Ireland, and in some parts of England and Scotland. New settlers who have means build much better houses at first, with two or more rooms; but the majority of emigrants live for a few years in habitations similar to the one here described.

Previous to commencing the cultivation of woodlands, the trees, which are cut down, lopped, and cut into lengths, are, when the proper season arrives (generally in May), set on fire, which consumes all the branches and small wood. The logs are then either piled in heaps and burnt, or rolled away for making a fence. Those who can afford it use oxen to haul off the large unconsumed timber. The surface of the ground and the remaining wood is all black and charred; and working on it and preparing the soil for seed is as disagreeable at first as any labour in which a man can be engaged. Men, women, and children must, however, employ themselves in gathering and burning the rubbish, and in such parts of labour as their respective strengths adapt them for. If the ground be intended for grain, it is generally sown without tillage over the surface, and the seed covered in with a hoe. By some a triangular harrow, which shortens labour, is used instead of the hoe, and drawn by oxen. Others break up the earth with a one-handled plough, which has the share and coulter locked into each other, drawn also by oxen, while a man attends with an axe to cut the roots in its way. Little regard is paid, in this case, to make straight furrows, the object being no more than to work up the ground. With such rude preparation, three successive good crops are raised on uplands without any manure ; intervale lands never require any. Potatoes are planted (in new lands) in round hollows, scooped with the hoe four or five inches deep, and about forty in circumference, in which three or five sets are planted and covered over with a hoe. Indian corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, peas and beans, are cultivated on newly cleared lands, in the same manner as potatoes. Grain of all kinds, turnips, hemp, flax, and grass seeds, are sown over the surface, and covered by means of a hoe, rake, or triangular harrow; wheat is usually sown on the same ground the year after potatoes, without any tillage, but merely covering the seed with a rake or harrow, and followed the third year by oats. Some farmers sow timothy and clover seed the second year along with the wheat, and afterwards let the ground remain under grass, until the stumps of the trees can be easily got out, which usually requires three or four years. With additional labour, these obstructions to ploughing might be removed the second year; and there appears little difficulty in constructing a machine, on the lever principle, that would readily remove them at once. The roots of beech, birch, and spruce decay the soonest; those of pine and hemlock seem to require an age. After the stumps are removed from the soil, and those small natural hillocks, called cradle hills, formed by the ground swelling near the roots of trees, in consequence of their growth, are levelled, the plough may always be used, and the system of husbandry followed that is common in England.

Commodious frame houses, with warm comfortable rooms, large barns, good stables, are then erected; the farming stock is multiplied; and the farmer then finds himself in the possession of all the means of solid independence.

CHAP. III.

REMARKS ON INTERCOLONIAL AND TRANSATLANTIC STEAM

NAVIGATION.

THE mutual advantages which one country derives from another, increase in value and magnitude according to the increased facility of mutual intercourse and transportation. This fact is so well established by experience, as to become an evident truism; and that all important places, between which an intercourse by steam navigation is established, derive, in consequence, vast mutual benefits, is also a fact equally evident.

When a communication is opened with a country, that will enable us to visit it in a certain given period of time, the intercourse is increased in the same ratio as the certainty of arriving at, or returning from, that country more speedily, is greater than by any previous mode of conveyance.

In the same ratio, according to this rule, does the interchanging of the commodities of different countries increase; consequently, the prosperity of the inhabitants is advanced, by affording them more plentiful resources, and the political value of such countries equally augmented by increasing general industry and commerce. For, when the means of receiving intelligence from, and visiting, distant countries, are rendered certain and speedy, mutual transactions and adventurous undertakings are entered

into with much greater faith and spirit, than when the intercourse depends on the uncertain length of voyages, subject to the direction of winds and currents, and to the duration or frequency of calms.

These considerations apply most forcibly to the amazingly vast advantages that would inevitably attend the establishment of a line of transatlantic steam-packets, not only as respects his Majesty's empire in North America, but also as regards the United Kingdom, and particularly as bearing on the great movements of emigration.

If we are secure in forming conclusions according to the experience of the last fifteen years, we are also safe in saying, that steam is the power which will supplant all others in the magnitude and rapidity of its operations. Although we may not be quite so sanguine as to expect making a voyage by steam from Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool, (with a cargo of cutlery, printed cottons, and crockery,) across the Atlantic, and then up the rivers and lakes of the St. Lawrence, and over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and China-an undertaking far from being impossible-yet steam is the mighty giant that Great Britain can send forth to bring her possessions in America and the West Indies within half the distance, morally speaking, that they now are to Europe. It is this giant that may enable England to grasp more effectually the vast resources of her maritime colonies, - and those of the Canadas, - and, west of the great lakes, those of the regions of Athabasca and Assinboins.

Since the establishment of steam navigation along the coasts of Great Britain, and between England and the Continent, and particularly between England,

Scotland and Ireland, the consequent advantages are too well known, and too justly appreciated, to be questioned.

If we visit the United States, we find all their coasts and rivers navigated by innumerable steamvessels. There are more than 300 navigating the Mississippi and the Ohio. The magnificence of the steam-vessels on the Hudson is not surpassed, if equalled, in Europe; they are, in fact, splendid floating movable hotels. A few years ago, small sloops, bateaux, and canoes, were the only vessels that navigated the St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal; and British manufactures were usually sold from twenty to forty per cent. higher at the latter than at the former place. At present there are ten or twelve powerful steam-vessels, equal in beauty, swiftness, and magnitude, and superior in accommodations for passengers, to our steam-ships in these kingdoms, plying between Quebec and Montreal; and commodities are, in consequence, now purchased at equal prices at both places. It is not long since the ferry from Montreal to La Prairie, the usual route to the United States, was crossed in a wooden canoe. Passengers, horses, and carriages are at present carried over in spacious and beautiful steam-boats. The Ottawa, and the lakes of Canada, are also navigated by steam-vessels. A steam-ship, the Royal William, of about 1200* tons, belonging to the St. Lawrence Steam Navigation Company, navigates the seas between Halifax and Quebec, touching at the points marked in the General Map. There are two steam