30

EXPENDITTRE ON INDIAN ROADS.

developing their natural agricultural resources, but are also an index of the zeal of those who govern in behalf of this fundamental interest of a state, and of their wisdom in encouraging the means most likely to promote it, we shall be inclined to look upon the governors of the poor thinls-peopled province of New Brunswick as much better friends of agricultural improvement than the servants of the great commercial company which directs the destinies of the rich and densely-peopled provinces of India. According to the recently published accounts of the India Company, for the year 1847-8,* there was expended upon “ buildings, roads, and other public works," in the four presidencies respectively, the following sums :

Population.
Bengal.

£45,000

} 60,000,000 ?
North-Western, 45.000
Madras,

23.000 16,000,000
Bombay,

35,000 3,000,000

Expended on

Roads

New Brunswick,

30,000

210,000

If the East India Company be thought to have done enough for this branch of economy, we cannot withhold from the legislature of New Brunswick the commendation it appears to merit. I may add, however, for the benefit of the provincial grumblers, who think we quiet home people neglect them and their geography, that I scarcely found a single person in the other parts of the province, who knew anything about the roads and country I have come over during the past week. Even at Bathurst, numerous parties had to be sought out and interrogated before it could be ascertained that I should be able to take a carriage by that route all the way to Miramichi; and, after all, I had to start under some degree of doubt.

CHAPTER XVI.

Miramichi.-Farms for sale. --Advice of an old Perthshire settler.

Influence of clearing the forests upon the local climate.—Adaptation of the flax husbandry to this country and climate.- Incidents of the great fire of 1825.—Breadth and velocity of the flame.-Its return up the river from Burnt Church.-Destruction of Douglas and Newcastle.—Great Darkness.—Distance to which the ashes were carried. Dry woods fired by lightning.-Influence of such natural fires upon the quality of the land.-Land on the north-west branch of the Miramichi River.–First and second growth of trees in the forest.Opinion of the Presbyterian minister as to the healthiness of the climate and the prosperity of agricultural settlers.—Wisconsin fever. -Case of an Irish patient.-Sales of land in the north-western States an index of the intensity of the emigration fever.- Falling off of emigration to a state a sign that it does not answer the expectations raised regarding it.—Intelligent improvers at Chatham.—Improving influence of granite boulders.— Thorough-drainage on Mr Cunard's farm.-Growth of fruit-trees. Beautiful ploughing.– A smashed carriage.—A second break-down. — Bear-trap.—Bears in the New Brunswick woods.-Reward for a bear's nose in the province.Fallow-deer and wolves in the province.-Bounty for the destruction of wolves.- Former abundance of this animal in Maryland and Virginia.—Sweet-fern meadow.-Physical condition and state of the levels in a district modify very much the direct agricultural indications of geology and chemistry.—The former influence early settlement more than the latter.–Agricultural capabilities are progressive.—Practical surveys necessary.- Agricultural maps, their uses, historical, statistical, and suggestive.—Excursion up the Richibucto and St Nicholas rivers.—Hemlock-tree forests.—Distribution of this tree in the province.—Influence of the direction of the wind on the flow of the spring sap in the sugar-maple.- Progress of clearing in New Brunswick.—Alleged superiority of the flour of winter wheat.Different quantities of water absorbed by different samples of flour. - Cause of such differences probably mechanical or physical. **EE MIRAMICEL

wedi richness of Mer Brunswick - 7.615–Exaggerated expectations

cult coal branch of the Richibucto. Ish settier.- Ezps and potatoes.

Wide river-moutas and estuaries ..uence of the Church of England -, want of forming settiements chiefly - Practice of the Roman Catholic

on the Heninucto for settlers Scotland - a farms in this

not quitted our rooms this wim.n was alreact si our inn, to

si quarters at his house. We = pressing invitation, and spent

ne roof.

combina visit to Viramichi, I have

cessioned by the temporary Bule on this river, and the

wale and distressed persons in Ruture, a great wish on the its of Douglastown and

e os immigration should mi ard an Immigration This object. I do *Tgood on the

Sill, there * men i haurhood of

A mans can be de IT SINTDEDce of minu janering

at man in

CLEARING MOLLIFIES THE CLIMATE.

33

better for a settler to buy a farm already partially cleared, than to go into the wilderness. He could buy for less than it would cost to clear with the help of paid labour, while he would also avoid the disagreeables of the untouched wilderness. At the same time, it pays the clearer, who expends only his own labour in the work, to go into the woods, take the first six crops, and then sell.

The reader will excuse me from doing more than merely reporting this old settler's advice. From what I have elsewhere stated, the home agriculturist will understand that the clearer, or first settler, is also, by his usual course of procedure in this country, a robber and exhauster of the land; and that he who buys a partly cleared farm, from which six or more crops have been taken, must be prepared to follow upon the cleared land a more generous form of husbandry than it has previously been subjected to, if it is to be made to produce satisfactory crops. Where the land is really good, however, this more generous husbandry is both easily attainable and followed by satisfactory returns.

The clearing of the woods in this country has the effect, not only of diminishing the prevalence of rust and mildew, which, near the river, are sometimes extensively injurious, but also of mollifying the climate. On the rivers which are bordered by burned or cleared lands, the ice breaks up, sledging ceases, cutting timber is stopped, and river driving and all agricultural operations commence a fortnight earlier than where the natural forest remains. Thus, on the whole, the temperature of the province will improve, and the season for rural operations lengthen, as the country is more cleared and becomes more thickly settled. At the same time, the aptitude of the land to grow certain crops, and for rural operations generally, may in reality be lessened, if, as on the Bay de Chaleurs, the indiscriminate cutting of the

VOL. II.

с

34

GROWTH OF FLAX RECOMMENDED.

timber allow the icy winds of winter, and the raw winds of spring, to sweep without opposition over the unsheltered surface.

The more extensive growth of flax has of late years been very much recommended at home-by some with the view of providing employment for the people, by others as a means of raising raw material for our increasing manufactures, now that the demand for raw cotton over the world appears to increase more rapidly than the production. To thinly-peopled countries like these of North America, where long winters and large families are apt to make idle hands while the snow is on the ground, the flax husbandry seems specially adapted. On the Miramichi, as on the St Lawrence, the crop thrives well, as I have no doubt it will do generally in the province; but it was mentioned to me, as an objection, that the hot summers are more favourable to the growth and ripening of seed than to the production of a fine fibre. This difficulty is by no means insuperable, however. The ripening of seed does not prevent the extraction of a fine fibre from the stalk, by the warm-water mode of steeping, to which I have elsewhere alluded. And if the local county or provincial agricultural societies give the subject a proper share of attention, there is no reason why we at home should not draw our supplies of linseed, for sowing or crushing, as largely from North America as we now do from Northern Russia; while, at the same time, the people of the province would obtain from the same crop both linen for their own domestic use, and employment for their idle hands in winter.

In describing my previous journey down the Miramichi, I have spoken of the burnt lands through which we passed, and of the bleak and desolate appearance they still presented, though the great fire which desolated them happened five-and-twenty years ago. In the course of this evening, Mr Rankin, in whose memory all the