difficulty of ad- vancement here, and of the number of eager can- didates there are to be met with on every side, and am ready to admit that superiority of intellect, or very considerable interest, may be deemed nearly necessary for success, while in Canada a :i i 8 EMIGRATION. ! very moderate share of intellect, imd no interest at all (except interest of money) suffices for all the settler's purposes — yet, notwithstanding, on any thing approaching a comparison between the two countries, or in any case permitting a choice, I would certainly repeat again and again that trite maxim, " let those stay at home who can stay :" this may with great safety be laid down as a most general rule, ant* were it more commonly adhered to, we would not meet with, in Canada so usually, persons regretting the day they had first be- held it. ^ The young and energetic, with from £500, to £1000, who can find no open here congenial to their dispositions and their situations in life — who can use their hands and eyes to some purpose — and who, content with plain comfortable mediocrity, seek and expect nothing more brilliant, are, of the better classes, those of all others the best adapted for Canada. We have heard much of the sui- tability of the country to men with families, but this is more applicable to the labouring classes than to gentlemen — for of them the elderly sel- dom bear expatriation over well — and young fami- lies brought up in such a class of life, are not over useful in "the bush" — where every one must work, at least of those whose finances are at all limited. To the fathers of families I would rather CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 9 say, strain every point to remain where you are yourselves, and send out your sons as they grow up ; — but let their minds previously be as much formed and as much improved as possible, for Canada is a bad country for very young unformed minds-^it is a place rude and rough, and offers not a few temptations to wildness. Moreover, its pur- suits are so very " matter of fact," so ingrossing, and gross — being altogether tha substantialities of life«— that mental improvement is lost sight of: now, though a deficiency in this respect may not be very material, or much refinement very valu- able to a " bushman,** yet one would regret to see their son differ nothing in mind from the mere workman he hired. Every kind of information becomes proportion ably valuable to you, the more you are thrown upon your own resources, and the less it is within your reach to gain advice or assistance from olhers ; and here I may remark, laying this down as an axiom, I never can agree in the assertion you have so often heard, " that those perfectly ignorant of any thing like improved farming in this country, are the best adapted for Canadian farming." There is certainly a great difference between the two, but if you have not sufficient observation and intellect to find where and when this exists, and to apply your informa- tion accordingly, you must be a very dunce i»- A 3 10 EMIGRATION. 11 ■.p ■ '1: i deed, and will live and die a poor one wherever you be. But it is not my intention to waste your time and my own, in any attempt at enumerating the individuals, or even the classes whom emigration would or would not suit, for this must always de- pend on a thousand little circumstances in each case, that have nothing in common, and that can be only known well to the one man himself. I have given you a few data, and a case to which they are applicable ; and from these and their own know- ledge, capabilities, and feelings, my readers must determine for themselves. I would only endea- vour to induce them to do so with strict impar- tiality, and not to permit the love of novelty, hopes too bright, or statements perhaps a little too glowing to mislead them. It is perhaps equally vain to attempt laying down any general rule, for the sum of money, ne- cessary on starting, to reach within a reasonable time, the goal that I have mentioned, viz. — a com- fortable farm, with eighty or one hundred acres cleared, producing enough for the consumption of a house, and a sufficient surplus to exchange for every thing else you can require ; money so much varies in its capabilities, according to the hands in which it is placed. I spent a day with a gentle- man who had been settled two years; he had CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 11 I I brought G or £7000 with him, and had at that time expended 14 or £1500, but for this he had very little indeed to show; about twenty acres were cleared and cropped, and pretty well done, but his log house, which had cost him an immen- sity, was the ugliest and most uncomfortable edifice I had ever beheld ; his barn was not half finished, be had no kind of farm yard or offices, and no passable roadj^to his clearing — scarcely a foot-path, yet he liked the country, and was going on well I He certainly had some very nice cattle, but he had also several workmen, who idled most industriously, were miserable hands, and were paid two dollars a month more than any others were receiving, even of the best From his house I went to another gentleman's a few miles distant, and would never have believed such a difference could have been between the clearings of two, whose situations were so similar, and whose op- portunities were exactly equal; nothing cculd more forcibly illustrate the difference between men. This gentleman had one year start of the other, and he had only built a small log cottage, that perhaps cost two hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars — it was very pretty and very comfortable ; but he had eighty acres cleared, a fine barn, farm yard and ofiices, fine cattle, mea- dows, crops, fences ; every thing about hir was 12 EMIGRATION. m IP w "V flourishing, every thing he grew was sought for. seed, and the highest price paid for it ; he had a store also, and in fact made money of every thing he looked at ; still he maintained his rank as a gentleman, was a very gentlemanly man, and was considered the first person in that part of the country : nor was he out of pocket one-third of the same the other had wasted ; he did not like Canada, and meditated soon leaving it. Now both these were, as I have said, precisely equally situ- ated, they had both been in his Majesty's service, and had gotten their land free. While such a difference, therefore, exists between men, it is impossible to say generally what money will do ; there are, moreover, very many different ways of going out, travelling, living, &c., and as many different grades of expense to correspond : thus you may expend forty pounds on your voyage across the Atlantic, or go for eight pounds ; you may travel to Toronto for three pounds, or lay out thirty pounds, &c. ; however, this much may be said generally, the more straitened are your finances, the longer and harder you must work, and the more privations you must encounter ; you must also seek land proportionably cheaper, and a situation less desirable. I have said from £300 to £1000, for I can hardly think less than £300, to start at all as a gentleman, sufficient, and CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 18 I would not advise the expenditure of more than £J000 generally, for 1 do not think the best Canada can give you, worth more. Were I limited to the latter sum as my capital, 1 would not ex- pend more than one-half of it on a farm, and I would seek to place the remainder at interest, at all events until the improved state of my farm offered me a very plain opportunity of employing it with advantage connected therewith. Govern- ment, I believe, give five per cent, but you will not find it difficult to procure six per cent, on good security ; this I consider a better mode of employ- ing surplus money than in any speculations foreign from your pursuits as a farmer ; keeping a store, it is true, is money-making in some hands, but it requires more than ordinary tact and cleverness, or "to have been born in the trade," as Anna Comnena was born in the purple ; indeed I sus- pect there is no great open to make money in any merchandize way, at least to the uninitiated. I have known several who vested sums thus, and expected they would have received them con- siderably increased by the time they were ready to depart into " the bush," but were in this sadly disappointed. British goods are often a complete drug in the chief towns of both provinces, and are not unfre- qnently sold, when the possessors arc pressed for «. 1-1 EMIGRATION. I ready money, at twenty per cent. less than they have cost in England. However, your temptations to speculation on this head will probably not be great; but when you reach Canada, so many things will be said to you about land — the sudden local rises which have taken place in its value — the sums of money thereby realized — the gradual increase in the value of all land in Canada — the great bargains offered for ready money, &c., that you will run no small risk. Many, expecting a certain and early profit, are unwarily led thus to employ money, for which, during many years they get no return, and the want of which they per- haps find not a little inconvenient and injurious. Now, in the first place, as a stranger and a new comer, you are open to very great fraud — there are no more greedy or unconscionable sharks in the world than the ''land sharks" of Canada; every misrepresentation will be made to you, and so plausibly, that until you have acquired a con- siderable knowledge of the country, you will not find it easy to detect them ; again, of this you may be pretty certain, that where there are lots to be sold very cheap, or land in the market offering any very probable advantage, there are always knowing hands ready to snap at it, for every store and tavern keeper in the province is a land jobber, and many hundreds besides, who have ; CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 15 better opportunities, and buy on much better terms than you can possibly. But passing all these by, land affords at best a very slow return ; ready money is hard to be gotten, and the increase in value M very uncertain indeed : for my part, I am satisfied in nineteen cases out of twenty, money placed out at common interest will, in a given number of years, make a better return than in the best land speculations. However, I would only warn you against plunging into such at once. Buy a lot or two lots, and go to live on them as speedily as you can ; and afterwards, if you have money to spare, and wish to possess land, look out fOi.* some fair offer in your own neighbourhood, where you are as likely to find it as elsewhere, when you have had both leisure and experience to be certain of its desirability, and cannot be readily deceived touching its value. Much has been said on the general value of land in the pro\ince, and the rapid increase that has had place in it within the last seven or eight years; interested individuals flatter themselves this will still go forward, until, as I have heard some assert will be the case in a very few years, land in Canada will be worth as much as land in England. This is absurd : it is true land sells in some spots enormously dear ; I saw lately a gen- tleman's house advertised for sale near Niagara, I! la DMIGllATlOiN. ?j; ft and as much land as the purchaser would wish, at seventy-five pounds an acre; I have known twenty-five pounds paid for some near Peterborough, and building lots and houses set and sell for as much in Toronto as they do in Dublin. Perhaps several such instances might be adduced, but still these are quite fictitious values — they will be found so I have no doubt ; and whether they stand or fall, afford no rule whereby to judge of land generally. To the exertions of the Canada Company, and the notice into which they have brought the country, may be very mainly attributed the past rise ; but to argue thence that such will continue, is attributing to them a very great extent of power indeed ; nor have I heard any arguments whereon to found this creed of continued advance in the value of land, of much more solidity than the very inno- cent one—" that such and such progression has been, and why shall it not be ?" Without, there- fore, entering on any general or learned arguments to establish the contrary, I shall only say for myself, I look over the maps of the upper province, and I see large tracts of well-situated land, that the chain of the surveyor has never yet crossed. I see a number of townships that have not yet been settled, and thousands and thousands of acres in the oldest and best settled still unoccu- M' CANADIAN PROSPECTS, A:c. 17 pied ; 1 then turn to the states, and I see as fine land as any in tlie world offered for l;^th dollar an acre, possessing as many advantages fully as that of Canada to those who do not object to the go- vernment; moreover, I read a recommendation Ml one of the President's late speeches, to reduce this price, as the increase of population obtained from Europe, was of infinitely more value to them than any thing to be made of their land ; and I am very much inclined not only to doubt that any rise in the present prices will take place for many years, but even that the present scale will be maintained. : Mills and mill-streams are another subject on which you will be assailed. If you inquire about a lot which happens to have as much water running on it, as would fill your hat in twenty-four hours, you are told of " a never- failing creek,*' with ex- tensive " water privileges, and great opens for a saw-roill, &c." Take these all as matters of course, but when you meditate thereon, do not add much on account of them to your estimation of the lot. Mills are occasionally, and in certain hands, no doubt, profitable, but they are a rank speculation ; I was very particular in my enquiries about them, for I had intended building a saw mill and a grist mill, and gave up the plan in consequence of the information I received. I never met with any il 18 EMIGRATION. ,'.1 I •■■ I i. i person who had actually made money by them ; on the contrary, I have known some possessing them with apparently considerable advantages, plain industrious men, who were in very distressed circumstances, and becoming poorer and poorer every day — mortgaging, begging, and borrowing to live at all. By a particular friend, one of the highest officers of the crown in upper Canada, who himself had mills, and whose brother had mills also, I was strenuously advised to have iio- thing to do with them ; he told me he had lost more by his, which were very fine, and in a fine old country, in a very few years, than he had ever hoped in. his most sanguine moments to have made by them. They are very expensive to build and uphold — every thing about them costs great sums of money : and often your flour will cost you as much to convey it to the market, as it will sell for when there. In the old settlements, the business, I suspect, is all occupied, and the " old country gentleman" will not likely be preferred to the yankee or common man ; in the new settle- ments, the wheat is seldom good for the first three or four years, it goes in too late, or comes off too late, or some littleness or other prevents its being prime, and bad wheat never pays the mill ; more" over, in new settlements the mills are much oftener idle than at work. Of the two, a saw-mill 'I CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c 10 is the more likely to pay, and this it possibly may do, provided you be an active, clever man — that your mill cut fair, and your dam be well-built, and a substantial one — that there be a brisk de- mand for your " lumber " by people who can pay for it — and that you keep your mill working to its best ; this last is quite necessary — it should cut day and night, and to do so you will require four men and two yokes of oxen. The expense of keeping a mill going thus, will be perhaps six hundred pounds a year or more, after which is to come the interest of your money, and the value of your time. A saw-mill costs to erect from eight hundred to two thousand dollars, and a Hour mill from four thousand to twelve thousand, according to the facility or difficulty of build- ing the dam. But even on a saw-mill, with the greatest apparent open, I would be most cau- tious of speculating, and a flour-mill I would have nothing to say to ; however, though I would not set before me building a milU or be very anx- ious in seeking sites, yet I would prefer giving eight or ten per cent, more for a lot with a good mill-stream ; for some chance may come — a town may be built near you, or something else may make a site valuable ; beside, the power of spe- culating in cautious hands is not so undesirable. There is yet another subject very interesting f)l EMKJUATION. to a new settler, and on which, both here and in Ca- nada, you will meet with no little ditference of opi- nion — viz. on the comparative desirability of " the bush " and of a " cleared farm " to gentlemen with some money ; for my part, I would much prefer clearing a farm for myself in "the bush," and I consider " cleared farms " more adapted for those who have been farmers here, and who have not been exactly classed with gentlemen, but a rougher, plainer grade of emigrants ; for, in the first place, farming in Canada is not as agreeable a pursuit for a gentlemf»n as it is here, for the difficulty of getting trustworthy people to act for you is so much greater, and their pay so much higher, the sale of your produce, therefore, is attended with divers little unpleasantnesses it is not here — and you are more brought into contact with persons naturally rude, and whose interests and objects in your dealings with them do not render much civility on their part necessary ; meeting this all at once is very apt to disgust — I would prefer trying it by degrees, as one does in ** the bush," where also agreements with the store-keepers are more easily made, which may obviate it altoge- ther. Again, considering the badness of the roads, the dearness of labour, and the low prices of farming produce, I am pretty much inclined to think no where can more be made, than a living ; CANADIAN PROSPKCTS, fic. il I would, therefore, tnko " the bush," whoro I have a fair chance of some society, and avoid tho old country, where nine-tenths of my neighbours will be " Canadian Yankees," than which I can imagine no character more revolting to a gentle- man, except it be a yankified Irish labourer — he is certainly the acme of ignorance and insolence. There is also a very serious objection in the price of these cleared farms ; they generally consist of two hundred acres (" a lot,") of which perhaps sixty or eighty are cleared, and you may be pretty certain not in their pristine vigor, and their price is commonly three or four times as much per acre, for the two hundred acres, as wild land is worth in the neighbourhood; this, you will perceive, makes the cleared part very dear. The objections against "the bush" for gentle- men, are chiefly, the privations which must be there encountered, and the difficulties of commu- nication with more settled parts ; now the compa- rative privations of the bush will be always in an inverse ratio to the money you can afford to lay out ; and as a choice between cleared and un- cleared land, in the first instance, implies the pos- session of money, this objection cannot be said to lie in much force ; the other is a more serious one, and I confess, one that sometimes made me regret my choice, but it only holds good for a \ ! m 22 rMIGRATION. m> Ijii in I year or two at most, and is much more than coun- terbalanced by the difference of your neighbours, and the unexhausted state of your ground, to which, for a beginner in the science, there is an additional recommendation, in the very great sim- plicity of " bush farming." I have said the mird and its improvement is not much an object of consideration in Canadian forests ; this must, of course, be a matter of regret to any one who has been accustomed to, or has learned to admire intellectual reiinement in how- ever slight a degree : yet it is not often a matter of complaint, for most are obliged during daylight to be earnest in far different pursuits and occupa- tions ; and they who are actively busied from day- break until dark, are seldom capable of much mental exertion in the evening, nor are they in much danger of suffering from ennui ; but they who are comparatively independent of personal exertion, and who have not any particular taste for coarse work, have leisure to remark this defi- ciency, end being deprived of the thousand little alternatives that are in this country, whereby to shun the tedium of idleness, find their time not unfrequently pass very heavily ; and this might, perhaps, not unjustly be brought forward as an argument against such making Canada their coun- try. As to society, we are here rather under a CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 23 false impression with regard to it, for we are prone to tliink there is none to be had, and that the want of it is the greatest drawback against Ca- nada — but this is not so universally; in many parts you will meet with as good society, as nu- merous and as genteel, as in most of the country parts of Ireland, and consisting of people generally much more inclined to conciliate each other and be obliging, than they had ever been in the " old country/' These parts are of the latest settled, for thither most of the late respectable emigrants have gone, and grouped themselves pretty much together; and in them, jifter a very few years, when the great hurry of "bush pioneers," has subsided, and that improved roads and the intro- duction of horses have facilitated intercourse, complaints of the want of agreeable neighbours, and of the loneliness of the woods, will not be very numerous or very just. These gentlemen settlers are for the most part ex-officers of the army and navy, who have quitted the service, and who when they assume the axe and sickle, make gene- rally capital farmers, and very agreeable compa- nions ; but there are also young surgeons, church of England clergymen, private gentlemen, sons of respectable persons at home, graduates of the colleges, &c. I vas much surprised at a meeting held in January or February last, about six miles if Mi 41 ! li 1 i>4 EMIGRATION. iVom mo, touching tlio improvement of a road in the neighbourhood, to sec the room, which was no small one, filled with geiitlemen ; we had some speeches made that would not have disgraced a nobler subject, and our local vanity, (if I maj'^ use the expression) was quite flattered at the elo- quence j.nd extent of our resolutions, memorials, and petitions ; but it was more substantially so, when we read that the legislature had given us one hundred and fifty pounds towards carrying our projected repairs into effect — a considerable sum under the circumstances, and all that we had ventured to ask for. But there is a very serious drawback against Canada, of which we have all heard, viz. — the great incivility and rudeness of the lower classes ; believe me, this has not been exaggerated; their assumption not of equality only but even of superiority is very galling, p,nd I consider it by far the most trying and disagreeable thing, as gentlemen, you have to en- counter in America. There is also a great difficulty in procuring house servants, particularly in the woods, and you are obliged to submit to many in- conveniences and unpleasantnesses in consequence that are not a little irksome. For my part, these two things I found so exceedingly annoying, that they would be quite snHcient to prevent my re- turn to Canada wL le I could possibly remain^ in CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 25 Ireland. It is true, while you remain in your own clearing, the former does not so much reach you, for by being stern to your workmen you can prevent their familiarity, though you will be hardly able to obtain from them respect ; but the moment you go forth, their manners are forced upon your notice, notwithstanding the most anx- ious wish you may feel to be blind to them. In travelling through the country, you will see every inn, tavern, and beer-shop filled at dl hours with drunken, brawling fellows, and the quantity of ardent spirits consumed by them will truly astonish you ; this may of course be as- cribed considerably to the cheapness of it, and the higher wages, and the greater facility of pro- curing work which labourers find, but it is also no doubt much owing to the examples of the old settled farmers and Americans, who drink like fishes all the day, and for aught I know, all the night too ; but these fellows ha^'e good heads, and are seldem seen drunk. You come into one of the taverns, tired and fatigued with jolting ovel some forty or fifty miles of terrible roads, and perhaps the "bar-room," is the only place you find wherein to pass your evening ; but if you be so fortunate as to poke out any other refugium, do not imagine it an afiront to find your servant and your waggoner, and any other of the " pro- B I 'I f ■■ !l '■t tg m 26 EMIGRATION. f ;; I'- ■ I fanum vulgus" that happen to fancy supper, seated at the table with you, and not displaying any very fashionable air of over-refinement. If the door bang open, and two or three drunken "gentlemen I" totter in to cross-examine you touching your residence, your journey, your opi- nion of them and their country, &c., and end by sitting down alongside of you, and declaring " they believe they'll be social and take a bit of supper," you will look flattered and congratulate yourself on the opportunity you are afforded of cultivating their acquaintance ; remembering the chances are twenty to one that one of your messmates will be the partner of your slumbers. He who from necessity has become a witness to and a sharer in these Canadian amiabilities, shrugs his shoulders, sighs out a pathetic, " I can't help it,'' and resigns himself to his fate; while others, who have reason to feel their being in Canada at all is quite a condescension on their part, look volumes of indignation, complain loudly of such rudeness, and very probably are thrust out for their pains without any further ceremony, or at the least have to make ample submission to obtain either edibles or shelter. We cis-atlantics are apt to laugh at these pictures, and think them amusing istly ig' you will not be long at the other side until you will begin to think it CANADIAN PROSPECTS, &c. 27 !M 1 1 L5 ■ I, 30 EMIGRATION. on the "old-countryman" with money, and every mouth that opens to address you would swallow the prey whole ; lend them as much of your car as you please, but "he who steals your purse steals your life," it is too scarce a commcJity in Upper Canada to be " trash ;" when you are aware of this, their anxiety about it is easily par- doned, and you cease to wonder. You may re- member Buonaparte's admirable answer to the Austrian officer, who reproached the French with fighting for money, while his countrymen fought for glory — " true,*' said Napoleon, " all fight for that they most want I" ■ I H lT',1 ciiAPTEn ir. EQUIPMENTS— ROUTE—TIME 01'^ DEPARTURE, &c. They who have abundance of money, (for I have met persons of considerable wealth in Canada,) can- not commit any very material mistake either in equipping or in not equipping themselves, for they can always procure those articles of comfort and lux- ury to which they have been accustomed, though probably at greater expense than if brought out with themselves. Were I of this class, I would not only bring the soft parts of household furniture, but also mahogany chairs in pieces, packed into chests — ^pillar and claw tables of mahogany, for this wood is there more "recherche," being seldomer seen— musical instruments — music — books — ^plate, &c. ; indeed had I furniture here, in place of selling it by auction at a great loss, as many do, I would trans- port it nearly all thither ; the little common-place conveniences and elegancies of an " old country- i;:^ i- ':' i m hi d9 EQUIPMKNTS, ROUTE, M [■I-' ! liousc," becomft quite a mark of aristocracy in the woods, from their absence even among the wealtliier inliabitants, and are more than ever welcome. But they who have only a small sum, perhaps under £500 or £1000 wherewith to work out an independence, can very seldom commit any error, by adopting precisely a contrary course. It is strictly in proportion to a man's capital his equip- ments should be regulated, remembering always, articles of luxury are more expensive and difficult to procure in Canada ; but articles of necessity are not — of them I do not know any much dearer than here, except perhaps delpht and china ; of course I refer to imported articles, and to the prices of Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, or some other chief town, for things are much dearer at country stores, as is also any thing that has been made in the country— thus cabinet-makers' work, blacksmiths' work, &c.; however, even of things dearer, a man whose funds are at all contracted will find the true saving lies in bringing none at all, and buying none there until he sees loss ac- cruing to him from the want of them. Many people lay out no little money for clothes, making up such a stock as if they thought naked- ness was the first thing to be guarded against, and torturing their invention to find things cool enough for the summer, and things warm enough TIME OP DEPARTURE, &c 33 Dugh for the winter of Upper Canada ; but such give themselves very superfluous trouble; all clothes except the finest, (such as one requires for going into company,) are as cheap there as here ; and as for the extremes of climate, I can only say, 1 have worn precisely the same when the thermo- meter was 117° as I have when it was 22° below zero, nor was I sensible of the very great extreme during either ; and I had purchased fifty pounds' worth of wearables for Canada, which lay un- looked at in my trunks. There is no particular garb the woods require ; but you will find ankle boots, round jackets such as sailors wear, made of linen or cloth, and waistcoats with sleeves for winter, convenient and pleasant* There are others who imagine there is not such another place for game in the world as North America, and commence their emigration arrange- ments by purchasing ** a capital double-barrelled gun," and a hair-spring rifie. Now an old mus- quet would answer all their purposes, for, believe me, the shooting there has been foully belied ; at all events, any there is, is at sitting objects, and you may take an hour to cover your mark ; as to rifle-shooting deer, bears, &c., I suppose there are such things, or we would not hear of them, but I have never seen them, or shot any thing more imposing than a porcupine, though I had a dou- ' i 1 1 84 KQUIPMKNTS, ROUTE, :,!! If, blc percussion " Joe Manton," and lived among Indians, who frequently accompanied me " when I went sporting." But I will not enlarge on this subject^ I shall only repeat as a general rule, if your means be small, bring as little as you please; however, if you happen to have bedding, curtains, carpets, and such like soft parts of the furniture of a house, or if you can buy them very cheaply indeed, perhaps it may not be inexpedient to bring to the amount of eighteen or twenty hundred weight, and a few medicines, which are much better here than there ; beyond this I would not advise your going; have them packed into light chests about the size of two tea chests, for larger ones do not fit well into the waggons in Canada, and are often therefrom very inconvenient, and let these be as nearly waterproof as you can. Be- fore you depart into the bush, purchase at the nearest large town three or four axes, a grinding- stone, a cross-cutting saw, three or four iron wedges, ox chains and bells, hoes, a very few carpenter's tools, augers, shingle and other nails, metal hinges, and two or three coramon looks ; you will require to lay out about fifty dollars thus, and will save both money and time by buying them as I have said, and bringing them with you into « the bush." Perhaps under the head " equipments " should TIME OF DEPARTURE, &c. 35 be mentioned the bringing out of servants, a plan universally condemned, and yet still very generally followed ; I have never known one instance that they who had done so did not regret it ; you will surely lose your money, and more than probably your temper. If you wish to patronize any of their class, make them pay their own expenses ; this is the only chance you have of binding them to you, for there is not much use in any writing to enforce persons to stay with you in a country, where they have only to walk a few yards into the woods, and how are you to find them ? There is another matter touching which emigrants arc often at a loss, viz.-.the form in which they should bring out money, or have it remitted to them. The bank of Upper Canada has declared, any money lodged to their credit with Thoiiias Wilson and Co. of London, shall be paid with the highest premium of the day to the person for whose use it has been lodged. This is very con- venient ; but when your money is so placed you have no choice, you must take the premium the bank please to give to you, and they do not please to give the highest. In April last they had one hundred and fifty pounds of mine so lodged, they themselves were charging four per cent, premium for money on London, and yet they would only give me par. and made a compliment of that i «i /i!i ▼r ae EQUIPMENTS, ROUTE, ll < V i; I even ; I had one hundred and fift^' pounds more in a less desirable form, and the \ ery first mer- chant to whom I offered it in Toronto gave me two per cent, premium, this made thirteen or four- teen dollars difference — of course I would never have money so loJged again. I would have my money lodged with Thomas Wilson and Co., or some other first-rate bankers in London, (but they seem the best known among the merchants of Canada,) and get from tliem a letter of permis- sion to draw biils on them at thirty d ys after sight; this is th<^. best form ; or I would get drafts of the bank of Ireland on the bank of England at seven r'ays after date ; the objection to this is, you will noi be able to get second and third parts, but even with this disadvantage, such bills as being over due and so good, generally bear the highest premium. £100 sterling is £111 2s. 2d. Halifax currency, or $444.43, and the premium had been until last January from six. to eleven per cent; but General Jackson's war with the United States' bank has caused a great derangement in the circu- lation of the States — reduced exchange there al- most to a discount against England, and of course involved the exchange in Canada, for the rat<> of the province is regulated by that of New York. I have travelled both by New York and Que- bec; the route onward from the former I would, TIME OF DEPARTURE, &c* 8/ perhaps, prefer, as attended with less trouble to the traveller ; it may be nearly all by water, no land, except from Albany to Schenectady, and you can travel on witiiCj^-stoppiDo more than two Dr three hours at the utmost, but probably not more than so many minutes. The expense of travelling thus is much the same as up the St. Lawrence, or, perhaps, something less ; the fare from New York to Albany, in the first cabin, ia from half a dollar to three dollars, according to the oppositionc Some of the dollar boats are magnificent. Half a dollar on the railroad from that to Schenectady, sixteen miles ; then two and a half cents a mile (there are one hundred cents in a dollar) in the farmers' line boats, and four cents in the packet, botli including food. If you seek Kingsto i or Cobourg you go about one hundred and sixty miles to Oswego on lake On- tario, or two hu»idred and fort}'^ to Rof hester if your object be Toronto. The steamers of the lake call at these ports about every second day, and there are "chooners generally every day, by which you get across to the Canada side cheaply. The baggage of a settler for Upper Canada pays no duty at New York ; you only need the aflir- mation of M.\ Buchanan, the British Consul there, that it belongs to such, and on all the route through the States you can bring ten or twelve c it ^1 I m ih m EQUIPMENTS, ROUTE. I-' I I i ■ ill* "' I:" !#■■ cwt. without any charge, taking care always to agree for it so beforehand, and travelling by the farmers* line boats, except on the rail road, and even this, if you please, you may avoid, by going round to Troy, and encountering the locks at the mouth of the canal. This is an advantage which you have not all the way on the St. Law- rence, for from Montreal to Prescott, Canadian batteaux bring all baggage, except a portmanteau or so, and the forwarders charge three shillings per cwt. during the summer, until the first of September, after which, until the close of the na- vigation, they charge four shillings and six pence ; you may manage to get it free the remainder of your journey, but not always : the additional charges are ten pence per cwt from Quebec to Mon- treal, and ten pence per cwt. from Prescott to Toronto. I believe M'Pherson and Co. are the most respectable forwarders in Montreal, and Feehan and Co., or Murray and Newbigging's storage in Toronto as good as any, they only charge three pence per cwt., including the charges for wharfage, landing, &c. and for this they will take care of baggage for months, and be accountable for it. I have said I would probably prefer the journey onward from New York, but the scenery on the St. Lawrence is infinitely the more beautiful, and TIME OF DEPARTURE, &c. S9 be the country, of course, as a part of Canada, and the route, as the egress of his future pork, wheat, and ashes, to England, will be more an object of interest and regard to the settler. Voyages are usually more tedious and dangerous to Quebec than to New York, for the navigation is more in- tricate, and the ships not always as fine ; but you will go for twenty-five per cent, less to Quebec, and you will find shi] s in most of the ports of Ire- land bound thither. These are two serious advan- tages, "xicl '?. worthy of consideration, before one would set ott' to Liverpool, to hunt after and wait on Yan'''ee ships perhaps ten or fifteen days. C)ne piece of !idvice, however, is equally applicable in either case — never give a deposit or ~:«y a penny until the vessel is within twentv-four hours of sailing, of which you will easily be aware by the fresh water coming on boarc!, sails bending, &c. Hotels in the States are, on the average, about one half dearer tl r; in Canada; meals — for the North Araericnns \..V! e little Jifference between breakfast, dinner, ai; t iea, or supper, as they term it — are charged a quarter of a dollar each in Ca- nada ; in the States three-eighths (or three York shillings) ; and hotels charge one dollar and a half per day, while in Canada, excepting Quebec and Montreal, they only charge one dollar. In neither pf the countrl ; does the traveller pay any thing c « // Pi 4a EQUIPMENTS, ROUTE, I 0' Mim-. t\ :) 1 to servants ; but even at these prices, though very moderate indeed, the expenses of a family will be considerable, and very serious if deducted from a slender capital on which they have to depend ; such, therefore, will do well to make as little delay as cannot possibly be avoided. Here I may suggest to you that boarding houses in the chief towns are a very great deal more agreeable than the first hotels ; you will have 'ore peace and comfort, more civility, and more c^ unities of acquiring information, and their rates are more moderate. Of this you may be certain, if you be at all a domestic man, or if you carry many " old coun- try " ideas about you, the hotels of America, both in the States and first towns of Canada, will bo particularly unpleasant and uncongenial to you. Many people think they cannot start too early in the year, but are all impatience to be off after their winter plans and debates ; in this they are right If they expect to get in spring crops they have, indeed, no time to spare ; but very few ac- complish this object — I suppose not one of fifty who hope to do so, and not one of every five hundred that go ; — and I am satisfied, that if ho who does so, will afterwards compare the value of it with the cost, he will not recommend it to others : however, the chief objection to this plan will exist, if you meditate going by Quebec, in ^-- / TnrE OP DEPARTURE, &c. 41 the risk which always attends early voyages thither. If I wished to get in sirring crops I would leave this country in January or February, and go by New York; but I would prefer starting in the beginning of May, and contenting myself with getting in fall wheat that year, for winter is a bad season for your first encounter with bush privations, and not so favorable for your choice of land ; however, if you be peculiarly anxious on the matter, I may mention, for your guidance, the latest periods for sowing — oats have a tolerable chance up to the 3d or 4th of June, the grain will be poor, but they will ripen and make fine fodder chopped with the straw — potatos will be good to the 20th of June ; the best I had last year were planted the 22d and 23d — and turnips may be sowed up to the 1st of August — the^e and barley, which may follow oats, are aii, I think, such a settler could aim at — Indian corn ought to be in the first week in May, and is, therefore, altogether out of his reach. I would, as I have said, start early in May, hoping to be on my land in ten weeks ; I would set immediately six or eight acres vyf chop- ping, giving the contract to two or three men ; I would bind them to have it done in a month ; I Would then buy oxen and clear it off", &c. or would set the land, to be given up to me, ready for crop- ping, the 1st of October; and while this was 1,1 ' % V\ ll' ^tmmmm m EQUIPMENTS, ROUTE, doing, I myself would not be idle about a habita- tion ; you would then not be over hurried. And to avoid surely being so, I would only set before me these three things — getting in wheat — erecting isome sort of an edifice, capable of being made warm —and under-brushing a number of acres for winter chopping before the snow-fall. Of course the town you seek in Upper Canada, upon leaving Quebec or New York, will depend on the part you mean to settle in ; when you reach it, your first inquiry will be for the Government and Ca- nada company's agents — learn of them what land they have, and the prices — your route to the lots, and where you will find a guide; then walk through the town, read the different advertise- ments and notices of land, take a particular note of the concession and number of each lot you wish to look at, and be read j to leave the town in five or six hours. Some hire a horse and ride, it is much less expensive and more agreeable than a waggon ; you ought to pay about a dollar a day for one — they will charge three or four for a waggon ; horses cost about a quarter of a dollar per ifight at hotels. If you have a family you must leave them behind in the town until you have chosen a lot, then ascertain the nearest inn or hotel at all respectable enough for them, go to it, make an agreement by the week, bring them TIME OF DEPARTURE, &c. 43 down to it, be active and diligent, and in a fort- night you may have an edifice of some kind or other fit for their reception; you will soon find that living in your own shantie is much less expensive than at the cheapest inn. I would advise this first building to be either temporary or applicable to some other purpose afterwards, and you not to hurry your house, for it is a very bad plan to build even a Canadian house, though only of logs^ in a hurry. If you do not like the country you must only proceed onward to another chief town, and there commence your researches again, re- membering how important your object is, and how valuable your time : your baggage, if you have aiiy> you will find the most troublesome thing in this pursuit, yet I think it better to bring it ou each time than to leave it at Montreal or Prescott, and have, perhaps, to return thither for it ; but when you have it safely stored at the nearest point to which water can bring it, take your time about the land conveyance, which in Canada you will find very expensive — you should wait for the sleighing time, and, perhaps, you will have cattle of your own, and can bring some of it home yourself. When I was going out my baggage cost me about sixty dollars to Toronto, which was only eighty-six miles from my land, and I paid 200 dollars to bring it thence — this was for eighty ..? 5: it . i I r M m M EQUIPMENTS, ROUTE, ! I li ! 1^ if: J n cwt. Your searches for land must, however, to a certain degree, depend on your funds and your time ; if the former be limited, they will not bear very frequent demands for unsubstantialities, and by wasting the latter, a year is often lost to the settler, for which he will seldom find himself suffi- ciently compensated. However, touching the time of departure, it must, of course, depend much on the peculiar circum- stances of each individual, for there are many things to be consulted beside the operations when Canada is reached ; I shall only, therefore, men- tion, you can go at any time by New York, and, that if the difficulty of getting to vessels bound thither did not exist to those in Ireland, perhaps ♦hat route, every thing considered, is the prefer- able, but you will find the travelling through the States more expensive, and not so pleasant, if the Erie canal be frozen, as it is usually during De- cember, January, February, and March. I may also add, for your further guidance, that if you happen to arrive at a season when you can do nothing at all, you will find the expenses of life there much the same, on the average, as they are here ; groceries are cheaper, other edibles much the same, house rent is rather dearer, and servants scarcer, more expensive, and less useful. By this season I mean the very depth of winter, when, if |V I TIME OF DEPARTURE, &c. 45 the snow be deep, and you intend going into the bush, you will be very hardly able to make any effort toward settling for two or three months, but will have to remain in one of the towns. After you have reached your land, during the interval between that and your crops coming in, or, in other words, as long as you have to purchase every thing consumed in your house, you will find the expense of housekeeping somewhat less, perhaps, than in most of tlie country parts of Ire- land, though not very much, even allowing for the absence of house rent, for provisions are rather dearer in the bush, in consequence of the car- riage ; they are, indeed, an immensity dearer if you buy them at "a bush" store, but this, of course, you will avoid, always buying them in the cleared country, and contracting for the convey- ing of them up, or sending your own cattle. *., I' Mi \\} CHAPTER III. CHOICE OF LAND AND SITUATION. I' The general characteristic of the land of Ca- nada is sand — seven lots of ten, on an average, are, I am satisfied, sandy, and four of those seven, at least, in tiiis country, would be deemed too light to farm at all. This surprised me, per- haps, most of any thing I met, and though tra- velling through tlie country, looking at land for sale, I had made the observation, I afterwards bought land, not sufficiently on my guard against it, and found, by my experience, that it is one of the first things a purchaser, who wishes to settle himself down as a farmer, ought to ascertain. In- deed, the land of Canada will surprise all who leave here impressed with those romantic ideas of the fertility of the soil, which the puffers of the Canada company have given rise to; before I went out, whenever I thought of a bush farm, it was of rich black loaoi; splendid clay, laud uu« CHOICE OF LAND. 47 looked at since the Hood, twenty crops of wheat, &c. «S:c. — in fact, that you had only to study to reduce it, in order to make it fit for the common purposes of farming ; but be satisfied, that when you leave Ireland, you leave better land than you will ever see in Canada, though there is very fine land there too. A great deal has been said about the " vegetable mould of centuries I" this sounds very imposingly, but its insignificance, in most places, will not a little surprise — it is generally from two to four inches in depth, and its fertility, for the first year, is wonderful, but after two or three crops its effects will altogether vanish. The first crop of potatos, grown in sandy land, aided with this mould, or rather turf, mixed through it, might excite the envy even of an Irishman, they are so perfectly delicious ; the Indian corn, too, of such soils is the best. New comers, generally speaking, are much more afraid of swampy land, which fear they sometimes carry to a ridiculous length — I was so myself: now were I again pur- chasing land, I would certainly seek fifteen or twenty per cent, of it to be swamp, from which I would take care to build my house at a conve- nient distance, that the musquitoes might not alto- ther consume me. These swamps are very sel- dom, indeed, so wet as to be valueless, and most usually they require no draining at all j cleared, i 1 I' I 1 ill \>i t I •) 48 CHOICE OF LAND they make the finest meadows, for the hard land becomes terribly parched under tiie summer sun ; and again, cedar timber, which is tlie best for building, it is so light and lasting, and for rails, gate-posts, &c. grows only in them. We have also heard much here of judging land by the tim- ber growing thereon ; this, I believe, with great truth, I may assert to bo a delusion, at least affir- matively — that is, you cannot, from the timber growing on it, pronounce any land good, but you may, perhaps, infer its being light from certain trees, though the general rules are very few in- deed : I only know of two trees I would care to see on land as a good sign — they are bass wood and white elm. I was under an impression that if all the timber were hard, and a considerable portion of it maple, the quality of the soil was surely good, and that land abounding with pine ■was as surely bad; now I have seen thou- sands of acres of the finest maple on sandy land, some of it not worth clearing, and T have been in a chopping of twei ty-five acres, every tree on which, with the exception of a dozen bass wood, were pine, and it was some of the best clay soil I had ever seen in Canada. The soil is very uncertain, one lot will be worth not a farthing an acre, and the next will be very fair land ; a township in the midst of a fine dis-* i .. AND SITUATION. 49 frict mny be notliing but a heap of sand, perhaps not two good lots within it: in a clearing, again, you may find every square yard different; but this, of course, will cease when the plough has been used, which is not until four or five years after it has been cleared. I believe on good land the timbei Jways splits well, but this would be rather a roundabout proof to a person hastily tra- versing a lot ; for my part, I would go to the roots of the windfalls, of which you will always see abundance, and examine the soil there, which you will be thereby enabled to do to the depth of a foot or ' ards — I would see that the surface of the lanv. .rds level, and not in little hills and hollows; that the underbrush was not very thick and tangled ; and I would avoid red oak, white birch, iron-wood poles, and young beech ; I would also avoid, generally speaking, hemlock and pine; of course, I need scarcely say I would look very sharp about water ; I have known some people to have been distant from the nearest water two miles, and to have dug forty feet without getting any, and this occurs often in the best land. There are on some lots, natural meadows of from five to fifty acres, without any trees on them, and sometimes even without any bushes; these are generally wet, and covered with a very coarse long grass, which jnust be burned off, and is succeeded by a better :i I 50 CHOICE OF LAND m- X' ■ I m \ 1 If ■ 1. ii u. description, and tliis, though still only a coarse com' modity , is nevertheless very valuable to a new settler, whose greatest trouble is to iind for the first three or four years in the brsh a suecedaneuin for hay, and you will do well in your inquiries not altoge- ther to lose sight of this, and if you chance ou them to gi'e a preference accordingly. • In purchasing land I would prefer buying from Government, the title is indisputable, the price moderate, and the accommodation for payment coiicidcrable; they give nominally three years, charging six per cent, interest, that is, in four in- stalments, one down, the rest at successive inter- vals of twelve months each ; but I believe the set- tler may prclong this leave considerably, if he pay all interest wi til the instalment; he will cer- tainly not have his deed, which is only issued on full payment of the purchase money and interest, and thus he will not possess the advantages of a freehold; but Government will certainly permH a considerable time to elapse before they become urgent. You are not required to pass any security for these payments, and you obtain your deed free of any charge or fee.. The Canada Company's land is generally higher than that of Government twenty per cent, at least, they give four years for payment in five instalments, nor are they either, I suppose, very pressing while the interest is paid, but I hav© > ii ' i riy" j < .■ ; ' ^ w tjw .^j - AND SITUATION. *5' flever bought from them ; dealing with them pos- sesses two advautcges, you can walk into their office any day and buy land, either in Toronto (late York) or in the district towns at their agents* offices, and you have no trouble about settlement duties. Now, buying from government, unless lo- cated as a pauper on fifty acres, you must wait for a sale, for all government land, and by a late order all clergy reserves, must be sold at public auction; nor is .ere any powe r vested in any of the crowa officeri to make an exception ; these sales are held once a fortnight, or once a month, as necessity may demand, at the chief town of each district, for that partic'ilar district; and when you come for your deed you must be known to be a resident on your land, or mui^t produce a certificate of the settle- ment duties having been performed on it, i. e. that the concession line (three-eighths of a mile long) has been cut and cleared to the width of half a chain, or elevtn yards at each extremity of the. lot, aud that a small shant'e twelve feet square, has been built on some part of the lot ; you can contract to. have these duties done for about twenty-five or thirty dollars: if you buy fi number of lots (they are each 200 acres,) residing on any one is suffi- cient for obtaining your deed, but if you be not a resident, this quantum of settlement duties must be performed oa each. Purchai^ing from indivi* ; ; „> .: CHOICE OF LAND W l\ ,■■! ■■! duals is the third method of acquiring hmd, and the one, generally speaking, I would last recom- mend ; if you be clever and shrewd, and take care to examine very cautiously both into the title and quality of the land, you may occasit nally make an advantageous purchase for ready money, but you will very generally observe that any who have land to sell with any particular advantages, or even commonly desirable, will surely ask its full value. Canada, as I have already mentioned, is full of land proprietors and land speculators; every one you will address has land to sell, and every where you go, you will see advertisements of lots with " never failing creeks" — " hard timber," &c. &C' for sale ; in fact, land is the matter of barter in the country, a kind of " floating medium ;" there is but one species of purchase from individuals I would offer to your notice, and advise you to in- quire about at all particularly, viz. — the purchase of U. E. rights as they are termed, and these are certainly still to be gotten very clieap, but they are difficult to be found out to a stranger : they arise thus. When America doclarel war against us, many in dissent left the States and passed over into Canada ; these were termed " united empire" men, and they and their children were by the Eng- lish government made entitled to wild land ; the children are still applying for theirs every day> AND SITUATION. 63 and many of them are so disposed, or so situated, that they sell their " right" for very little— each is ^00 acres — the ticket of location may be purchased for 80 or 100 dollars, and even for less, but thou- sands have been sold for sums under 20 dollars, the owners being often of the lowest class and very wretches; Government seeing this abuse, passed an order in 1833, that the U. E. should either become actual settlers, or receive, in case of their proving that they could not, a sum of money in place of land ; this order, however, produced great dissatisfaction, and was rescinded this year; they now grant the land to those who prove their right to it, even with greater facilities than before; a person possessing one of these tickets can draw land for it any where that government have land open for location, and thus you perceive a lot for which they charge 400 dollars, you may have for 100 ; but it is difficult, though there are still great numbers unlocated, to find out the proprietors of them, for they have no general office or agent ; you will perhaps hear of them at the private land offices in the towns, particularly in Toronto and Niagara, but I suspect the best persons to inquire of would be the clerks in the government land offices at Toronto ; however, this last hint is strictly etitre nous. You are of course required to pay the jKoney when you get the ticket, which you can 1 I M CHOICE OF LAND III hold over until you can nake a choice of situation, or with which you may immediately proceed to one of the agents locating, and demand a lot; but you will not obtain your deed until settlement duties are performed, and your security in the mean time stands thus — you get from the U. E. a power of attorney to some friend of your own to take out the patent deed from the crown, on the performance of the " duties" in his (the U. E.'s) name; and to convey it to you, and also a collateral bond of security, which latter is only valuable, of course, if the man be respectable, but may be taken in any case, there being no stamp duty in Canada to render it expensive. With regard to choice of situation, a great deal may be written very easily, but I fear not with any very great profit, the relative desirability of each being so purely a matter of opinion ; however, to the subject generally, I think Dr. Johnson's re- mark on the choice of a profession, might with great justice be applied — " he who chooses quickly, will in by far the more numerous cast s, chouse the best," — and accordingly, I would again observe, indeed I cannot repeat it too often, if you arrive at a season at all admitting of action, and this you will unless you particularly seek to avoid it, re- member nothing can be more injurious to you than delay in being settled; you not only lose your ANT) SITUATION. 55 time but your money and your comfort, and all these evils will be proportionably greater if you happen to have a family. Some delay it is, per- haps, impossible to avoid, at least if you go out without knowing a being in Canada, or having been able to come at any thing sufficiently trust- worthy to determine your choice, you are per- plexed, and it is no wonder; each person who speaks to you ou the subject will pronounce the particular county of his habitation, " the one" of all others most desirable ; his lands are the richest, his roads are the finest, and his markets are tn»j surest, the contemplation of so much satisfaction is delightful, it is that he is little wont to meet; but is very distressing to the inquirer who finds him- self daily more unsatisfied and more at a loss : your self-love, however, will certainly be flattered, for all combine in wishing you for a neighbour, and in oft'ering you every kind of advice and as- sistance. Now, I am rather inclined to think, the choice of your district or even county, is not of that importance people generally attach to it; each may possess peculiar advantages and disadvan- tages, but it is difficult to find in them any thing sufficiently striking to determine the judgment; and it is not unusual to find that, after much anxiety and research, circumstances altogether ex« 11 m CHOICE OF LAND \V'' 1-4 ! ' trinsic, and probably in themselves very trifling, have determined the situation of tlie settler ; the same difficulty of course exists in offering advice to others, or in deducing any pre-eminence suffi- cient to justify one in setting forth any particular part for preference, even to those mo. - unbiassed by peculiar connexions or pursuits. This assertion >vill not perhaps appear so strange, when we re- member how little has yet been done in any part of Canada towards local improvement, and how little indeed could have been done, considering it is only a province, and that of a country already very busied with more vital concerns, and how lit- tle, therefore, the natural resources of particular parts are as yet developed ; notwithstanding, it is an assertion, being very unwilling to mislead, I would be more diffident of advancing, were I not supported in it by others involuntarily, in the dis- crepancies of their opinions and judgments, (even of those who are at pains to make a choice) when the matter is brought before them. Now, I think I may venture to state with truth, that you will find the numbers in favour of each part pretty equal ; I have known some examine the Johnstown and Newcastle districts, lake Simcoe and Niagara, and settle near London ; others go all the way to Goderich and London, and afterwards settle near lake Simcoe ; and others again, having traversed the AND SITUATION. .^7 lear the west of the province and the north, return cither to the Newcastle district, or to the Ottawa. I speak of those who sought and were anxious to find grounds for a preference, and who had not been settled; as for the opinion of a man once he becomes so, it is difficult to arrive at the exact value of it, so many allowances must be made for prejudices, and so much is to be gained by the attraction of neigh- bours. It will probably be asserted, and with truth too, that by far the greater number of late settlers have gone to the western parts, and doing so, have past all the other settlements ; but these afford no rule, for they have gone thither, without once looking right or left, and have not been in- duced by any thing more solid than puffing pub- lications from the Canada Company, or other equally interested sources. It is also true, that by far the most of those who have gone thither have remained there. In this they have certainly shown wisdom, however little previously manifested in their course. Those parts of Canada are very re- mote, indeed, and proportionably difficult of ac- cess and recess ; and I would certainly say, if you have gone thither with your family, or almost without a family, the difficulty and expense of receding will hardly be compensated in the dif- ference of another situation ; but I do not think the hurry and eagerness with which that part has # K i i 1 '-i- I i; K "^' ■>.' *'' !'?/ 1 •* ' ! ; 1 / 58 CHOICE OF LANO been sought, is .0 prudent, or ha., been so ^r„ ^ ed, as to n,ake it de.rabie for in,Z^ TT »ome near connexions settled in Itl'-, " whom I went out fn c , ^''^laide, with "tni out to Canada. Wp i,- j . . «bout the Rideau, Newcastle d / """'" Simcoe : there I r n,a ned d t ' ""' ""^ London district. J„ a k' c '^ """' "* ""^ '■■e re,ati.e desirah^iti : r:,:tr''r'' -mart was. that ,„i„e ,„as 2 iT "' "•"■■■ »ost beautiful-theirs most ou7o T""'' "" mostraarketless; but tbet I ! "■^^' ""'* -Cher. I rememb: ta co ""•"" ''""««' governmentagenti Q^r™""-"**''^ settlers, held shortly after Ih'al, \ TT'"""' °^ h- did he think there were 1 ." "'*" "' ">e great anvief efficient grounds for treat anxiety evinced for the m„.* j- . parts of the unn..,. • "*' distant fie. nothing short of its shores would «»r r He advised me strongly to tral J 2 oir""- «nd along the Rideau, and to stop ^ nZ """"' «-ami„e the land about both tr"^"'""" indeed, lookinc at fl,„ • "'^^"'™rs: and, romalltheaccountslhavebeara AND SITUATION. ground- I have le, with ^amined nd lake : to the ards on IS, their >g» and ly, and verage, ith the ance of sked of ids for distant 5, that per- ofit, for I have been never nearer to it than two townships, I ratiier think it a very desirable place for settlement. He advised me then, as I passed through the Newcastle district, to be particular in examining it ; and that long before 1 reached To- ronto, I would not fail to see abundance of land, fully as desirable as any thing in the western parts or about lake Simcoe. Certainly there has been this result from the great popularity of these ex- treme parts, that you will find more, and probably better, society there than in most others, though there are some places in the midland and eastern parts also, not deficient in this respect, particularly about Peterborough, where I have heard the so- ciety is very pleasing, but the land is dear. But though one may be at a loss to fix upon a district, that choice once made, the difference in the desirabilities of the townships will be more apparent; you will have many things to guide your choice among them, and they are a subject more capable of consideration, not being so ex- tended. I would tell you to look at the leading features of the district; its ports, its canals, rivers, main roads, &c., and the position of the township with relation thereto. Look at the settlements and settlers in the township ; the roads — the wa- ter — the general character of the land — the quan- tity held by absentee proprietors, which is very li V (.:■ I ea WateriaJ, for aunh ■^ market /b,.3,„„r;„,;,7''"'«o« the chance, of '^ ''o^e again. The price, of . '" ''^"""""^ »^ "-"ont an., it, sft.,;:. ""^^"f '« "'e date of ie^ ,^'""' of »iotvarie,a!ar ?'■*""■"' '"""the "'« «-t« I '-avegivenTr T"'"^ =« '' ^tmOs -'•'-only struck fo;,,^;;^-- "f which arc ;--'"' agent i„ caeh ^JZ^''!!;: «--"n,e„t ;«ea«t land, i„ „,e seve ! , "'''" '^'" "=" "'e probably give you , ,,,17; . *°»"'^'"ps, and ,viU ;- - whichever yo tmt "'"'""°" *" -"« *»>« 'ots ,vhiehyo„ „,y. " "' ^°" '-•"■ a guide to to procure one. i„ j,, '^ "^''™'"«. or enable you --- a favourite witlt J'"""'^ ''■^"■'•'='. -''id "'"d, land verv rf , '"'' ""^^ have not n located Tl "™'''^' ""e best hi "^ tea. The price of a n.„ . 7 ^"'"S been. ""« to SI200, and ' „ '^^f '<" varies from ^«''. vested in ;„d,.,.,^^;; *'" «« vvJio, Jde to yon which now Deen Vom of abJo the ice lan ce, JSfc parts of the Home district, round the shores of Notawasaga Bay, were commenced to be settled last year : but Sunnidale j) oved so inferior a town- ship in point of land, that a considerable number of those who went there to settle left it again, unable to find any well situated worth cultivation. Essa and some of the adjoining townships are pretty good, but the majority of the land up there seems light, and it is all very much out of cho way. Government sell their land at one dollar an acre. An Irishman, a Mr. Richey, is resident agent, who gives every assistance in the most obliging manner; and the sales are held at To- ronto. Some enterprising individuals, with con- siderable sums of money, have settled there, and gone back a long way into the woods, anticipating the speedy settlement of the surrounding country, and a fine market for their produce ; but as I have said, the part of Canada most talked of, and for the last three or four years most run on, is the London district, Adelaide, Caradoc, Warwick, Enni-skillen, Plympton, &c. out to the shore of lake Huron. The climate is milder, and the land on the average richer; the Government price is two dollars an acre for the township actually un- der settlement, and for those settled a year or two, three dollars. Many are under an impres- P I i m If '' i 62 "'«KE OF LAND. ^ast year tUcvn ,^^ ''"^ ^^ ' at Jea«f r , ' r-*> "o;;;:;--^ eases oH It: *;- -ere i„ ^„,,„,,f' o' l/pper Cana^;"^ J °" are fro,,, ,. , "■<=' "' ""'nff t(,af „ « 1832 ,, ''' "'"' "'0 I-Vono/, '""<" *''- a ,rea. .^i'!"'^-^ "' «.o .estl:;;"^"'- ^ ^^^"^d certainly Cai: No iU21 settlcrt return oronto ^Jg-s, in ^^«d steam- «ettiers aJono. ;, , ""'<^'' or ej.W.f . til G - -turning ahnost at ailT "' ' ^^^-^« ^oin and hi tvre] ^iours. Von !--^-'''ro;:r-^-«ee„ur-5o Am ""-"-'"e., :::'■:.'"'.».-•»,«,, 'urs. aii(i t]j c Jo iore and foi- are "'*•''• ^''"^^es Ob. no iervo ■t to aguo . «* I know ^S»c in a nada, as «'y iiave on our ^ads are distance i^ficulty ' groat comes 'y are aloiiol t/ier ; than ider- huij im- the of ro >r 3 ^ND SITUATION'. ^3 -•^- this and the fa Z/f^^'^^ ^ ^o„, *'- capital town, ' ' '^'""^""-'^'^tion ..ith country about N a"' "'" ' ^-^^'""'-^^ ^J- ^ako Ontario to ct '"^ ""'^^ ^ '^^ ^^^ ^-m ^^"^^ and the ;enX;i:r ^^^^^^ "^^ ^^- --try reminded , no of^rr /•" ""^ '^"^ Pa^-ts of Normandy, and to ^''^ ^'^« ^a"'" isbvfarfhn ''^ " old-country- but I have i^^ard ; J '""^ '"^' ^'"^^ *^^« 1^^^"^ .' Pewa and ll e" '" ^^^^f ^^; ^^^^ between ChipJ -yfarfronAl^i;^^^^ ^«' from three to oil /o , '''' '^^^^^^^ ^-.- to private inti^^^^^^^ ^^cre I at Toronto n • "^^ '^^'*''^'"^^' J ^vent off to 2; 7""' ^^^"^ ^^ before ^-clred and ;;':il:tt''^'"^ "^^^'^^ ^"^ dollars an acre '' '"'* ^^'^ t^ree -S^roHir"- ------ riousas they are m!.. '^;'"°"' '"•« J"^' »» va- eIude.observi;;:X"' t","""'"™^°-- -"out lake Simcoe on^^JtVlT''''"'' average; about Niagara Iir^.f"' "" "■<= best wants water the n'!, ''""' ''"' "'« ^'"■"S better, b;„ tSr '''"'" ^•'- "Bout the Bicleau perhaps the 'ill 164 CHOICE OF LAND. I same, &c., but there is good and bad in all. For myself, were 1 going out again, I would probably, if I had a good deal of money, and only wished to enjoy it, choose Niagara ; if I sought to farm and to make all land could make, I would settle some- where about the Rideau and Ottawa, and if my object were something half-way between, I would take the nortl)-west bank of lake Simcoe, and from 'hat to Matchedash ; but this may be pre- judice as I know it the best, and have lived . there. Certainly the society is pleasing, and the scenery very beautifult CPIAPTEIl IV. ON CLEARING LAND, FENCING, &c. When you have chosen your position, and ar- rived on your lot, your first operation is " chop- ping and clearing," and a very important one it is to a " bushman," for the land is on every side covered with great tall trees, and plenty of brush- wood between them, except those little meadows I have before mentioned, and the clearances of man ; this, like all other work, you may have done either by contract, hired labour, or partly by each. Now, on the very first starting, I would suggest the first of these modes to your prefer- ence, as being less open to imposition, and as likely to show you the quantity of work that should be expected from a man in that country, more justly than a hired labourer will be willing to do. You set about having it accomplished thus : — by measuring out a piece of the wood, containing the quantity you wish cleared, and D 2 . v; C6 ON CLEARING LAND, bt^ agreeing with a man or men to have it chopped, cleared, and fenced as specified, and given up to you, perfectly ready for receiving a crop, upon a certain day ; you will do well to have the form of this piece a square, as being the most easily mea- sured ; the quantities are the same as in England, viz. — four perches or twenty -two yards to a chain, and ten square chains in an acre ; and here 1 may mention, if any dispute arise about quantity when the work is done, it is for the contractor to prove that he has done the quantity agreed on, and to give you a licensed surveyor's certificate to that effect if you require it. The contract price of clearing and fencing land, may, 1 think, be taken on the average in the old settlements to be twelve dollars an acre, i. e. supposing the wood valueless from its non- proximity to a town ; and in the new ones, about fourteen dollars, but in some of the old settle- ments it is as low as nine or ten dollars, and iu the very new townships, it is as high as sixteen, even at which rate very scarcely will any one be found to take a contract, unless it be for a con- siderable quantity, such as twenty acres or up- wards ; this arises from the paucity of inhabi- tants, and the difficulty of procuring provisions, and of transporting them in these distant parts: for iu ordv* that a contract to clear land may be FENCING, &c. 67 attended with profit to those who take it, they must be three or four with a yoke of oxen, and must have food pretty convenient, or a consider- able time will be lost in procuring;, it; but if the contract be an extensive one, it becomes a desira- ble object to some of the old settlers, from twelve to twenty miles off, or more, who bring up their provisions with their own team, and their sons or neighbours, or more probably among the new comers, hire assistants to be paid in pork or flour, and thus make a market for their farming produce as well as labour. However, even at sixteen dollars an acre, though a very high price, I think this mode of having your first clearing made, preferable ; for of course, the same causes that make contract prices high, will generally make hired labour so, and the additional expense will be felt in it also; besides, you can proportion the quantity you get done to your funds : if they be contracted, confine yourself to a very few acres, say three even, or five, crop them according to the season, and as soon as they are thus completed, set with energy about getting more done in a man- ner better suited to your finances. Be very careful to have a \vritten agreement, .-worded some way thus, and witnessed by some respectable person : "I hereby undertake and agree, to chop, log, buru, clear and fence ( ) acres for ( ) Est^, GB ON CLEARING LAND, on lot numbered ( ) in tlie ( ) concession of tli6 township of ( ) ( ) district, as this day marked out by him, for ( ) dollars, being at the rate of ( ) dollars per acre, and to complete the said work and have it perfected, to deliver up the said ( ) on the ( ) day of ( ) next, ready for re- ceiving a crop, and I hereby undertake that the said work shall be done in a proper and workman- like manner, that is to say, that all under brush and small trees six inches through, or less, shall be cut quite level with the ground, and all small brush pulled out by the roots, that all brush heaps, windfalls, and logs, shall be burned quite clearly off, and the whoie space inclosed with a fence of good substantial rails, perfectly sound, and only twelve feet long, split out of ( ) wood, ( ) feet high, and consisting at the least of ( ) rails in height, dated ( ) day of Sec." You may add if you please, that in case you do not think the work well done, and a dispute arise thereon, the matter shall be referred to the determina- tion of certain persons — and have a penalty intro- duced in case of non-performance of the contract : but this last is seldom consented to. Don't pay anything if you can possibly avoid it, until the work is done, and not even then until you be per- fectly satisfied it is done as it ought to be; examine if the contract has been fulfilled, if it FENCING, &c. 69 has been done exactly vlicre you Lad marked it out — if tlie fence be good — the rails not too thin or too long — for then their own weight weighs them down, and they are too weak to bear the climbing over them by persons, to which they are unavoidably exposed — if they be sound and not shook with cross splits, and of the wood agreed on, measure the space and be very particular, that the under-brushing has been properly done, for it will save an immensity of time and trouble in the hoing and harrowing ; when all this is quite mani- fest to you, then pay your money and get a re- ceipt. This is the course I would recommend to you at first, and if you adopt it and observe the work as it proceeds, you will become sufficiently acquainted with the manner of performing it, to superintend a similar one afterwards, not done, or only partly done, by contract, when you will find some little knowledge, very necessary to escape being wronged. However, as it is very possible that you may not adopt this course or have an op- portunity of acquiring any knowledge of "chop- ping and clearing," until absolutely called on to employ it, perhaps a short description of thera> and how they ought to be done, will not be super- fluous. As I have mentioned, there is a considera- ble quantity of brushwood, great and small, grow- ing between the trees, to remove and pile which 1 I ! " . M ' M 70 ONCLI^ARTNG LAND, into small heaps closely, is the first operation, and this slioukl be done as I have already men- tioned, viz. : all from the thickness of your fourth finger down should be eradicated, and all the rest up to the thickness of six inches through, cut quite level ; and if you intend clearing afterwards with hired labour, remember an attention to this latter is doubly necessary, for you will find the stumps of the large trees sufficiently impeding, when you come to haul the logs together, without the ad- dition of minor ones ; the windfalls which lie on the ground are next cut into logs twelve or four- teen feet long, and any little boughs that may be on them, cut off and piled: thus far is termed " underbrushing,'' and must be done while the ground is void of snow ; for doing it by contract, one dollar and a half, or two dollars an acre is charged ; and if the underbrush be much, or there be many windfalls, this is not too much, provided it be done in the manner I have mentioned. The Americans say a man ought to do an acre in the day, but it is an operation, the time of perform- ing which, depends entirely on the ground, and in which there is the greatest difference ; in good land you will always find few windfalls and little underbrush, and exactly the contrary in bad land> in which I have sometimes seen acres of windfalls -without one standing tree j if you set underbrush-* |!'''y be- «ave some t.-oublc in ., 7 """"""''^ '" " "'^^ O.«„a„,,adriveron!htt . ™"'' " '''"'« "f ^f you i„te„, i^^ '«>vo tI,o troc, tl,.t ^°'' "■'" '"'''= «"e to -»-tt:;;;r::;2'--"o..sti„,. cut to the rhht lon.n o ""^ ^ «"^ choppbg., «*er forms of fence in „ '" '"'" '''^^™' ''"''i--aretheo,,;,,:',.;::fr^'""'^"'^^"'- -nt to des..rihe. and that nr'elT""^ "' P'"" •■"■eo at first start.--." , , ^^ ^"' y"""- g""I- "-"bcri„,.,„,„;' ;' '"!-=^ P«'*ap3 by re- ''''■'y'o;on.eifoT,~-^^^^^^ ""■»• tint c/ean-n... ,. -/"'"P'^"" "f mo.,t-that -^"'t to have lr''r" ^^ ™"^'' ™- as it '''■'•-"'Jafterj:; ::;;7^"•'-'--- ^''P"ie„e.., ,w,i,,, ,.; ^;" »"v-ysoo„ae,,uire '•''oiee.andtheonl. f ^"'' '"''=«''»- »f yo".-ago„j,trt:eVr''"'^^^^^^^^ '■■'ke eleariug pret," ' '''" " "^°' "> --/brtjtC^^:::';'^^^^^^ '''tf'^««.e : but keen ""'' ^^"^ ■"=""•-' •"" i^cep ,1,0 aa^e going as much as E 3 32^ ON CLEARING LAND, &c. you please. Every tree knocked down in ita neighbourhood makes your cleared space consU derably more productive ; for nothing is so nO" cessary to crops in the " bush" as some open about them. Under trees you will find nothing thrive except possibly grass, and that in a small degree ; but potatoes, turnips, and straw crops are the mere shadows of what they ought to be ; and, again, you will find it much easier to pile and burn logs which have been some little time down and drying. CHAPTER V. i L ll ■ . I ON CATTLE AND LIVE STOCK. Cattle in Canada are not as good as they are in this country ; nor are they, on the average, nearly as high priced ; but a considerable differ- ence exists in the prices of different parts of the province. In the western districts, at Niagara, and near Toronto, they are generally to be had for less than elsewhere. Milch cows and working oxen are those a settler at commencing will be most anxious about. Of these you will sometimes see a pretty fair specimen, though nothing equal to our improved breeds, and even these oidy with gentlemen about the chitd' towns : the price of the former varies from sixteen to thirty dollars each, and the latter from ^ifty to one hundred dollars a yoke. Now the expediency of purchasing either at once on going into the " bush," before j^ou have raised any fodder for them, has been very much tloubted; and, more especially, as almost 84 ON CATTLE AND every Nvlicreyou will get oxen and a driver to hire for one dollar a day; but, for my part, notwltli- standlng the objections to it, I would get botli •without loss of time. The want of milk is a very serious one indeed ; and the want of oxen nearly as much so in the woods. I would only take the precaution of purchasing, at first, rough hardy ones, rather small sized, and moderate in their price ; for by such you cannot lose, having your choice either to fatten them in the woods the fol- jowing summer, and make " bush" beef of them, as which tho}^ will bo worth, at the least, your price, or to exchange them witii your labourers at a handsome })rofit for work ; and remember this barter system is one you must always have your rye upon in Canada : it is by far the most profita- ble mode of management. I say rough small cattle, as more easily fed and more easily cared for; they can meet with less injury the unavoida- ble hardships of your first winter, against the se- verities of which you will probably not have lei- sure enough to provitlc them protection ; r. 1 less fodder, with " bi'owse" will support them. Per- haps it U superfluous to explain this word of the woods, "browse," so much of America is already known among us. However I will venture. It is the American term for the buds, leaves, and branches of trves that cattle break off and feed on, I^IVE StOCK. g^ •■-'^ '00 of Indian eo™, ;;:;'" T''"- - all last winter, and fouml it nnl-.T '"'"' ftrence. However I I, ' ""^ ^''''''''''i''- ->erMi,at,ot „:;,!::::;- ;;:'=-'-r,.oor but this browse, chopti,, '? """'" """" going forward, and thov ,t. , "'" '""''"""^ I---^tran,oi;.aU;:^to :,:rrf--"• P-f«n•ngita..„osttoa„y i ";."\™--' mont your axe is heard tJ" '""■ you ,■ andyo„™ustl-o , ^' "°""' "'""'"fe' "> In a fe"\! '"''''"■" ""y ^ fi'l'i"g tree " a rew minutes thev h-ivn it .. • , """S under the thicknes. ofl «'"'"' "' -^'"^ "iiCKuess of your finger, and theq 86 ON CATTLE AND follow you to another. Maple and basswood are the best trees for browse, but they will eat any except the evergreen kinds, as pine, hemlock, ce- dar, &c. Bushmen are strongly impressed with the nutritive powers of this kind of food, for 1 have heard it asserted they are not confined to cattle. A story is told of a man named Partridge and his sister, who were among the very first settlers on the road to Penetanguishenc, and who became minus of all " old country" edibles, and unex- pectedly cutoff from any means of reaching them, having positively lived on "browse'' three weeks, boiling for themselves, twice a day, a i)ottage of maple and basswood-buds, that Diogenes himself might have envied. Certainly I can vouch for the man's being alive and well, for I have been in his house, and conversed with him, and, moreover, have seen him browsinn* very earnestly upon a piece of pork and cabbage ; but I cannot vouch for the truth of the whole story, not having asked him touching it; nor would I advise any settler to reckon therefrom much on " browse," as par- lour food, or even as food for cattle exclusively, if he can at all procure something additional for them. The old settlers compute ten dollars to be the value of such additional food for a yoke of oxen during the winter : this is the usual price of LIVK STOCK. S7 a ton of hay in Canada — so half a ton of hay would suffice each head. In this country mo tliink it very strange to hear of cattle being turned at large into a boundless forest, and would feel much inclined to take a long farewell of them ; but they are very seldom or never lost, notwithstanding the scope allowed to them. They will sometimes ramble away for days, it is true, particularly if they happen to have wandering companions in the neighbourhood, or have not been much accustomed to your clearing, but they return again. However for their regular voluntary return you must depend in a great de- gree on their being supplied with salt, of which they are immoderately fond, and of which a hand- ful once or twice a week to each head is absolutely necessary for their thriving. You can have small trouglis made and placed in your cattle-yard, and the salt put into them ; and by attending to this your cattle will look and be quite different; but as this inducement is not always strong enough to make them come home every day, and as absence from only one milking is so injurious to cows, and you may have three or four men v/aiting idle for your oxen, I think you will find it to your interest to have an intelligent little boy, whom you will Jiire for three or four dollars a mouth and his food, %^ ON' cattlH and I li chiefly to attoml your cattle, aiiil to drive tlicm lionie twice a day : lie may also be otherwiso very userul, getting; firewood, water, Sec. &:c., unless you have a son quick enough, and who has no more valuable eniploymout. Of this lie may bo certain, that driving home cows or oxen through the woods will be no degradation to him in Cana- da ; but he must not be dull, or he will probably lose himself some time or other, a case of no un- common occurrence, and being aware of its fre- quency, even to old bushmcn, I would not advise any one at any time to go off a *' blazed" or beaten path into the wood without a pocket compass, which will enable the greatest simpleton to walk at least in a right line, and to reach some road or river of whose topography ho is aware. When you find cattle in the woods, no matter at what dis- tance from home, and begin to drive them, they will immediately face thither and take the shortest possible path, avoiding all windfalls, swamps, and places difficult of travelling, and affording a very remarkable instance of sagacity. When the snow in the bush has gone in spring, the first thing that grows up, and most succulent it is, is wild garlic. Your milch cows feast on this, and your milk and butter taste of it in pro- portion. This misfortune continues for a couple of months, and you will be liable to it each re-» ^n'K STOCK. gn turning season until vn„ i food for „,en,. " ,^"" '"^'•^' »■■"•'«<"■ 'omo other ""opted ,va, tint oft''"'-" " ''"'■"'""^ "'" I''"" I '•-''0 CO.. w 7 7;f"''';.Vcws „,,,,,,, "bout seven o'clock i, H '"' '""S'" ''""'« "' '■^■- t"nnps left for ti.e, V"'"'"''; ""' "''' "'"' '■' '•"g they were a.ain!^ ! ''V'' '" "'"■"»"'- --teracltirt :7'T'"'"^^''''»--c-to -- ^^-""ti.o'be;t "I'oJte ;'"■'''''"' ^''^- ^"'Hlered niucJ, wn. f '"^'■'""S eattle that «' about four ot, ;;""'-"'-•«'■' W "»«' "early „„,■. ZlT?'""' ""'' ''<'P' "P Jiff lit .^'it you will find th ^f>"r Jiours, and tJ '^^'^r or five o cloci thv.n tu ^«Gd out, and at day- r:!^!^?'^--^^^p^ .^-'n not far from home. HavJ '^■y will not ,str "P about th th t'ir necks in '^ «; am. VhAI order to guide you rne or ^ly 'uuch until •^arc . rapped (,n --the,no.t„u,sica,„/ ;i::;-'--.-^ 'low It COinno * -^ 3 «t, I know Mof: coines to pass, not d now not ^S'\2:reeablr to the set- *^^r: for these you nav frn " ^^ "'" "^eordin. to tLv !Z "'" "^^ ^« ^^^^^ ^^oll, ^^-^sh:j,;:ir:-i.^^-i^^'iiicstof ;irs. sound of one of the lar furthest. Of a calm each still (h.y f] """"uot one of the Jir-nn. ^'''y rue two miles om wLl'^ "'' ''^" ^^ ^^-tingui.si^ed do well --theXETf--"-" to give half a dollar for addfei and strap that will mi the ■■6. ^J^^o. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // {./ ^ A k "^ ^ # ,.v A .^1^^ :/. ^ ^ W I I 1.1 11.25 ■ii|21 121 1^ 12.0 lU i 1.8 U i 1.6 /. V Photographic Sciences Carporation r\^ 4"^ <^ V 23 WBT MAIN STRKT WEBSTM.N.Y. 14SS0 (716)a72-4S03 '^ :V :)0 ON CATTLE AND loop of the bell completely, and bo properly stitched and buckled. You will find your bells, taking this precaution, on the necks of j'our cat- tle, whenyourneighbour, who had fastened on his in a more scrambling manner, cannot find them any where. When buying oxen, remember particularly to ask are they " breachy?" as Americans term it, that is, do thoy break over or take down fences. I have seen an ox take down a rail fence eight rails high, one by one, upon his horns, with greater facility and expedition than any of your labourers ordered to perform the same operation would do. This is a serious fault, and deteriorates ten per cent, at the least, from their value ; but you caa return such oxen, and recover the price you have paid for them, with all damage they have occa- sioned, provided you have asked the question and received a false answer : to establish the latter, as it is a habit cattle will soon acquire among bad fences, you must prove they were breachy before you bought them, which, if they were so, will not be very difficult to do, for you will soon find some obliging neighbour of the late proprietor to en- lighten you on the matter; but if you omit to ask the question before purchasing them you have no remedy at all. Again, it is very common whei% an ox is killed, by some accident or other, to re« LIVE STOCK- ^l m match the survivor. Such a yoke I would not pur- chase ; it is many chances to one they will not pull at all together, and pull kindly they certainly never will. Large and high priced oxen, as I have be- fore mentioned, I would not bring into the bush at first ; not only as requiring more care and food, but as not being proporfeionably useful on wild land. It is on a cleared farm their superiority is manifested in ploughing, teaming on a road, haul- ing to and from mills, and such work. More- over, the difference in price is vciy considerable, and makes any accident befalling them so much more serious. Now accidents axe very common among beginners. Nearly every one you speak to on the subject will tell you of a number of cows and oxen he has had killed twenty different ways. Two gentlemen in my neighbourhood had each lost, within a very few months, four head of valua-* ble cattle. For me I was very fortunate. I never lost any ; but often, at my busiest moment, one of my oxen would be disabled, by standing on some httle stump or other, perhaps for a week, and his foot poulticed twice a day, to take down the swel- ling. These are little misfortunes, to which all are there exposed ; and I would mention them to you, chiefly, that being aware of their frequent occurrence, you may not permit yourself thereby to be discouraged. Beware of this, and be oj^ i i 'it V '* 3:1 ^1 I A m 0^ ON CATTLE AND your guard against it, for you will meet with many novel and perplexing circumstances, a thousand privations and disappointments still to surmount, that will try your patience and perseverance to the utmost. When buying a milch cow or cows, follow the same plan, and do not seek the best to bi!ng into the wild bush, for they are only found in the improved country, and will not thrive in hardship. Among other cattle I bought three milch cows in Toronto last October, for one o which I paid fourteen dollars : she had been milk- ing several months, and was then giving six quarts a day — but so poor an object I never saw. I thought she would hardly live to be driven home, yet she held on during winter — began to thrive the moment the snow went — and, when I left the country in June, she was looking very well, and still milking six quarts a day : it is something of this kind that is fit for the " bush." Pigs are the next thing that will occupy the attention of the settler, of live stock, and the very moment he can at all, he ought to commence a stock of them; fourteen or sixteen dollars every now and again, for 2001bs of pork, is a very serious ex- penditure indeed, and I would seek to escape from it as soon as possible. Buy immediately a pig or two, about to farrow, and bring them with you to ihe " bush/' these you will get for four dollars LIVE STOCK. 93 each, of a common kind, and when you have them> you easily manage to procure them food enough without purchasing, which I can hardly think it is worth doing ; if you have any little idle hands about you, there are plenty of green succulent things, acorns, &c. to be gathered in the woods, in addition to the rubbish of your house, and you will find the saving well worth any trouble they cause by taking it ; you may have, shortly after your first crop of Indian corn and potatoes, some hundreds of pork fit for the barrel, and much more progressing, and 1 know of nothing to which at- tention will so speedily repay you. When your fences are good, you may turn your pigs out into the woods as you do your black cattle ; and dur- ing all the time the trees are green they will give you no more trouble, except the old ladies, who must get something every evening : a little salt- some potato rinds, or some garden rubbish, will suffice to induce their regular return home, and the younger parts of the family of course follow, but to them you need give nothing; this must not be omitted, and before you turn them out, you should go round your fence, and carefully examine if it be perfectly pig-impervious, for they will cer- tainly seek information on the same subject with great industry and perseverunco. And here I would again remark the superiority of a log fence* ; J^ !ti . f 4 D4 ON CATTLE AND If you have a fence of good straight logs, and well laid, you need not care though the learned pig himself were outside of it starving, and your best crop within. In the " bush," they are certainly the best : in the cleared country you will not sec them, for it would be too expensive and laborious to haul heavy logs to a distance. Now touching the pigs of Canada, believe mc, they are a vile degenerate race. I can compare one of them to nothing but a small greyhound, with the great head of a rhinoceros, and their ears are like huge plaintain leaves. If ever you see a respecrable one, he is nearly a curiosity, and raises all, if not in rank, pretty considerably in price, that are within thirty degrees of kindred to him. You may be very certain nothing will pay you better than bringing out pigs of a really good kind ; the trouble of a pair of small ones, at all events, is not much ; you can have a strong box made for them, railed stoutly in front, that a jolt or blow may not break it easily ; their food will be very trifling, some coarse biscuit sweepings, which you will get for very little in any seaport, steep- ed, may form the chief part of it; of course they ought to be taken sufficient care of, to prevent their growth being injured. You can easily have them brought up to the country in the steamers with yourself, and on the top of the stages, for the ■^ LIVE STOCK. i95 short distance you have to travel thus, for very little ; and for several years, at least, you will get any price for those you have to sell. I was al- ways asked for a pig of the only decent breed near me, three times the price of a common one of the same age and height. Pigs, too, are worth improving in Canada, Indian corn is so noble food for them. The pork of America is the best meat I have ever seen in any country — lightly pickled and well dressed, it is a dinner for an emperor ; not at all the same species of potato-meat — oily, rancid, and soft, that passes with us under the same name; but fine juicy meat, and hard horny fat. The sheep, too, of Canada are as bad as the pigs, and any one who intends purchasing a cleared farm, would, beyond a doubt, make a great deal of money, by bringing out two or three of the best kind; but I would hardly recom- mend a bush settler to do so. Sheep are not so well adapted to the " bush,*' they do not thrive in it at all, and some time must elapse before one could have grass or any thing at all to give them, during which they would probably be lost. I was surprised at the sheep in America, they are so small and poor, particularly along the Erie canal, they really looked more like ragged mastiffs than sheep, and I have heard several make the same r"' DS I '< ON CATTLK AND remark. In some parts of the country, sheep at-- tract wolves, and fall victims accordingly. A gen- tleman who resides in Innisfail, told me, during fourteen ^''ears he had been settled there, he was never able to keep a sheep ; in the spring of 1&3.% he had eighteen killed M'ithin a few days by them« But, above all things, I would advise the settler to bring out a thoroughbred male calf, of what- ever breed he most fancied. The average of cat- tle is certainly very inferior, and, I have no doubt, any attempt to better them will amply repay for the expense and trouble incurred, not to mention the great gratification and pleasure such afibrds. Tlicy are every day becoming a more interesting object to Canadians, for Vv'heat seems to have lost its pre-eminence, and an improvement in the differ- ent kinds will be proportionablyj sought after. It is astonishing how their prices have increased ; a very few years ago, fifty dollars was regarded a great price for a yoke of oxen, about as great as one hundred is now ; and ten or fifteen for a cow, which now costs twenty-five or thirty. Several old farmers with whom I was speaking on the sub-* ject, agreed with me in thinking that prime cattle brought out, would pay very well. They were fast getting out of tillage, and commencing keep- ing stock on an extensive scale, which, though quite a new thought in Canada, promises to be* ^^ LIVE STOCK. 97 come a very general and a very profitable one, at least while the population of the upper province continues to increase as rapidly as it has done for the last three or four years. Great numbers of cattle are brought in from the States continually at Queenston, and bush settlers who reside not very far from Toronto, have thereby an opportu- nity of getting some cheap, for thejr generally come in droves of from fifty to sixty, and those who bring them, seek to sell the whole drove off at once ; and the purchasers, getting the whole much cheaper by buying them thus, are enabled to sell such as do not suit their purpose, of which, of course, there are a few in every drove, at very moderate prices. These wholesale purchasers are usually the butchers of Toronto ; and as a gene- ral plan, I would suggest to you, going through the market, any time business happened to bring you there, and inquiring of them what cattle they have to sell ; the rejected heads are the very kind of beasts suited to the bush, being rough, hardy, ugly cows, that will not bring anything in Toronto. Half-broken steers, springing cows, that they have no way of keeping over, Sec. &c. ; to fetch these home will not cost you considerably, if you bring a boy up with you from home ; he will be charged about half a dollar a day at the inns, and your cat- tle? great and small, are charged one eighth of a W .*■ » 1)8 ON CATTLE AND dollar (a York shilling,) per night each, for grass or hay, and they may be driven twenty or twenty- live miles a day on the soft roads of Canada with- out injury. I have known gentlemen come from the bush, one hundred and fifty miles, to Queens- ton, bringing, perhaps, with them two men, cross over into the States, and still find, that on pur- chasing even twelve or fourteen head, their sav- ing was more than all their expenses. This is a plan, however, more adapted to the settlers about Lake Simcoe and Notawasaga, for cattle are there very dear ; you can find no yoke of oxen un- der eighty dollars, and no cows under twenty-five or thirty ; indeed, as for the latter place, I don't know where they are to get cattle at all. The only old country within fifty miles of them, or more, has been the field, for two or three years past, for the settlers about the lake to seek theirs in, and very little now remains there, and they are enormously dear : — those settlers can stop no- thing short of Toronto. Tjic same complaint, of course, will exist in all newly settled parts, whero the settlements have been going on for two or three years ; the first comers are not so badly off, but the succeeding ones do not, in the instance of cattle, reap much benefit from their not having been the pioneers. However, about Notawasaga they ijceni particularly badly oil'— the only fair LIVE STOCK. 99 nearer than tliat of Toronto, is between fifty and sivty miles off, and that is new one — not yet very much worth attending. Wore it not for tlio difficulty of getting cash, and the long credit one would be obliged to give, a great deal of money- might be made in such parts, by bringing in cat- tle extensively from a distance, and selling them off at once ; but it should bo at once, for there would be no way of keeping them over ; how- ever, any gentleman might pursue it on a minor scale — buying ten or twelve head or more, and exchanging them for the labour he needs at the time, and so for some years, employing the new settlers by contract, and paying them thus. When buying others, it is a good speculation to buy a fat ox or two, and bring them up to the " bush." There are always several anxious to get fresh beef, and sufficient to pay all your expenses may be ea- sily made of such. These are little hints to such as are obliged to " make out " life, and to them I would say, that cleverness and activity thus ap- plied, will tell more than mere manual work ; for, even labouring your best, you will not be worth much more than half a good man, except on very- few occasions, and then you save a few dollars only, but by such plans as these, you may get all your work done for very little more than one-half the usual rates; and I would think a little money U 100 ON CATTLE AND kept to traffic thus, or at interest, to enable you to pursue 8ueli plans, much more profitably cm- ployed than locked up in land, which may or may not be valuable, or even saleable during your lifetime. Horses arc usually good in Canada, and cheap ; in the lower provinces indeed they are very cheap and very good. The breed there is mostly the Norman — introduced by the old French set- tlers, and retained in some places still in great purity. Of these, you will get some '* capital ones " in Quebec and Montreal. Now, were I going alone up the country, and desirous of seeing and learning a good deal about it, I would pur- chase one of these Norman horses in Montreal — a good stout stump, limiting myself to thirty or thirty-five dollars for him, and ride everywhere. On the steamers the charge is very moderate for one ; I suppc. . he would not cost you more than six dollars from Montreal to Toronto for all his expenses, and when I had chosen my land, I would barter him for oxen ; (you will surely get twice your own money for him thus ;) or if I had bag- gage, would keep him until winter, and purchase a *' cutter," (a one horse sleigh,) and carry it up with provisions, &c. to my house, and he could occasionally bring up half a load of food for him- §eU, This I would think a very good plan, and ' ( LIVE STOCK. 101 Will certainly save you soino fagging: if you in- tend pursuing it, you may bring an old saddle and bridle from Ireland. 13 ut for the general j-nr- poses of the •' bush," horses are not by any means adapted, nor, except for pleasure, as I have men- tioned, will you do well to bring them into it un- til you have ploughing or some such work for them to do, and hay or grass to feed them, though they, too, run in the woods, like all other trans- Atlantic animals ; and I have seen them look plump and well after a summer, during which they had gotten nothing but what they had ga- thered there. Oxen are the main stay and aid of all bush work ; they can bear nearly any rough- ness and hardship, and live on a great deal less and commoner food — can scramble ov^r all sorts of logs, brush heaps, and stumps, and be driven through fire and smoke without alarm, and com- paratively without injury. In the upper province the horses are more like ours, but rather smaller sized, and showing more blood, which, with their switch tails, gives them a very pretty appearance. They are for the most part brought in from the States, and can be had, the best, for about £43 ster- ling the pair, matched, which is tho highest price through the country ; but in some of the towns, there are, as with us, fancy horses and fancy prices and a little of the rivalry in the dash and appear- F 2 li If 1 M hi I!; '' 102 ON CATTLE, &c. ance of horses and equipages so common in Eu- rope, particularly in the winter season, when the sleighs and bells and furs of grandees are wont to delight the eye and ear. I have known several who paid 50 guineas and upwards for their horses each, in Toronto—but what is that to a " bush settler?" fi f ;■;:> CHAPTER VI. BARN, HOUSE, CROPS, &c. Jfl m t " ■■■•>•■ His barn is an object of greater importance to a settler than his house, and as soon as his first crop is put into the ground, should occupy his at- tention ; you may build one of logs or a frame one shee*;c;d with narrow boards, and opinions are di- vided as to which is preferable ; the former costs about fifteen pounds, and the latter, which is the more durable, fifty or sixty, Halifix currency ; for my part, though my choice might be much determined by my finances, I hardly think the frame one worth the great difference, and would prefer with the money it would cost, building a log one, and adding ten or fifteen acres to my clearance. I would erect two log buildir^s, twenty-five feet by twenty, or twenty feet square, with a space of nine or ten feet between them, and when they were run up nine or ten feet, connect the two buildings with Joes or boards for the additional height over that r. 15 ! I*-' h ti i It 104 BARN, HOUSIl, cover all under the one roof, and make the gates to inclose the opens, the middle walls of logs then, which would else form partitions, are nearly cut away ; the corn is drawn off the field and piled in each end, and the center space is the threshing floor, for in Canada corn is not stacked in the farm yards (or rather haggards) as here, but at once drawn into the barn, the dear rates of labor and the heavy falls of snow in the winter are, I suppose, the reasons for this. It is well not to stuff and plaister too closely the interstices be- tween the logs, as one seeks to do in a house, for air is very necessary in a barn, and overlooking this has possibly given rise to some of the objec- tions against log-barns ; as for their duration, I have lived in a house of logs, built twenty-five years, and it looked likely to last as many more. Frame barns are built in two different ways, in one the frame work is principally perpendicular, and the boards sheeting it are nailed on parallel to the horizon, in the manner frame-houses are built: this description costs seven or eight pounds more than the other in which the frame-work is chiefly parallel, and the boards are put on perpendicularly ; I prefer the latter, it is the most airy, and I should think the sheeting would not decay so soon, being perfectly upright. When building your barn, as it will be long before your clearing is completed, CROPS, &c 105 you must consider its position with regard to your future farm ; the more central it is of course the better, as far as the nature of the ground permits ; the back gates will open into your cattle yard, so that the straw may at once be thrown to them, and on the outside at the back and gable ends you can have their sheds — this yard I would have in- closed with a fine substantial log-fence, it looks so solid and comfortable, and affords such shelter, and take care to have in it a warm house for my milch cows in winter, and another adjoining to the yard for my workmen. I have heard of many of the Bush settlers building their barns on the highest spot in their clearance — I cannot tell why. I woul(jl seek the lowest, that my road to it might be as much down-hill as possible, taking care the place was perfectly dry ; of course you must have a well fenced in road from your barn to the Bush, a^ which side you think it best to turn out your cat- tle, that they may iiave free ingress and egress. My house I would have at some distance, always choosing, if possible, a declivity to build on, and running water near ; frame-work houses are sel- dom built in the wood, nor do they look so suU table to it, as those of logs — the difference of ex- pense is very considerable, and unless you be near a, saw-mill or with very ready water conveyance from one, you will not find a frame-house by anj^ i I 106 BARN, llOltpE, means Avortli all it will cost; some of those you see through the country are very pretty, hand- somely painted outside and well plaistered within, and the rooms in them are as warm and as nice as our "old country" ones ; but a log-house is more in accordance with the forest, and if well built and of well matched logs with their bark on, is very picturesque indeed, and very comfortable and substantial. I would not, as people in America are so fond of doing, build a large square of very heavy pine logs, thirty or forty feet long, and then divide it with board partitions into apartments, seldom regarding a hall as very necessary. I would prefer building my house of much smaller and lighter logs, and at least in three parts, a cen- teir'and two wings — the center receding about a foot, showing one story in front with a gallery or piazza along, and the bed-rooms lighted from the gable ends ; this gallery is delightful to sit in on a summer's evening — indeed during all that season it will be your principal place of abode in prefer- ence to the rooms within ; the inside of these log houses you will never have nice any other way than by sheeting it all with half inch boards well seasoned and jointed, and the ceilings the same ; the outside should not have the mark of an axe, but have the bark quite perfect, the logs ought all to be of the same size, and the corners very accu* CROPS, &c. 107 rately dove-tailed with the saw — cedar is by far the prettiest and the best, the bark is striped, and very uniform, and looks to great advantage when a number are put together ; but of what» ever wood they be, all the logs should be the same. The cost of a house must always depend much on the facility of procuring boards, or in other words on the proximity of the saw-mill to you — 1 be- lieve at every mill the price of " lumber " is the same, viz. three quarters of a dollar per hundred feet of board one ir h thick, and a dollar and a-half for two inches thick, &c. ; but if you be distant from the mill, or if the road be bad, it will cost you this much and more to haul it home. I was only nine miles from a saw-mill, and I paid half a dollar per hundred for hauling inch lumber ; of course when you can send your own cattle this expense is much less. If you prefer it you may haul logs to the mill and get one half of what- ever boards they produce, which is very much the custom in the old settlements ; but the distance of the mills and the badness of Bush roads, hardly offer you the choice in the new ones. The prox- imity of a saw and grist mill I omitted to mention among my hints for your guidance in the choice of a lot ; it is a very important one. Of the pro- duction of the former you are constantly in need, nearly every thing you set about requires sawed In? 108 BARN, HOUSE, [t wood in some shape or other ; and when the h^iul- ing deprives not the power of its value, you will, by sending occasionally, get inferior or rejected beirds, which are very useful about your house, for a mere trifle ; thus those with rough edges are for half price, they answer for sheeting under shingles and many other purposes, the outside slabs are given for nothing to them who are buying lumber, and are very good for roofing ox sheds, flooring cellars, shanties, &c. &c. When you arc not within reach of a mill you must employ sawyers ; the usual agreement with them is — they cut down the tree and cross cut it into logs ; you have the pit made and the logs hauled to it, and they charge one dollar per hundred feet, and are fed ; this is a considerable addition, for two men only cut about two hundred feet in a day, and their food, as I have before mentioned, cannot be less than three quarters of a dollar ; moreover two hun- dred feet of their cutting will not give you as many boards as two hundred from a saw-mill, for you have to pay for every cut the saw runs, and the saw runs four, squaring the log before a board IS cut oiF at all — this you will perceive makes the difference of the edges which you pay for to saw- yers ; at the mill it is only the surface of the board that is measured. You may have this advantage lirith sawyers — they should cut two inch boards for CROPS, &c. 109 heir less hun- lu as for and oard the saw- oard tage sfor the same as inch boards ; but they are generally great rogues, wrong you as much as they can in the measurement, cut their boards very badly, and protract the time if it suit their own schemes, as you have to feed them ; nor have I ever seen any thing as accurately sawed by the best of them, as from a good mill ; this is of course partly owing to their using a whip saw always in place of a frame one. • " Carpenter's wages are about twenty or twentj''- two dollars a month, (twenty-six working days) and their food ; and you will not find either them or sawyers by any means scarce, at least such as style themselves so, but they also are very tedious and great botches, and one might with great truth pronounce << hedge carpenters" and "bush" car- penters to be strictly synonymous ; mason work is dear, and like the others, every fellow who knows the shape of a trowel or the handle of a stone hammer from the head, dignifies himself into a mason, and fearlesdy undertakes a chimney which often falls before half finished. But hire the best you ean find, and have your chimneys as well built as you can; they will be dear, it is true, but it will be much dearer to have your house burned — and this is a misfortune which combustible houses, huge fires, and the continiial absence of tlie inmates, render every G M J no BARN, HOUSE, precaution necessary to protect you against ; bricks are at much tiie same price as here, where they can be gotten, but this is not frequently in new settlements ; stone is seldom difficult to be procured, for if it do not happen to be on your own lot, you can have it by hauling a mile or two from some other ; if, however, you cannot get either, you will do better to use stoves entirely, than to allow stick and mud chimneys to be built for you, which are common and very dangerous, re- membering always to secure properly the opens in the walls and roof, through which the pipes pass, either with pottery or iron. I do not think you will build any thing of a comfortable house, with two sitting rooms, four or five bed-rooms, kitchen, store-rooms, &c. with a fire-place in each sitting- room and the kitchen, for less than eight hundred dollars ; this will surprise those who think log-houses cost nothing, yet many spend considerably more. A gentleman who resided near me built a nice log-house, but nothing very remarkable, by contract work, which cost him sixteen hundred dollars ; from this price you can put up various sorts of edifices, down to one hun- dred dollars, for which last, however, your build- ing will be very humble, with two rooms or so, and one chimney, and boards must be pretty convenient, yet it is something of this kind I would build at CROPS, &.C. III very him first, until I icnew a little more of the country and its work, and how far my money went in its dif- ferent operations. I would endeavour to plan this edifice, so that it would answer as a kitchen or some other attache of my mansion afterwards, unless money were not so considerable an object with me, in which case [ would remain in one of the towns, or at least leave my family in one until my house was built, which I would set by contract to be finished off as quickly as possible ; indeed if such, you would do better, and consult your own satisfaction and comfort an immensity more, by going out yourself one year before your family, choosing land, building a house, and get- ting in crops ; let your family follow the ensuing May or June, and they come at once to quiet and comfort, not wandering about and waiting and unsettled six or eight months, clogging your mo- tions and not overjoyous at their own ; a family, however constituted, can cross in a packet to New York, and then if they cannot travel up the coun- try without you, nothing is easier, more agreeable, or less expensive than running down from Canada, meeting them and escorting them to your home ; you have also an opportunity thus, of getting out from England, many little things, the desirability of which your previous residence in the Bush will have discovered to you. The houses arc 1^ * i; ^nmi I' V. \P2 BARN, HOUSE, roofed with wooden slates, called shingles, one foot six inches long and various breadths — they are a dollar and a-half a thousand, which should equal one thousand four inches wide, and being very thin and light, admit of the roofs being made with a considerable span ; this is a great advantage, for gutters do not at aN answer, owing to the depth of the snow in the v/inters. I would strongly advise you, if your roof be not entirely boarded under these shingles, which, by the way, is said to cause their decay from the retention of damp, to have them nailed on, showing only four and a-half inches to the weather, that is one fourth of their length ; they are generally put on to show §ix inches, but as generally are not staunch, and are always cold. At the back of your bouse in the kitchen-yard, you will have your root house and your ice house — and do not as most people do, seek out a bank, probably at a most inconve- nient distance, and excavate a great hole in it, thinking every thing is accomplished if they be under groxind; build yours quite close to your kitchen on the ground of logs, and cover them with two feet of clay — thus made they are much drier, much less expensive and easier of access ; if you wish much storage for vegetables, two root bouses of a smaller size are much preferable and easier to build than a very large one ; these bouses ii-'f (;r()1»s, &c. 113 of course must iiave double doors and straw put between them, for tlie perfect exclusion of air. Root bouses or cellars are absolutely necessary to keep during winter a portion of vegetables for present consumption ; but for your own domestic purposes, that is, for your family and your work- men, storage for two or three weeks' consumption is quite suflicient — for all bulky vegetables, such as turnips, cabbages (with roots uppermost,) pota- toes, &c. keep well in pits properly covered, and you will always find soft days to get them brought in. If you have turnips, or mangel wurZel, or such food for cattle, you will have a root-house for them adjoining their own yard, and pits also. But root-houses and cellars you will find useful for many other purposes, for in them only can things be kept cool in summer, and unfrozen in winter ; and store-rooms to be of much use during the ex- treme of either season, must be some such air-im- pervious place. Dairies are usually built over running water ; but I should think these are only preferable in the temperate months. All these underground or earth-covered, should be made of cedar logs, for they are most durable, and your house, as I have mentioned, ought also to be of cedar logs, for the same reason — and as being the lightest Avood, which is of great importance, for other woods are heavy, and settle so much after i:1 n ■ r i > ( 114 BARN, IlO'JSi:, ■If '■1 ■n 'I ••1 s Ij they have been put up, that every open is out of square in two or three years ; many of the old settlers to avoid this put up the walls of their houses and roof them, then leave the building so for a year, to settle without cutting out the spaces for the windows, &c, ; but this you will hardly find necessary in a house of light cedar- logs, considerably adzed away on the inside ; you must remember, in building houses, barns, &c. the foundation logs should not rest on the ground, but be raised on little walls of stone — for the alter- nate wetting and drying they get on the ground very soon decays them, and you must choose the proper time for cutting building log?, which is when there is least sap in them, for they then last longest ; people say this takes place in the depth of winter— I would be inclined to think it is in August. I have certainly observed " brush" cut and piled in winter, bud out quite green in spring, and logs cut in December and January, run sap the first hot sun — these were of deciduous trees—" I don't know whether the same applies to ever-* green. Another advice I would givey ou when build' ing, indeed at every work is, never call a " bee;" you have, no doubt, heard of " bees" of men and oxen coming to you, working gratis — cutting down the logs — hauling them and putting up a building, &c. &c. all in one day ; but beware of CHOPS, »^c. 115 thisharumscarumdrunkcn work. A gontlnnan or any respectable man has no busiioss with it — tlio idle riff-raff are they who will surely come, getting drunk, eating u[. all your pork and flour, and fighting like Irishmen; and, if they work at all> put up some ugly botched thing, you will pay others to take away. Hire men for every thing or set your work out by contract. About the in- tended site of your house — when chopping and clearing, you ought to leave standing a few small trees, that promise to spread and be handsome, beech particularly, and have all leaves and ** brush" carefully raked away from about them that they may not be scorched — the beauty of these when they have room to branch out is very great and fully repays you for any trouble they occa- sion ; but except such as these which are mere " underbrush," I would have no trees left stand- ing — they I. re in the first place very dangerous, for the trees in America have no tap roots — their roots only spread on the surface — and single ones consequently, deprived of shelter, are liable to fall — beside nothing grows well beneath or about them, and the best of them are very ugly, being three fourths a naked branchless trunk : you will be advised by your choppers to leave this " im- mense oak," or that "noble pine," but do you have them all cut down. I would also plant about T "•"^^mmmm I I* 116 BARN, HOUSE, my house immediately, particularly balsam, but- ter-nut and sumach; an energetic person will manage to get a few little jobs of this kind done at the end of a day's work, or an idle man will amuse himself sometimes at them, so that they will not cost much, and will add no little variety and pleasure to the sameness of the forest. In making your garden, ym will find a mat- tock, that is a tool like a pick, with an axe on one side and an adze at the other, very useful. I ^ought one in Dublin before I went out for 4s. 6d., which was invaluable to me, and also those hoes that are used in this country for hoeing turnips, six' or eight inches wide, and very light; they were the nicest thing for clearing land or gather- ing the rubbish off it I saw any where. Of course, you cannot have any thing like a pretty or Eng- lish garden without removing the stumps, which I have mentioned stand up between two or three feet high, and are not the most ornamental ob- jects in the world. In some of the old parts of the country, there is a machine for eradicating stumps, for performing which operation, I have heard half a dollar each is charged. Eight or ten dollars thus laid out, would give you space sufficient for a fruit and flower garden at starting. With this machine, they only turn the root up into the same position as that of a windfall, and CROPS, &c. 117 you then get the clay picked out, and it disen- gaged with axes, so that one or two yokes of oxen can haul it away. Hard wood stumps decay away sufficiently for a plough to run through them in five or sIm years, but hemlock and pine last thirty or forty years. But more weighty knatters must not be omitted for these little affairs, and chopping and clearing is the great business of the " Bush." As I have mentioned, for some years the axe should never be idle clear* ing may go on more leisurely ; but to have crops you must make an open, and if previously to your cropping season you have only had time to get as much chopped as is absolutely under crop, begin the moment the last of it is in, and your fence finished, and knock down all the tree^ you can about it, only taking good care to have the work done as it ought to be, a"d not slurred over, or the advantage of it will be more than counter- balanced. T- There is no crop which will not grow very finely in " bush" land the first year, except peas and perhaps onions, the latter of these I have seU dom seen of any size in such land, though I can- not tell why they should not be; and for the former the land is too rich altogether, they only answer in poor land. Wheat, as requiring stronger soil, is the best thing you can put in at first, H Pfiipjimi U t 118 BARN, HOUSE, I' but it will be as good after your firsi crop of potatoes, owing to the great stirring up and mix- ing of the soil which planting them occasions. Your first year s spring crops will be apportioned a good deal according to the difficulty and ex- pensiveness of procuring hay for your cattle dur- ing winter ; if this cannot be had, you must have straw instead, which, with chopped oats or barley you will ^Ind no bad succedaneum. Oats are, therefore, a valuable crop ; they are better to go in the moment the snow goes, but will ripen if not in until the first week in June. The best of this grain in any part of Canada is very light when compared with ours ; nor have I seen any of them fit to make meal, which accordingly is a thing unknown in the country. This poverty I should think, is much owing to the great heat of the sun. The earlier they are in, the better they will generally be. W!ien your land is quite clear and raked, you have it harrowed and cross- harrowed with a heavy iron-toothed harrow, and the seed sown at the rate of two bushels to the acre, which is covered with a light harrow, hav- ing wooden teeth. Two or three acres of these you will find quite indispensible, if you intend having cattle, even only four or five head ; for I need hardly mention, an acre of this kind of land does not equal an acre without stumps, nor can CROPS, Ac. 119 Ji crop of and mix- :>ccasioi]s. portioned and ex- ittle dur- lust have >r barley Oats are, er to go ripen if rhe best 3ry light 'en any gly is a verty I heat of er they quite cross- and the hav- these ntend for I land can ;o it fairly be expected to produce over two-thirds of one; and the best land in Canada, all stunipless and clear, will not average in produce the land of this country or nearly. Indian corn is a more novel and interesting crop to a new comer ; and when it succeeds, is perhaps one of the most valu- able ones in the bush. The return for the quan- tity sowed is truly surprising— I believe, even seyen or eight hundred-fold; a few quarts are sufficient to seed an acre ; they cost but a few pence; and a man M'ith an attendant ought to put in, Americans say, one acre a day, (but you will not find one half of this a bad day's work.) The land ought to be pretty clean for it, but it does not need to be rich. The seed is sowed in little holes about three feet apart from each other each way; the planter walks in a right line up one row and down another, sticking his hoe into the ground every step, and closing the previous hole with his foot ; the attendant drops in three grains at the back of the hoe each time, and occasionally a pumpkin seed. When the corn grows up a little, it requires landing, and it should be always put into the sunniest spot of your clearing, and the farthest from the wood, or it will never pro- duce a head. The chief objection to this crop is its great' uncertainty ; and for the last two or three years it has completely failed in Canada. It 120 BARN, HOUSE, W should be sowed the 1st of May, and conies up in about a week; but frost will cut it off, and it never shoots again. Now the frosts continue until June ; again in autumn, if it be caught by the frost before ripened, all further advance ceases, and you must immediately throw it to your cattle, or see it decay. Now, last year, the frosts began on the 14th oi September, on which night all over the Upper Province, potatoes and Indian corn were killed — thus you cannot reckon on it with certainty ; if the spring frost kill it, you sow it again, or sow some other crop in the land, but for an autumn misfortune, you have no remedy. All cattle are very fond of it, given to them in the head just as it grows, or as the Ame- ricans term it, " in the cob." For pigs it is the best of feeding ; but like all other grain, picked off the cob and bruised, one bushel is worth two in its effects. The straw, too, is used as fodder, but it is a very poor kind. In general, the corn sells picked for six or seven York shillings a bushel, and in the head for half thau Indian meal makes the Canadian dish called ^'rnush,'* which is a general favourite ; and the heads be- fore quite ripe, boiled and served as a vegetable, are delicious. The pumpkins sewn among the corn hills run over the ground, and produce very abundantly ; nor CROPS, &.C. 121 can you imagine finer food for milch cows, or any they prefer better, and which literally costs nothing. They grow very large ; and if properly gathered,, and packed without bruising in a root-house, they will keep until January. The Americans make very nice pies of them with butter and spices, and without sugar; and a good housewife manufac- tures a most savoury soup of them. They are cut into thin slices, strung and hung up in the kitchen to dry, and are thus preserved for culinary pur- poses, long afl;er the root-house fellows are gone ; in the same manner apples are preserved, and both will keep until May or June, requiring only a few hours steeping to be nearly as good as fresh ones. Potatoes are planted in " bush" land with a hoe, in small heaps, and ought to cost for planting about four dollars an acre, or at the utmost five ; and for seed you require about seven or eight bushels an acre. A bushel weighs between three and four stones, and is worth on the average a quarter of a dollar, but in the very new settle- ments, th?y often bring a aollor. The heaps ought not to be made top clos^} or unnecessarily large, and should be flattened with the foot after making ; either three or four seeds are put into each heap. I would prefer four ; and the heaps require landing when the potatoes are up a little height. I have heard the produce of an acre va- 122 BARN, HOUSE, riously estimated ; some will tell you they have had four hundred bushels, and that in "bush" land, an acre of which, as I have mentioned, is so diminished by stumps ; but I have not had or seen more than two hundred, or at the most two hundred and thirty bushels an acre. They are a sure and very valuable crop, and the new settler will do well to have as much of them as he can ; thus, if I had land enough to try an acre or an acre and a half of Indian corn, I would have at least three of potatoes. In pitting them, don't have the pits made over large, from twenty to forty bushels are the best size ; and if you happen not to have straw to cover them with previous to the clay going on, cedar or hemlock boughs, or the fibrous sod that is on the surface of new land answer very well ; don't trust to less than twenty inches or two feet of clay, but with this you may defy the winter 54° below freezing point. Tur- nips are another fine crop for the new settler ; they are very productive, cost very little to sow, and admit of more time to clear land for them, not requiring to be sowed early. The seed costs a mere trifle, but some will tell you the land should be all hoed before sown, which is an ex- pensive operation ; however, I have seen very fine turnips which had been put in in a very rough manner, the land having been merely well CROPS, &c. 123 cleaned, harrowed, and cross-harrowed, and the seed covered with a coarse wooden rake, and this is the way I would put them in. Last year, I had my land hoed first, and the turnips trans- planted from a seedling bed ; they were Swedish ones, and the finest I had ever seen ; but being so dene by men at half a dollar a day each and food, they were not worth any thing like all they cost. If you have not " fall " wheat, spring wheat is another crop you should have two or three acres of, though not as marketable or bearing as high a price as winter wheat, and though a more uncertain crop, still it saves your dollars from going every now and again into some Yankee miller's pocket; and I would reckon it next in importance to potatoes for a new not over-rich settler. It has some years proved a more abun- dant and better crop than fall wheat ; but it should be sowed as early in spring as possible. This in the "bush*' may be, if you have land cleared, the moment the snow goes, for up in the woods the heavy frosts are subsequent to the falling of the snow, and the ground is consequently quite soft under it. In the cleared country, it is just the contrary; and a fortnight often elapses after snow has gone and vegetation commenced, be- fore you can dig into your field a foot. There ¥ * 124 BARN, HOUSE, \i: is a work published at Ilo^hester, in the State ot' New York, giving a great deal of useful and in* teresting practical information on all these points, and on the best method of sowing, saving, &c, every kind of crop, which I would strongly recommend to your notice; it is entitled the ** Genessee Farmer," and is to be had at Leslie's in Toronto and Kingston; and if a few shillings a year be no great object to you thus disposed of, you will find them contribute not a little to your amusement and your interest. When you have all these crops planted, re- member the time for their remaining in the ground is much shorter than with us. Things grow and ripen in half the time nearly ; nothing requires more than seven days to be overground, not even onions ; and I have had oats quite green in forty-eight hours after they had been sowed ; and remember the necessity of a barn or some other storage for them is greater even there than here ; therefore, if you have not time, or at the moment are not prepared to build a barn, put up some kind of a rough edifice wherein to store your straw and Indian corn, which may afterwards be converted into a cattle-house or some thing else of use, and you will find having such ready by the time harvest has come, a very serious conve- nience, for you will then be well hurried to get CROPS, &c. 125 all out in time and wheat put in. Now this ought in the old settlement to be in the first week in September; but in the "bush" they are satisfied to get it in late in that month, or early in Octo- ber ; but if you be not able to be ready ^r sow- ing by that time, it is best, old settlers say, to wait as long as you can, without running the risk of the snow preventing your sowing at all, as the frosts that sometimes come before the snow, though light, injure the wheat if it be weak. A yoke of oxen and a man ought to harrow in an acre in a day, and it takes one bushel for seed ; this ought to weigh 641bc.;, but the best I have heard any one say they had was 621 bs. wheat, and 60 is very fair. The produce varies from twenty to fifty bushels, thirty-five or forty is a fine crop, and I would not advise you to hope much over thirty. If you pay in kind for thresh- ing, one bushel of nine is the usual rate, and the mills charge one-twelfth. If your wheat stand sixty pounds, they will give you a barrel of superfine flower, containing I961bs. for ev?*ry five bushels, and the bran and shorts they will either retain, and give you a barrel, or you may have them and provide it ; but bags will do as well except for the market, (flour barrels cost three-eighths or one quarter of a dollar each.) Wheat has usually been a dollar and quarter per 126 BARN, HOUSi:, I' ! bushel at Quebec, a dollar along tho Ridoan and Ottawa, seven York shillings at Toronto, and five or six York shillings in the extreme parts of tiie Upper Province, but the variation of price is considertble, and it appears very probable this scale of price will not hold. In 1832 it waa scarcely saleable at five York shillings in Toronto, moreoTer, the crop was wretched, and good flour very scarce ; and here I may mention for your guidance, in nothing is there a greater difference of quality than in Canadian flour ; people are prone to think it is never bad, but I advise you not to purchase any without careful examination ; make them open the barrels for you, not regard- ing the branding on them, which will be always adduced to you as a proof of it9 prime quality, but which is no such thing, and see there are no little black specks through it, and that it is yel- low and not bluish. The Americans can tell flour by feeling it, but I never arrived at so great perfection. This y«ar flour was three and a half dollars, and from that to five per barrel, according to the distance from the mill. In Toronto, prime was selling for three and a half dollars, being scarcely over a penny a pound, and only between thirteen and fourteen shillings sterling a barrel lor the best wheat. Wheat is considered as cash, at the price of the year, every where through the BARN, HOUSE, 127 provinces ; all storekeepers in the country parts, and most of those in Toronto will take it as cash in payment oC your accounts, or in exchange for groceries, &c., but in the distant parts, among the new settlements, it is not so easy often to get cash for ii ; however, it is a good surplus crop for the beginner, for it does well in his new ground if gotten in and out in proper time, and generally is the most valuable one to have for sale, or that which is the same to him — exchange I say generally, for if you happen to be among the first in a township, and expect to have new settlers about you, your best crop to have over will be potatoes and Indian corn ; and the more you can manage to get put in, the more you will make of your advantage, and you may keep the start of them for some years, having wheat, hay, pork, &c. before they can, or at least before mosi of them ; and dealing with them too, you have another advantage, for if a* all, it is only from new comers cash is to be gotten. The barter system, as I have mentioned, is the usual one through the country. When the old Dutch or Yankee settlers get cash, they literally bury it in half dollars ; nothing will induce them to part with a six-pence ; and this custom in a milder form, has become general. Those who get money, keep it, and those who have it, ought 128 CROPS, Ac. to hold it; therefore, unless you have an income equal to your expenditure, you will do well to fall into a habit of this kind as expeditiously as you can, pocketing your " old-countryman's" pride, which nobody about you will be able to comprehend ; however, thi:« rule, like all others, admits of exceptions ; and sometimes by digging up the half dollars, and making them pass be- fore the eyes or even into the pockets of others, you may profit yourself considerably ; but be cautious, and always remember you are parting with your staunchest friends. When you have arrived on your land, you will do well to make yourself acquainted with the most respectable store keeper in the neighbourhood, mention to him your having bought land, and your intention of becoming a resident &c., and make an agreement with him that ** your orlers shall be punctually attended to," and that he will take all kinds of produce from you in payment, or at least as many kinds as you can ever persuade him ; impress him with the desirability of securing you as a " customer" and waiting for your first crop of wheat. If he say this doling shall exist be- tween you, and you may be pretty sure he will tell your workmen on hiring them that you always pay a portion of your labourers in orders on the store keepers, for store goods, and your servants CROPS, &c. 129 jome ill to ly as lans ►le to there, gging is be- )ther8, »ut be larting ou will le most irhood, id your make 's shall III take or at e him ; ngyou crop .ist be- e will always on the ervants also that you will pay them thus, and endeavour to establish the plan as far as you can ; you will find it a good one, and though all you meet will be anxious for your nu ney, yet they will be glad to deal with you on these terms, and may be well satisfied with the profit such bartering affords them, and remember there is a considerable degree of competition among the store keepers of Canada, the number of whom increase every year fully in proportion to the emigration, and if one do not offer you fair terms you can try others. In the new settlements there is another mode of dealing; with labourers more advantageous than paying forth money continually; in them pork and flour, which are the sole provisions of new settlements, are always very dear; it is true, the carriage from older parts of the country is troublesome and at- tended with expense, but the bush store keepers lay on an additional price which the difficulties do not at all authorise ; this of course, arises as much from the insolvency of one half of their customers as from their own cupidity, and leaves a ^ open to those who have littie enterprize, little disengaged money, to have work do them at a fairer rate than the wages of the coui/r ^ viz. : by paying your workmen in provisions ; go with your cattle and bring up pork and flour from some of the neighbouring old settlements ; employ V iC ' e .ui ,j. .tu„ji wBBnnBssa 130 BARN, HOUSE, I '. the poor settlers adjoining you, of whom in any new part you will always find enough, and give them these in return at the store rate, they have the advantage of getting the things much nearer to them probably than tlie nearest store — of payiilg in work — and of getting employment often taking payment thus, when they would get none if money were demanded ; however this is a plan applicable only to new townships; and to follow which ad- vantageously, you must purchase your provisions in the cheap season, viz. winter, and you must employ new residents with families, who require them ; these men in a short time learn something of the work of the country, and though I would not employ (hem by the day to chop, I would almost prefer giving them a contract to do so, as more assiduous to be honest and to give satisfac- tion than an itinerant, or than one living at a distance- I was prejudiced against this hind of dealing and did not adopt it ; but I saw that my prejudices vere unfounded, and when I employed the settlers about me and paid them in money, they carried i' to the store and drank nine* tenths of it, while their families were coming to me and begging for something to eat, extolling immo. derately any of the surrounding gentlemen who paid their meu as I have proposed to you. If you intend pursuing this plan, as soon as the snow makes the bush roads passable for sleighs, you CROPS, &c. 131 sally forth and some twenty or thirty miles off, will get pork by the hog for four and a half and five dollars per lOOlbs. (which is what Ameri- cans term " a huudred'') the latter price for those over SOOlbs., and the former for pigs of a smaHer size, and flour for four dollars a barrel ; that pork taken out of pickle and of course weighing so much heavier, will be sold in spring in the " bush'' for seven-pence or eight-pence per pound, and by the barrel you will pay eight dollars per hundred for it. The old American settlers who have been Iburteen or fifteen years settled, will not sell their pork this \ ay ; they barrel and keep it over until spring or summer ; but in every part of Canada there are settlements whose inhabitants are sufii- ciently advanced to fatten pork, but who from the occupation of their time in clearing — the difficulty of procuring salt, barrel^, &c., and the necessity of giving something to the store keeper in liquida- tion of their debts to him, bring him these hogs at such a rate as enables him to sell them again as [ have mentioned. You will also get similarly flour for four dollars a barrel that will be sold for seven or eig^t in spring, to bush settlers. If you be unable to go yourself and look for these things, desire the nearest storekeeper who is in the way of getting them, to keep for you as much as you need until your cattle go for them, or to forward you fWS lit m ii ■ It i I! fl 132 Barn, house, &c. them by sleighing. Thus you may effect a very serious reduction in the extravagance of labour, without in the least derogating from your own re- spectability, or being at all remarked or remarkable ; and I have known some, seeing the very great ad- vantage to be derived thus, pursue thesystem further and bring down from the great towns to the **bush" articles of clothing, axes, &c. However I only wish to suggest this as a plan that can be and that is pursued ; the settler himself will best judge of its suitability, and follow it or not as he likes ; but they who have only a small capital, and probably, veral depending on it, must have recourse to some such expedient to enable it to meet the fre- quent drafts they will be obliged to make on it for some years, and even with the utmost manage- ment and prudence, they will find little money is not sooner gone in any part of the world than it is in Canada. rSlNTBD BV P. D. BABOY, 3, CECILU.STBEBT. ct a very )f labour, r own re- narkable ; great ad- m further e "bush" )nly wish )d that is Ige of its kes; but robably, ourse to the fre- ke on it nanage- loney is than it