oats.

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 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

* This splendid ship was launched at Quebec in April, 1831. Another, of 1500 tons, has been built last year.

boats belonging to the General Mining Company at Pictou; there is another employed at Halifax; and three at St. John's, New Brunswick, one of which goes daily between that city and Fredericton, another crosses to Annapolis, from which stage-coaches run to Halifax, and a third plies between St. John's, St. Andrew's, and the United States. All this has been done in a few years; and as certainly as the population of our colonies will increase, so will also the number of vessels propelled by steam power.

A company was formed in London, under an act of Parliament, in 1825, for the purpose of navigating the Atlantic with steam-packets. In 1826, a great number of the shareholders of that year either withdrew or sold out. The fine steam-ship they purchased was also sold, and bought by the Dutch government, who employed it successfully between Holland and Curaçoa.

Nothing further has been effected, and all the exertions of the intelligent and spirited directors have been unsuccessful; yet nothing but the general ignorance which prevails in these kingdoms respecting British America and the seas of the Atlantic, could have retarded the progress of a company, incorporated with such privileges, and with such reasonable prospects of success.

As to the dangers of the Atlantic, they are far from being so formidable as people generally imagine. It has been my fate to have crossed that ocean several times, at all seasons of the year, and sometimes during the most tempestuous weather; and I feel perfectly safe in saying that the sea, in the Irish or English channel, or in the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence, or even in Lake Ontario, is much more dangerous for