Rapid Increase of Population--Mineral Wealth--Cereals--Imports
and Exports--Climate--Agriculture--A Settler’s Life--Reciprocity
Treaty--Report of the Committee of the Executive Council--Mr.
Galt--Senator Douglas--A Zollverein--Terms of the Convention--Free
Trade, and what is meant by it--Mr. Galt’s opinion on the
subject--Canadian Imports and Exports.
The rapid increase of population and settlements in Canada, and
the growth of cities and towns, are among the great marvels of the
last and of the present century, so rich in wonders of the kind. It
is not too much to say, that any approximation to a similar rate
of increase will make British North America a great power in the
world. The direction of emigration has not been favourable. The
Germans and the Irish have rather sought the United States. The
emigrating powers of Scotland are rapidly decreasing, and the few
English who emigrate prefer Australia, New Zealand, even the States
of the Union, to a country which suffers from the early neglect of
the home government, the studied aspersions and misrepresentations
of powerful agencies, and the ignorance of the poorer classes who
seek to improve their condition by going forth in search of new
homes.
Mr. Sheridan Hogan, the writer of a prize essay on Canada of no
ordinary excellence, has devoted some of his pages to show that the
growth of Canada in population has been overlooked in the scope of
the wondering gaze which Europe has fixed on the development of
the United States, although, in fact, the increase of Canadians in
the land has been quite as astonishing as that of Americans south
of the St. Lawrence. In 1800, he says the population of the United
States was 5,305,925. In 1850 it was 20,250,000. The increase was
therefore 300 per cent. nearly. In 1811 the population of Upper
Canada was 77,000, and in 1851 it was 952,000, an increase of
over 1100 per cent. in forty years. Within the decade up to 1855
the rate of increase in the United States was 13·20 per cent. In
Upper Canada it was 104 per cent. from 1841 to 1851. Upper Canada
exhibited in forty years nearly four times the increase of the
United States in fifty years. Even the population of Lower Canada
increased 90 per cent. from 1829 to 1854. In a table in the same
work it appears that the Irish in Lower Canada were more than
double the English and Scotch together, and that they equalled both
in Upper Canada. The writer says:--
“The ‘World’s Progress,’ published by Putnam, of New York,--a
reliable authority,--gives the population and increase of the
principal cities in the United States. Boston, between 1840
and 1850, increased forty-five per cent. Toronto, within the
same period, increased _ninety-five_ per cent. New York, the
great emporium of the United States, and regarded as the most
prosperous city in the world, increased, in the same time,
sixty-six per cent., about thirty less than Toronto.
“The cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati, which have also
experienced extraordinary prosperity, do not compare with Canada
any better. In the thirty years preceding 1850, the population
of St. Louis increased fifteen times. In the thirty-three years
preceding the same year, Toronto increased _eighteen times_. And
Cincinnati increased, in the same period given to St. Louis, but
twelve times.
“Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city at the head of Lake Ontario,
and founded much more recently than Toronto, has also had almost
unexampled prosperity. In 1836 its population was but 2,846, in
1854 it was upwards of 20,000.
“London, still farther west in Upper Canada, and a yet more
recently-founded city than Hamilton, being surveyed as a
wilderness little more than twenty-five years ago, has now
upwards of ten thousand inhabitants.
“The City of Ottawa, recently called after the magnificent river
of that name, and upon which it is situated, has now above 10,000
inhabitants, although in 1830 it had but 140 houses, including
mere sheds and shanties; and the property upon which it is built
was purchased, not many years before, for _eighty pounds_.
“The Town of Bradford, situated between Hamilton and London, and
whose site was an absolute wilderness twenty-five years ago,
has now a population of 6,000, and has increased, in ten years,
upwards of _three hundred per cent._; and this without any other
stimulant or cause save the business arising from the settlement
of a fine country adjacent to it.
“The Towns of Belleville, Cobourg, Woodstock, Goderich, St.
Catherine’s, Paris, Stratford, Port Hope, and Dundas, in Upper
Canada, show similar prosperity, some of them having increased in
a ratio even greater than that of Toronto, and all of them but so
many evidences of the improvement of the country, and the growth
of business and population around them.
“That some of the smaller towns in the United States have enjoyed
equal prosperity I can readily believe, from the circumstance of
a large population suddenly filling up the country contiguous
to them. Buffalo and Chicago, too, as cities, are magnificent
and unparalleled examples of the business, the energy, and the
progress, of the United States. But that Toronto should have
quietly and unostentatiously increased in population in a greater
ratio than New York, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and that the
other cities and towns of Upper Canada should have kept pace with
the Capital, is a fact creditable alike to the steady industry
and the noiseless enterprise of the Canadian people.
“Although Lower Canada, from the circumstance already alluded
to of the tide of emigration flowing westward, has not advanced
so rapidly as her sister Province, yet some of her counties and
cities have recently made great progress. In the seven years
preceding 1851, the fine County of Megantic, on the south side
of the St. Lawrence, and through which the Quebec and Richmond
Railroad passes, increased a hundred and sixteen per cent.;
the County of Ottawa, eighty-five; the County of Drummond,
seventy-eight; and the County of Sherbrooke, fifty. The City
of Montreal, probably the most substantially-built city in
America, and certainly one of the most beautiful, has trebled her
population in thirty-four years. The ancient City of Quebec has
more than doubled her population in the same time, and Sorel,
at the mouth of the Richelieu, has increased upwards of four
times; showing that Lower Canada, with all the disadvantages of
a feudal tenure, and of being generally looked upon as less
desirable for settlement than the West, has quietly but justly
put in her claim to a portion of the honour awarded to America
for her progress.”
Save and except coal, the want of which is to a considerable extent
compensated by the vast stores of forest, of bog and of mineral
oils in the Provinces, Canada is very rich in many minerals of the
first importance. Iron is deposited in exceeding abundance in the
Laurentian System--lead, plumbago, phosphate of lime, sulphate of
barytes, and marbles are found in the same wide-spread formation of
gneiss and limestone.
The Huron System of slate, &c., contains copper, silver, and
nickel, jaspers and agates. The Quebec group in the East promises
to be equally valuable. The bases of metallic and ochreous
pigments, every description of marble and slate, minerals,
and substances useful in chemistry, in arts, in agriculture,
in architecture, are scattered throughout the land, from Lake
Superior to Gaspé. Notwithstanding the long winter, Upper Canada
yielded, according to late averages, 21 bushels of winter wheat
and 18½ bushels of spring wheat to the acre; Lower Canada, where
agriculture has not received the same development, yields a smaller
proportion to the acre, but the wheat is of excellent quality. In
Upper Canada the yield of oats is about 30 bushels to the acre; in
Lower Canada it is 23 bushels. Barley is a little less in Upper,
and about the same as oats in Lower Canada, and Indian corn is
about as much as oats. The potato yields from 125 to 176 bushels
per acre. All these crops, as well as those of roots of every
description, are increasing rapidly, and it is calculated that the
value of the farms of Upper Canada is no less than 60,000,000_l._
sterling, whilst the live stock in the same Province was estimated
to be worth nearly 9,000,000_l._ In 1860 the value of the timber
exported was, 1,750,000_l._, and the forest yielded altogether just
2,000,000_l._ sterling. As there is reason to know that in 1851 the
value of agricultural exports was 6,000,000_l._, it may be assumed
with some degree of certainty as a near approximation that Canada
sends abroad about ten millions’ worth of forest and farm produce.
It is estimated that the imports of the same year were worth
eighteen millions sterling.
There are many other illustrations of the rapidity of Canadian
increase, but the foregoing must suffice for the purposes of this
volume. It is only surprising that the Provinces should have
advanced at all, considering the misrepresentations which have been
circulated concerning their climate, condition, and prospects, and
the attractions held forth to emigrants by the United States.
The popular idea as to the barrenness and cold of Canada would
be most effectually dispelled by a glance at garden products and
cereals in autumn only, or by the experience of a winter in New
York and a winter in London or Hamilton. The author of a pamphlet,
published by authority of the Bureau of Agriculture, observes:--
“The most erroneous opinions have prevailed abroad respecting the
climate of Canada. The so-called rigour of Canadian winters is
often advanced as a serious objection to the country by many who
have not the courage to encounter them, who prefer sleet and fog
to brilliant skies and bracing cold, and who have yet to learn
the value and extent of the blessings conferred upon Canada by
her world-renowned ‘snows.’
“It will scarcely be believed by many who shudder at the idea
of the thermometer falling to zero, that the gradual annual
diminution in the fall of snow, in certain localities, is a
subject of lamentation to the farmers in Western Canada. Their
desire is for the old-fashioned winters, with sleighing for four
months, and spring bursting upon them with marvellous beauty
at the beginning of April. A bountiful fall of snow, with hard
frost, is equivalent to the construction of the best macadamised
roads all over the country. The absence of a sufficient quantity
of snow in winter for sleighing, is a calamity as much to be
feared and deplored as the want of rain in spring. Happily
neither of these deprivations is of frequent occurrence.
“The climate of Canada is in some measure exceptional, especially
that of the Peninsular portion. The influence of the great Lakes
is very strikingly felt in the elevation of winter temperatures
and in the reduction of summer heats. East and West of Canada,
beyond the influence of the Lakes, as in the middle of the states
of New York and Iowa, the greatest extremes prevail,--intense
cold in winter, intense heat in summer, and to these features may
be added their usual attendant, drought.
“Perhaps the popular standard of the adaptation of climate to the
purposes of agriculture is more suitable for the present occasion
than a reference to monthly and annual means of temperature.
Much information is conveyed in the simple narration of facts
bearing upon fruit culture. From the head of Lake Ontario, round
by the Niagara frontier, and all along the Canadian shores of
Lake Erie, the grape and peach grow with luxuriance, and ripen to
perfection in the open air, without the slightest artificial aid.
The island of Montreal is distinguished everywhere for the fine
quality of its apples, and the island of Orleans, below Quebec,
is equally celebrated for its plums. Over the whole of Canada the
melon and tomato acquire large dimensions, and ripen fully in the
open air, the seeds being planted in the soil towards the latter
end of April, and the fruit gathered in September. Pumpkins and
squashes attain gigantic dimensions; they have exceeded 300
pounds in weight in the neighbourhood of Toronto. Indian corn,
hops, and tobacco, are common crops and yield fair returns. Hemp
and flax are indigenous plants, and can be cultivated to any
extent in many parts of the Province. With a proper expenditure
of capital, England could be made quite independent of Russia, or
any other country, for her supply of these valuable products.
“The most striking illustration of the influence of the great
Lakes in ameliorating the climate of Canada, especially of the
western peninsula, is to be found in the natural limits to which
certain trees are restricted by climate. That valuable wood,
the black walnut, for which Canada is so celebrated, ceases to
grow north of latitude 41° on the Atlantic coast, but under the
influence of the comparatively mild Lake climate of Peninsular
Canada it is found in the greatest profusion, and of the largest
dimensions, as far north as latitude 43°.”
This subject is well illustrated by the subjoined table, showing
the mean temperature and rainfall at Toronto from 1840 to 1859:--
TABLE of Mean Monthly and Animal Temperature at Toronto, Canada
West, from 1840 to 1859, taken from the Records of the Provincial
Magnetic Observatory, by Professor Kingston.
+-----+--------------------------------------------+
| | MONTHS. |
+-----+--------------------------------------------+
| | Jan.| Feb.|March.| April.| May.|June.|July.|
+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+
| | ° | ° | ° | ° | ° | ° | ° |
|1840}|23.72|22.83| 30.07| 41.00 |51.38|61.27|67.06|
|1859}| | | | | | | |
+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+
+-----+-----------------------------+--------+
| | MONTHS. | Mean |
+-----+-----------------------------+ Annual.|
| | Aug.|Sept.| Oct.| Nov | Dec | |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+
| | ° | ° | ° | ° | ° | ° |
|1840}|66.12|57.98|45.27|36.65|25.97| 44.11 |
|1859}| | | | | | |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+
MEAN Monthly and Annual Fall of Rain at Toronto, from 1840 to 1859.
+-----+--------------------------------------------+
| | MONTHS. |
+-----+--------------------------------------------+
| |Jan. |Feb. |March.|April. | May.|June.|July.|
+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+
| | In. | In. | In. | In. | In. | In. | In. |
|1840}|1.480|1.043|1.553 | 2.492 |3.305|3.198|3.490|
|1859}| | | | | | | |
+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+
+-----+-----------------------------+--------+
| | MONTHS. | Mean |
+-----+-----------------------------+ Annual.|
| | Aug.|Sept.| Oct.| Nov.| Dec.| |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+
| | In. | In. | In. | In. | In. | In. |
|1840}|2.927|4.099|2.557|3.109|1.606| 30.859 |
|1859}| | | | | | |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+
The Rev. Mr. Hope, who has been indefatigable in his efforts to
promote the interest of his adopted country, quotes the following
passage from the Toronto _Globe_ of September 21st, 1860, to show
that people at home are much mistaken in considering Canada a
region of frost and snow.
“The display of fruit, in quantity and quality, surpassed what
has been shown at any previous Exhibition. The results in this
department were very satisfactory, proving that the climate of
Canada admirably adapts it for the raising of many of the most
valuable kinds of fruit. One of the principal exhibitors was Mr.
Beadle of St. Catharine’s nurseries. On one side of the central
stand in the Crystal Palace, he had 115 plates of apples, pears,
peaches, &c., and 30 jars of cherries, currants, raspberries,
blackberries, &c. Mr. Beadle exhibited ten varieties of peaches
grown in the open air. Several of these varieties were of
very large dimensions, and were much admired for the delicate
richness of their tints. He exhibited also numerous varieties
of apples; 41 in one collection of three of each sort, and 20
in another collection of six of each sort. He had also a large
show of pears, comprising a large number of varieties. Among
the varieties of open-air grapes shown by Mr. Beadle, were the
Blood-blacks, the Delaware, the Diana, the Northern Muscadine,
the Perkins, Sage’s Mammoth, and the Wild Fox.”
In 1828, when the whole population of Upper Canada amounted to
185,500 inhabitants, the number of acres under agricultural
improvement was 570,000, or about 3-1/14 for each individual; in
1851 the average for each inhabitant was very nearly four acres.
The comparative progress of Upper and Lower Canada, in bringing
the forest-clad wilderness into cultivation, may be inferred from
the following table:--
LOWER CANADA. UPPER CANADA.
Year. No. acres cultivated. No. acres cultivated.
1831 2,065,913 818,432
1844 2,802,317 2,166,101
1851 3,605,376 3,695,763
Hence, in a period of twenty years, Lower Canada increased her
cultivated acres by ·75, and Upper Canada by 3·5. Before proceeding
to describe in detail the progress of agriculture in Upper Canada,
it will be advisable to glance at the efforts made by societies
and the Government of the Province to elevate the condition of
husbandry in all its departments, and to induce the people at large
to join hand in hand in the march of improvement.
The Board of Agriculture for Lower Canada took decisive steps
during the year 1862 to secure the proper disbursements of the
provincial grant, and to devote liberal awards of public money
to the promotion of agricultural industry in all its important
branches. The Lower Canadian Provincial Shows had previously
partaken more of the character of an agricultural festival than of
a meeting for the purpose of securing the progress of the Science
and Art of Agriculture by fair and open competition and peaceful
rivalry. In this respect they differed materially from the same
annual expositions in Upper Canada, where astonishing advances
in the proper direction had been made. The Board determined to
establish an Agricultural Museum, and to give assistance to
county societies towards the importation of improved breeds of
horses, cattle and sheep. The Board is willing to advance to any
society funds for the purchase of stock, retaining one-third of
the annual government allowance for three successive years to
discharge the debt thus incurred. If this new spirit of enterprise
should continue, the progress of agriculture in Lower Canada will
be much accelerated. Although it must be acknowledged that in the
face of many difficulties, national prejudices, and peculiarities
of character, a very marked improvement has taken place in many
departments of husbandry, and in many parts of the Lower Province,
much, very much, remains to be done. The influence exercised by the
Agricultural School at St. Anne is already favourably felt, and
this establishment appears likely to work a beneficial change in
Lower Canadian husbandry. The details of its operations show its
great utility.
The indirect assistance given by the Imperial Government to
Agriculture in Upper Canada dates from a much earlier period than
the encouragement given to Agricultural Societies by the Provincial
Government; for we find among the donations of George III. to
the U. E. Loyalists the old English plough. It consisted of a
small piece of iron fixed to the coulter, having the shape of the
letter L, the shank of which went through the wooden beam, the
foot forming the point, which was sharpened for use. One handle,
and a plank split from a curved piece of timber, which did the
duty of a mold-board, completed the rude implement. At that time
the traces and leading lines were made of the bark of the elm or
bass-wood, which was manufactured by the early settlers into a
strong rope. About the year 1808 the “hog-plough” was imported
from the United States; and in 1815 a plough with a cast-iron share
and mold-board, all in one piece, was one of the first implements,
requiring more than an ordinary degree of mechanical skill,
which was manufactured in the province. The seeds of improvement
were then sown, and while in the address of the President at the
Frontenac Cattle Show in 1833, we observe attention called to the
necessity for further improvement in the ploughs common throughout
the country, we witness, in 1855, splendid fruit at the Paris
Exhibition. In a notice of the trial of ploughs at Trappes, the
_Journal d’Agriculture Pratique_ makes the following reference to
a Canadian plough: “The ploughing tests were brought to a close
by a trial of two ploughs equally remarkable--to wit, the plough
of Ransome and Sims, of Suffolk, England, and that of Bingham, of
Norwich, Upper Canada. The first is of wood and iron, like all the
English ploughs, and the results which it produced seemed most
satisfactory, but it appeared to require a little more draught
than the Howard plough. Bingham’s plough very much resembles the
English plough; it is very fine and light in its build; the handles
are longer than ordinary, which makes the plough much more easy to
manage. The opinion of the French labourers and workmen who were
there, appeared, on the whole, very favourable to this plough.”
The following extracts from Mr. Hogan’s book are as truthful as
they are eloquent:--
“Great as has been the prosperity of America, and of the
settlements which mark the magnificent country just described,
yet nature has not been wooed in them without trials, nor have
her treasures been won without a struggle worthy of their worth.
Those who have been in the habit of passing _early clearings_ in
Upper Canada must have been struck with the cheerless and lonely,
even desolate appearance of the first settler’s little log hut.
In the midst of a dense forest, and with a ‘patch of clearing’
scarcely large enough to let the sun shine in upon him, he looks
not unlike a person struggling for existence on a single plank in
the middle of an ocean. For weeks, often for months, he sees not
the face of a stranger. The same still, and wild, and boundless
forest every morning rises up to his view; and his only hope
against its shutting him in for life rests in the axe upon his
shoulder. A few blades of corn, peeping up between stumps whose
very roots interlace, they are so close together, are his sole
safeguards against want; whilst the few potato plants, in little
far-between ‘hills,’ and which struggle for existence against
the briar bush and luxuriant underwood, are to form the seeds of
his future plenty. Tall pine trees, girdled and blackened by the
fires, stand out as grim monuments of the prevailing loneliness,
whilst the forest itself, like an immense wall round a fortress,
seems to say to the settler,--‘how can poverty ever expect to
escape from such a prison house.’
“That little clearing--for I describe a reality--which to others
might afford such slender guarantee for bare subsistence, was
nevertheless a source of bright and cheering dreams to that
lonely settler. He looked at it, and instead of thinking of its
littleness, it was the foundation of great hopes of a large farm
and rich cornfields to him. And this very dream, or poetry, or
what you will, cheered him at his lonely toil, and made him
contented with his rude fire-side. The blades of corn, which
you might regard as conveying but a tantalising idea of human
comforts, were associated by him with large stacks and full
granaries; and the very thought nerved his arm, and made him
happy.
“Seven years afterwards I passed that same settler’s cottage--it
was in the valley of the Grand River in Upper Canada, not far
from the present village of Caledonia. The little log hut
was used as a back kitchen to a neat two story frame house,
painted white. A large barn stood near by, with stock of every
description in its yard. The stumps, round which the blades
of corn, when I last saw the place, had so much difficulty in
springing up, had nearly all disappeared. Luxuriant Indian corn
had sole possession of the place where the potatoes had so hard
a struggle against the briar bushes and the underwood. The
forest--dense, impenetrable though it seemed--had been pushed far
back by the energetic arm of man. A garden, bright with flowers,
and enclosed in a neat picket fence, fronted the house; a young
orchard spread out in rear. I met a farmer as I was quitting the
scene, returning from church with his wife and family. It was
on a Sunday, and there was nothing in their appearance, save
perhaps a healthy brown colour in their faces, to distinguish
them from persons of wealth in cities. The waggon they were
in, their horses, harness, dresses, everything about them, in
short, indicated comfort and easy circumstances. I enquired of
the man--who was the owner of the property I have just been
describing? ‘It is mine, sir,’ he replied; ‘I settled on it nine
years ago, and have, thank God, had tolerable success.’
“There is, perhaps, no class in the world who live better--I
mean who have a greater abundance of the comforts of life--than
men having cleared farms, and who know how to make a proper use
of them, in Upper Canada. The imports of the country show that
they dress not only well, but in many things expensively. You
go into a church or meeting-house in any part of the province
which has been settled for fifteen or twenty years, and you are
struck at once with the fabrics, as well as the style of the
dresses worn by both sexes, but especially by the young. The same
shawls, and bonnets, and gowns which you see in cities, are worn
by the women, whilst the coats of the men are undistinguishable
from those worn by professional men and merchants in towns. A
circumstance which I witnessed some years ago, in travelling
from Simcoe to Brantford--two towns in the interior of the
province--will serve to convey an idea of the taste as well as
the means of enjoyment of these people. At an ordinary Methodist
meeting-house, in the centre of a rural settlement, and ten
miles from a village or town, there were _twenty-three pleasure
carriages_, double and single, standing in waiting. The occasion
was a quarterly meeting, and these were the conveyances of the
farmers who came to attend it. Yet twenty years before, and this
was a wilderness; twenty years before, and many of these people
were working as labourers, and were not possessed of a pair of
oxen; twenty years before, and these things exceeded even their
brightest dreams of prosperity.
“The settler who nobly pushes back the giant wilderness, and
hews out for himself a home upon the conquered territory, has
necessarily but a bony hand and a rough visage to present to
advancing civilisation. His children, too, are timid, and wild,
and uncouth. But a stranger comes in; buys the little improvement
on the next lot to him; has children who are educated, and a
wife with refined tastes,--for such people mark, in greater or
less numbers, every settlement in Upper Canada. The necessities
of the new comer soon bring about an acquaintance with the
old pioneer. Their families meet--timid and awkward enough at
first, perhaps; but children know not the conventionalities of
society, and, happily, are governed by their innocence in their
friendships. So they play together, go to school in company;
and thus, imperceptibly to themselves, are the tastes and
manners of the educated imparted to the rude, and the energy and
fortitude of the latter are infused into their more effeminate
companions. Manly but ill-tutored success is thus taught how to
enjoy its gains, whilst respectable poverty is instructed how
to better its condition. That pride occasionally puts itself to
inconvenience to prevent these pleasant results, my experience
of Canada forces me to admit; and that the jealousy and vanity
of mere success sometimes views with unkindness the manner and
habit of reduced respectability--never perhaps more exacting
than when it is poorest--I must also acknowledge. But that the
great law of progress, and the influence of free institutions,
break down these exceptional feelings and prejudices, is
patent to every close observer of Canadian society. Where the
educated and refined undergo the changes incident to laborious
occupations--for the constant use of the axe and the plough
alters men’s feelings as well as their appearances,--and where
rude industry is also changed by the success which gives it the
benefit of education, it is impossible for the two classes not
to meet. As the one goes down--at least in its occupations,--it
meets the other coming up by reason of its successes, and both
eventually occupy the same pedestal. I have seen this social
problem worked out over and over again in Upper Canada, and have
never known the result different. Pride, in America, must ‘stoop
to conquer;’ rude industry rises always.
“The manner of living of the Upper Canadian farmer may be summed
up in few words. He has plenty, and he enjoys it. The native
Canadians almost universally, and a large proportion of the old
country people, sit at the same table with their servants or
labourers. They eat meat twice, and many of them thrice a day: it
being apparently more a matter of taste than of economy as to the
number of times. Pork is what they chiefly consume. There being a
great abundance of fruit, scarcely a cleared farm is without an
orchard; and it is to be found preserved in various ways on every
farmer’s table. Milk is in great abundance, even in the early
settler’s houses, for where there is little pasture there are
sure to be large woods, and ‘brouse,’ or the tops of the branches
of trees, supply the place of hay. The sweetest bread I have
eaten in America I have eaten in the farmers’ houses of Upper
Canada. They usually grind the ‘shorts’ with the flour for home
consumption, and as their wheat is among the finest in the world,
the bread is at once wholesome and exceedingly delicious. Were
I asked what is the characteristic of Canadian farmers, I would
unhesitatingly answer ‘Plenty!’”