44

SOILS AND AVERAGE PRODUCE.

each ton of natural hay produced by the farm is, on the St John, considered a fair equivalent. The produce in grain is not taken into account. Hay sells, according to the season and locality, at 35s. to 50s. a ton.

These low lands are liable to be flooded when the ice melts in spring, but they are, nevertheless, very healthy. There are no agues in the country! I have heard of none, indeed, in the whole province, even where waters and bogs and marshes most abounded. These spring floods, no doubt, contributed to the richness of the land; but the best situated or most esteemed farms here are those which consist partly of this low intervale and partly of upland.

The soils in general are light and loamy, as we should expect in a sandstone country; and, therefore, adapted to the culture of Indian corn, which in this part of the province has been considerably extended during the last seven years I suppose since the wheat crop became less certain. From the mouth of the Washademoak river, in ascending to within a dozen miles of Fredericton, the St John carries us through the centre first of Queen's, and afterwards of Sunbury county. Much of these counties is still in native forest; but the general productiveness of the cultivated land, and something of the husbandry and cultivation, may be judged of from the following returns as to the maximum, minimum, and average produce, in imperial bushels, of the crops usually cultivated in these two counties.

BEAUTY OF PARTS OF THE RIVER.

45

The produce of the potato in this table is small, because of the failure of this crop during the last few years. The turnip culture is not general as yet, but is extending. The intervales of Sunbury county are especially productive in Indian corn.

I have seldom seen anything of its kind, which, as the sun declined, seemed to me more beautiful than the banks of the St John in this county, as we passed Majorville and Sheffield, and approached the mouth of the Oromucto river. The river, full to the lip, reflecting the light of the western sun towards which we were steaming, shaded on either bank by rows of the American elm—which I here saw in its great beauty for the first time, and which, every time I have since seen it growing wild in its favourite localities, has always struck me as the loveliest of American trees-and beyond the banks broad fields of Indian corn in the full rich green of its still unripe growth. In this there was newness enough, perhaps, to give it a charm to my eye, which would not have been seen by one more familiar with the country; but, after making a large deduction for this, there remained beauty enough over to make this part of the river, at this season, interesting to the oldest dweller in the province. I have since seen no river scenery in America which has left on my mind a livelier impression than this part of my voyage on the St John. Fredericton is the seat of Government. It stands on

a flat of level intervale land, in some places nearly a mile in width, and raised about thirty feet above the river. Upon this level, thirty years ago, there were only two or three houses, surrounded by thickets and cedar swamps. It is now a considerable town with five or six churches, besides a cathedral, built under the auspices and by the exertions of the present bishop. It has a University, (King's College,) a dissenting academy, a grammar school, normal school, court houses, Government offices,

46

CITY OF FREDERICTON.

legislative halls, well-built streets, barracks for a thousand men, and a population probably of four or five thousand people. The soil of the level on which it stands is light and sandy, resting at a variable depth on a bed of clay. The hill-slope behind is in general very stony, and costly to reclaim, and is covered for the most part with the native forest of pine. Opposite the town is the mouth of the Nashwauk, a considerable stream, which here falls into the St John; and a little above the town that of the Nashwauksis, or little Nashwauk. The former is navigable for some distance into the interior.

The St John itself is here confined within higher sloping banks, and is about three-quarters of a mile wide. The influence of the tide is observed about four miles above the town; and at Fredericton it seldom rises more than fifteen inches, so that it may be said to be situated at the head of tide-water. Steam and horse ferries are established on the river, by which a regular communication is kept up with the opposite shore.

16th August.-At Fredericton I was joined by Mr James Brown, a member of the Provincial Assembly, and by Dr Robb, Professor of Natural History in King's College, who accompanied me during the whole of my subsequent tour in the province, and to both of whom I was indebted for much information and assistance. The familiarity of the former with the practical agriculture and economical condition of the province, and of the latter with its geology, in so far as it had previously been made out, enabled me to arrive much more rapidly at satisfactory conclusions, in regard to the agricultural capabilities of the province, than I should otherwise have been able to do.

Early this morning we started in an open carriage up the right bank of the river, and stopped to breakfast at Oakhill, a farm lately bought by Mr Jardine, a merchant

A FARM ON THE ST JOHN.

47

of St John, and occupied by Mr Gray, a Scottish farmer, who had recently quitted the neighbourhood of Girvan in Ayrshire, for the purpose of settling in New Brunswick. We found him busy improving and enlarging his farm-buildings, and after breakfast we walked over his farm. As it is the first farm I examined in the province, I may be permitted to give some general description of it.

It consists of a thousand acres in all, of which two hundred are cleared, and eight hundred in forest, chiefly soft (pine), but some of it hardwood. It contains land of three kinds. First, an island in the river of eighty acres, to which I crossed, and found it a free grey loamy clay full of natural richness, and subject to be overflowed only twice during the last thirty years. Second, intervale land, generally light and sandy, but bearing in some places good turnips, and resting upon a loamy clay resembling that of the island, at a depth in some places of no more than eighteen inches from the surface. I do not know the extent of this intervale, on which the house stands. Third, the rest is upland, on the slopes generally very stony, but in other parts of the farm capable of being easily cleared. But two hundred acres of cleared land form a large farm where labour is scarce and dear.

This farm cost about two thousand pounds currency (£1600 sterling), or two pounds an acre over head; and this may be considered about the present price of such mixed farms on the upper St John. It had been exhausted by the last holder by a system of selling off everything-hay, corn, potatoes-the common system, in fact, of North America of selling everything for which a market can be got; and taking no trouble to put anything into the soil in return.

Farming on shares, the Metayer system, is practised in the Provinces and New England states, more than our

48

LETTING LAND ON SHARES.

home method of paying rents. In this way a man who has nothing receives a farm, with stock, implements, and seed, from the owner, provides all the labour or works the farm, and receives half the produce of cheese, stock, grain, potatoes, &c. This is said to be, in general, rather a better thing for the cultivator than for the owner. In most cases, however, there are specialties in the bargain, the owner receiving more or less according to the condition, position, or richness of the farm. I have already spoken of the system of reckoning the value of land for renting by the quantity of hay it will produce.

Leaving Mr Gray's, we continued our drive up the river. Hitherto we had been upon the grey sandstones, some beds of which, from the quantity of earthy felspar cement they contain, are capable of yielding soils of fair quality. We now came upon the slate rocks, and upon these we continued, with the intervention of a narrow band of red sandstone, and occasional masses of trap, or trap-like metamorphic slates, for upwards of twenty miles. We then crossed a broad zone of granite, which, like a long ribbon, stretches across the province in a north-east and south-west direction, from the Bay de Chaleurs down to this part of the River St John, and hence over into Maine.

On the slates good land often occurs; but, as the river banks are high, a journey along the river side is not favourable to an estimate of the quality of the upland. The granite region, and much of the slate country adjoining it, are thickly strewed with stones; though the soil itself, as seen among the stones, or where the stones are removed, is very good. Rich intervale land and occasional islands were seen along the river and the cleared openings we passed. The frequent boldness and beauty of the landscape, the varying forms and fresh verdure of the trees-elm, butter-nut, black-birch, maple, oak, beech, cypress, and numerous pines-with the good