42

CLIMATE FAVOURABLE TO FRUIT-TREES.

signs of good husbandry; and upon Mr Cunard's farm a very well-executed and very successful experiment in the thorough-drainage of stiff clay land—the first I had seen in the province. It was satisfactory to learn from Mr Cunard, that drains cut to a depth of fourteen inches only, were found, after two years, to be uninjured by the winter's frost. The ploughing on this farm was excellent, and the wages paid to the ploughmen were £26 a-year, with board and lodging.

It is well known that the quality of both soil and subsoil have a very material influence on the growth of fruit-trees- the apple, the pear, the peach, and even the coffee-tree, refusing to thrive, or to continue bearing in favourable climates, if the soil be unpropitious. This fact is distinctly brought out in the case of the appletree at Miramichi. This tree does not thrive well in the natural soil. Suppose the surface good, the roots soon descend, and the branches begin to die. This is not uncommon anywhere; but it is important to the character of the climate of Miramichi, that, if a good deep soil be put under the young trees, they will thrive well and bear good fruit.

At two P.M., I started from Chatham for Richibucto, a distance of forty miles, which we expected to reach in six hours, the same horses taking us all the way. At the outskirts of the town, we stopped to look at a field where a ploughing-match had come off the day before. The work was beautifully done on the whole, would have been creditable to a field of Lothian or Ayrshire men, and was certainly the best I had hitherto seen on the American Continent.

We had a pair of nice-looking horses, and got on very well for a few miles, but by-and-by one of them began to dance and look uneasy. We descended to the Napan River, and crossed it in safety; but when we reached the Black River—a distance of scarcely eight

A PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE.

43

miles—this horse became restive, unmanageable, and started off. We were presently in the ditch, and, before we had time to upset, were brought up, when at full speed, by an enormous tree-root, against the jutting horns of which I had no hope that my friend the legislator, who sat in front with the driver, would escape being impaled. Fortunately, while the horses and driver were rolled in a heap together, his presence of mind had enabled him to dive beneath the dangerous projections, as he was driven through the air by the shock, and thus to save his life. My other companion and myself were thrown violently forward, but kept our hold of the carriage, and all escaped without any serious injury. But the carriage was a wreck. Pole, perch, whipple-trees, and upper works — all were smashed. Even our iron axle was bent, and the whole machine, thus early in our journey, rendered unserviceable. I felt no regret for any of these consequences, however, the almost miraculous escape of my travelling companion being an abundant reason for thankfulness.

But our plans for the day were deranged, and our intended progress prevented. We were detained a couple of hours on the road waiting for new, and rigging up our old, means of conveyance; and, after these matters were arranged, were obliged to content ourselves with advancing less than half-way to Richibucto, and with poor and uncomfortable accommodation for the night in a way-side inn, at the small Irish settlement of Bay du Vin, of which I have previously spoken.*

October 21.-Betimes, this morning, we started, to complete the remainder of our intended journey of yesterday. But our shattered carriage, which had been coopered up during the night, again failed us. Our wounded perch snapped fairly through, after a very few

44

BEARS AND BEAR-TRAPS.

miles; and the ingenuity and constructive talent of my friend and companion, Mr Brown, had another opportunity of manifesting themselves. By the aid of ropes and young pines from the woods, the body of the carriage was, after the lapse of some time, propped up, and we were able to recommence our unprosperous journey.

While wandering in the woods, during our detention on the high-road, I stumbled upon a bear-trap, which some of the settlers had fitted up, and baited with a bit of salt-fish. It was very simply constructed with newly-felled trees, and so contrived that a tug at the bait would bring down a heavy log across the neck of the animal, and kill or strangle him on the spot. There are many bears still in the woods of New Brunswick, all, according to Dr Gessner, of the species known as the black bear of Canada, (Ursus americanus.) They live chiefly on berries in summer, but will sometimes attack cattle, sheep, and hogs. A reward of three dollars (15s. currency) is therefore offered by the province for every bear's nose; and the sum paid out of the provincial treasury for these noses amounted, in 1846, to £300; in 1847, to £225; and in 1848, to £385. From 400 to 500 of these animals, therefore, must be killed every year.*

It is a curious circumstance, in connection with the wild animals of New Brunswick, that the fallow-deer (Cervus virginianus) was not known in the province prior to the year 1818, when it and the wolf (Lupus occidentalis) appeared together. The deer is supposed to have been driven and followed into the province by the wolves, which have since been at times very numerous, and destructive to the flocks. The first wolf seen in

PAYMENTS IN TOBACCO.

45

Nova Scotia was in 1845. They seem to be pursuing the deer towards the east, and probably both races will be exterminated together, as a high bounty is now offered in both provinces for the destruction of the wolf. They formerly existed in great numbers in the older States of the Union. So late as 1715, a former act was renewed by the Legislature of Maryland, offering “the sum of 300 lb. of tobacco for

every

wolf's head that should be brought by any colonist or Indian to a justice of the peace. An act offering a similar reward, in the State of Virginia, was repealed in 1666.*

From the Bay du Vin River to the Kouchibouguac is a distance of twelve miles, over a flat country, resting on the sandstones of the generally flat coal-formation of New Brunswick. For a few miles south of the former river the soil is reddish, strong, and capable of improvement by drainage ; but only a few clearings, apparently very recent, were to be seen. I have already said that in New Brunswick a wet country is not unhealthy, or productive of fevers, as in our climate ; but to clear and drain land both is too expensive for the settler. Such wet lands, therefore, will be slowly cleared and reclaimed by private parties. The remaining distance to the Kouchibouguac was poor, sandy, flat, wet, boggy, and barren. The undersoil was composed of fragments of the unpromising grey sandstone, through which the surface-water did not penetrate. Where dry patches rose above the ordinary level, they were covered with sweet fern, forming a perfect sweet-fern meadow, of large growth. We had not observed this plant in any quantity since we left behind us the poor sandy country

46

PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF A COUNTRY.

between the little Tracadi and the Tabusintac, on the south-eastern shores of Gloucester County.

Along either side of the Kouchibouguac the land is good and strong; but immediately south of this fringe it resumed the light, sandy, impervious, and often wet and boggy character I have already described-bearing stunted pines and rhodora, and, where free from water, the sweet fern. And so it continued as we successively crossed the rivers the Kouchibouguasis and the Aldouane, all the way to Richibucto. These two streams, where the road passes over them, exhibited less of that good land which is usually seen along the banks of the rivers.

I may advert here to a reflection which frequently crossed my mind, as I travelled over this and other parts of the newer countries of North America, that an important distinction must often be drawn between the actual or present and the future or possible capabilities of tracts of land which lie on the same geological formation, and of which the soils possess the same chemical and mechanical characters. Absolutely considered, soils which have the same geological, chemical, and mechanical relations ought to be equally productive. But if their natural conditions be unlike-in respect, for example, to the drainage of water-one may be of great immediate value, and be in little time, and with little cost, rendered capable of supporting a large population; the other may be wholly useless, and may lie barren and unimproved for numerous centuries.

Thus, much of the absolutely good and capable red land of the New Bandon district in the Bay de Chaleur, and still more, perhaps, of the heavier land between the Napan River and that of the Bay du Vin, is too wet for cultivation, and often covered with swamps, because it is too level to allow the surface-water a ready means of escape. Yet this swampy and inhospitable tract, if laid