are, however, many small tracts of this kind of a very luxuriant quality. In the vicinity of Long Point, on the banks of the river Ouse, and in the township of Burford, are the most extensive and valuable plains in the Province. From the Indian settlement on the river Ouse, to the village of Burford, a distance of nearly 13 miles, there is not an acre of woodland to be seen; and yet, in this tract alone, there are at least 100,000 acres; a great part of which belongs to the Indians of the Six Nations, who frequently, for a trifling compensation, grant leases for 999 years to the Canadians. But the title, by which these lands are held, is a very disputable one; for the government does not appear to sanction such bargains. The Long Point Plains are still more extensive and better cultivated.

These are the only parts of the Upper Province, excepting the neighbourhood of Niagara and Sandwich, that afford attractions sufficient to induce men of fortune to settle in Canada. Like all other extensive plains, however, they are liable to many serious objections; such as the want of timber for building, fencing, and fuel. Water may be procured by sinking for it; but to be obliged to go half a dozen miles for fire-wood, rails, and building materials, would involve an expence, which, in my opinion, no American farmer can at present afford.

In the townships of York and Toronto, in the Home District; Newark and Stamford, in the

Niagara District; and in Ancaster and Dumfries, in the Gore District, there are also large tracts of Plains: These, with the others already enumerated, are all the plains with which I am acquainted, and, I believe, the only ones in the Province. They are tastefully interspersed with clumps of white Oak, Pine, and Poplar-trees, which give them more the appearance of extensive parks, planted by the hands of man, than of uncultivated wilds, shaded with their native foliage.

Whenever I have entered on these plains, after having been for many months incarcerated in the deep gloom of the forests, I have always felt my heart expand, and my ideas brighten and extend with the wide and opening prospect. Such has been, in a more eminent degree, the excited state of my feelings in the Summer season; at which time the whole plain is covered with a variety of flowers,

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa.

Although the aspect of these plains is unvaried and uniform, being in almost every instance perfectly level and entirely destitute of water, they present a very delightful landscape, when contrasted with the cheerless wilderness by which they are surrounded.

The opinions respecting these tracts of land are various. It has been thought by some, that they were originally cleared and cultivated by the Indi

ans. Others suppose, that they never were wooded and a third party are of opinion, that the timber, which formerly grew upon them, must have been destroyed by fire at some remote period. The Indians, whose judgment in this case ought to have some weight, appear to co-incide with those who think that the plains never were wooded, They say, "that when the Great Man above was sowing the seeds from which all the trees in their country were produced, he stood upon a high mountain, where the wind blew so fiercely, that several hands-full of seed intended for these different plains, were carried over to other parts which had already received their proper quantum. The Great Man, therefore, disregarding these trivial spots, deigned not to bestow on them an additional handful, judging that his favourite Indians would love to have some bare spots for dancing ground !”—If they had ever been wooded, there seems little reason to doubt, that these people, who are famous for traditional history, would have possessed some account of the change which had been effected.

Pieces of crockery, manufactured of rude materials, but evidently with much taste, have repeatedly been found within a few inches of the surface of these plains; and as no such remains of human art and industry have been discovered in any other parts of the country, many persons are inclined to believe, that the tracts in which they have been seen were once inhabited by a people who had made

considerable advances in the arts of civilized life; while others think, they are the productions of emigrants from South America. How, or by what means, these pieces of crockery were conveyed into the wilds of Upper Canada, it is now difficult to ascertain. The Indians, to whom I have shewn several of them, say, that they never were manufactured by their people; and we have every reason to believe their assertion,-for if they had once acquired the art of manufacturing such useful articles, it is not likely that they would ever have lost it. If this be true, it follows, as a matter of indubitable certainty, that people of a different race once inhabited the country. From the rude and common materials of which the crockery has been composed, it is very evident, it could not have been manufactured in Europe, at least, not since the discovery of America; and, I believe, few persons will attempt to prove it to have been manufactured there before that period.

An opinion seems to prevail in every part of Canada, that, as the few trees which grow on the plains are always of a different species from those which grow in the woods that environ them, they never produced any other. But this is, But this is, in my opinion, a false conclusion. It is a fact well known in these Provinces, that if you divest any tract of forest of its present growth of timber, and afterwards allow the land to run wild, in a few years it will be covered with a growth of timber essen

tially different from that which has been destroyed. I have myself seen a field of fourteen acres, which had once within the memory of man been thickly wooded with Maple, Beech, and Oak, afterwards completely covered with Poplar and Elder, although not a tree of either of these kinds had ever been observed within several miles of the inclosure.