correct principles and industrious habits, as well as strong physical qualities.* Apprehensions of distress, and many other evils, being introduced with large bodies of paupers, are very generally entertained in the colonies; and unless adequate means be provided to carry such emigrants to the place of location, and to support them for a reasonable time afterwards, it would certainly be improper to inundate the colonies with a pauper population. Should emigrants be carried to America at the public expense, it is recommended to provide them with provisions, axes, and a few other implements. From my own enquiries, and all that I have observed respecting the settlers in each of our American colonies, I am of opinion, that if each family received an axe, two hoes, an auger, a saw, a plane, a cow, seed, and provisions for one year, it is fully as much as government should grant. It is doubtful, if more assistance were given, whether it would not lead to abuse; and with such aid, the man who does not become independent of others for the means of subsistence, deserves (according to an observation made to me by an affluent and worthy old farmer, who settled forty years ago in America not worth a shilling,) " to be hanged as a public defaulter." That emigrants sent to the colonies, and located and provided for at the expense of the public, should be bound, after a reasonable period, to repay the money • It is notorious that, while the number of criminal offences have greatly increased during late years in America, few instances of guilt can be traced to the old settlers. A life of continued poverty is usually so lamentably at variance with virtue, that we must ascribe the more frequent occurrence of crime in our colonies chiefly to the previous indigence of many of the emigrants. 556 PRACTICAL REMARKS ON EMIGRATION. advanced on their account, is probably no more than mere justice. But this stipulation would be highly impolitic. That an industrious settler would be able, at the expiration of five or six years, particularly if received in agricultural produce, to repay the money expended on his account by government, I certainly admit; but would not the accountability form a sort of premium for emigrants to disregard their allegiance? for they would not, it is believed, be inclined to repay what they received from the public funds; but would rather consider such a debt in the same light that they do parish relief in England. The vexation of collecting the money expended in removing them would also produce discontent and trouble. Whether emigration on the plan formerly recommended by the committee of the House of Commons, or as lately proposed in Parliament, be ever carried into effect or not, voluntary emigration, at the expense of the emigrants themselves, will still continue to go on in the usual way; and as the majority of those who leave the United Kingdom for America will have been brought up to occupations not only different from each other, but unlike those which they will probably follow afterwards, it will be of great consequence to prepare themselves in the best possible manner for the new life they are about to commence. In this chapter, and in these volumes, I trust that I have given all necessary information, and that it will appear the prosperity of those who remove from the country of their forefathers to British America, will depend (unless unforeseen calamities interfere) entirely on their industry and discretion. CHAP. II. CLEARING FOREST LANDS. - BUILDING LOG-HOUSES. - CULTIVATING THE SOIL, ETC. It is curious and interesting to observe the progress which a new settler makes in clearing and cultivating a wood farm, from the period he commences in the forests until he has reclaimed a sufficient quantity of land to enable him to follow the mode of cultivation he practised in his native country. As the same course is, with little variation, followed by all new settlers in every part of America, the following description may be useful to those who are about to emigrate. The first object is to select the farm among such vacant lands as are most desirable; and, after obtaining the necessary tenure, the settler commences, the nearest inhabitants usually assisting him, by cutting down the trees on the site of his intended habitation, and those growing on the ground immediately adjoining. This operation is performed with the axe, by cutting a notch on each side of the tree, about two feet above the ground, and rather more than half through on the side on which it is intended the tree should fall. The trees are all felled in the same direction; and, after lopping off the principal branches, cut into ten or fifteen feet lengths. On the spot on which the house is to be erected, these junks are all rolled away, and the smaller parts carried off or burnt. The habitations which the new settlers first erect are constructed in the rudest manner. Round logs, from fifteen to twenty feet long, are laid horizontally over each other, and notched in at the corners to allow them to come along the walls within about an inch of each other. One is first laid on each side to begin the walls, then one at each end, and the building is raised in this manner by a succession of logs crossing and binding each other at the corners, until seven or eight feet high. The seams are closed with moss or clay; three or four rafters are then raised to support the roof, which is covered with boards, or with the rinds of birch or spruce trees, bound down with poles tied together with withes. A wooden framework, placed on a stone foundation, is raised a few feet from the ground, and, leading through the roof with its sides closed up with clay and straw kneaded together, forms a chimney. A space large enough for a door, and another for a window, is then cut through the walls; and in the centre of the cabin a square pit or cellar is dug, for the purpose of preserving potatoes or other vegetables during winter. Over this pit a floor of boards, or of logs hewn flat on the upper side, is laid, and another overhead to form a sort of garret. When a door is hung, a window-sash with six or more panes of glass is fixed, and a cupboard and two or three bed-stocks put up : the habitation is then considered ready to receive the new settler and his family. Although such a dwelling has nothing attractive in its appearance, unless it be its rudeness, yet it is by no means so uncomfortable a lodging as the habitations of the poor peasantry in 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 |