 15. Recapitulation of Various Topics. September 20, 1834 I promised, when I parted from you, before I left England, to write as soon as I could give you any satisfactory account of our settlement in this country. I shall do my best to redeem that promise, and forward you a slight sketch of our proceedings, with such remarks on the natural features of the place in which we have fixed our abode, as I think likely to afford you interest or amusement. Perhaps your patience, then, my dear friend, for a long and rambling epistle, in which I may possibly prove, somewhat of a willow-wisp, and having made you follow me in my desultory wanderings. Over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar, over park, over pale, through flood, through fire, possibly leave you in the midst of a big cedar swamp, or among the pathless mazes of our wild woods, without a clue to guide you, or even a blaze to light you on your way. You will have heard, through my letters to my dear mother, of our safe arrival at Quebec, of my illness at Montreal, of all our adventures and misadventures during our journey up the country, till after much weary wandering we finally found a home and resting place with a kind relative, whom it was our happiness to meet after separation of many years. My husband was anxious to settle in the neighbourhood of one so nearly connected with me, thinking it would rob the woods of some of the loneliness that most women complain so bitterly of. He purchased a lot of land on the shores of a beautiful lake, one of a chain of small lakes belonging to the autonomy river. Here, then, we are established, having now some five and twenty acres cleared, and a nice house built. Our situation is very agreeable, and each day increases its value. When we first came up to live in the bush, with the exception of S, here were but two or three settlers near us, and no roads cut out. The only road that was available for bringing up goods from the nearest town was on the opposite side of the water, which was obliged to be crossed on a log or birch bark canoe. The former nothing better than a large pine log, hollowed with the ax, so as to contain three or four persons. It is flat-bottomed and very narrow, on which account it is much used on these shallow waters. The birch canoe is made of sheets of birch bark, ingeniously fashioned, and sewn together by the Indians with the tough roots of the cedar, young pine, or larch, tamarack, as it is termed by the Indians. It is exceedingly light, so that it can be carried by two persons easily, or even by one. These, then, were our ferry boats, and very frail they are, and require great nicety in their management. They are worked in the water with paddles, either kneeling or standing. The squaws are very expert in the management of the canoes, and preserve their balance with admirable skill, standing up while they impel the little bark with great velocity through the water. Very great is the change that a few years have affected in our situation. A number of highly respectable settlers have purchased land along the shores of these lakes, so that we no longer want society. The roads are now cut several miles above us, and though far from good, can be travelled by wagons and slays, and are, at all events, better than none. A village has started up, where formerly a sick pine wood covered the ground. We have now, within a short distance of us, an excellent sawmill, a gristmill, and store, with a large tavern and many good dwellings. A fine timber bridge on stone piers was erected last year to connect the opposite townships, and lessened the distance to and from Peterborough. And though it was, unfortunately, swept away, early last spring, by the unusual rising of the autonomy lakes, a new and more substantial one has risen upon the ruins of the former, through the activity of an enterprising young Scotchman, the founder of the village. But the grand work that is, sooner or later, to raise this portion of the district from its present obscurity is the opening a line of navigation from Lake Huron through Lake Simcoe, and so through our chain of small lakes to Rice Lake, and finally through the Trent to the Bay of Quinty. This noble work would prove of incalculable advantage by opening a direct communication between Lake Huron and the inland townships at the back of the Ontario with the St. Lawrence. This project has already been under the consideration of the Governor, and it is, at present, exciting great interest in the country. Sooner or later, there is little doubt but that it will be carried into effect. It presents some difficulties and expense, but it would be greatly to the advantage and prosperity of the country, and be the means of settling many of the back townships bordering upon these lakes. I must leave it to abler persons than myself to discuss at large the policy and expediency of the measure, but as I suppose you have no intention of emigrating to our back woods, you will be contented with my cursory view of the matter, and believe, as in friendship, you are bound to do, that it is a desirable thing to open a market for inland produce. Canada is the land of hope. Here everything is new. Everything going forward. It is scarcely possible for arts, sciences, agriculture, manufacturers, to retrograde. They must keep advancing, though in some situations the progress may seem slow. In others they are proportionably rapid. There is a constant excitement on the minds of emigrants, particularly in the partially settled townships, that greatly assists in keeping them from desponding. The arrival of some enterprising person gives a stimulus to those about him. A profitable speculation is started, and lo, the value of the land in the vicinity rises to double and treble what it was thought worth before. So that, without any design of befriending his neighbours, the schemes of one settler being carried into effect shall benefit a great number. We have already felt the beneficial effect of the access of respectable emigrants locating themselves in this township, as it has already increased the value of our land in a threefold degree. All this, my dear friend, you will say is very well, and might afford subject for wise discussion between grave men, but will hardly amuse us women. So pray turn to some other theme, and just tell me how you can try to pass your time among the bears and wolves of Canada. One lovely day last June I went by water to visit the bride of a young naval officer who had purchased a very pretty lot of land some two miles higher up the lake. Our party consisted of my husband, baby, and myself. We met a few pleasant friends and enjoyed our excursion much. Dinner was laid out in a stoop, which, as you may not know what is meant by the word, I must tell you, that it means a sort of wide veranda, supported on pillars, often of unbarked logs. The floor is either of earth, beaten hard, or plank. The roof covered with sheets of bark or else shingled. These stoops are of Dutch origin, and were introduced, I have been told, by the first Dutch settlers in the States, since which they have found their way all over the colonies. Wreathed with the scarlet creeper, a native plant of our woods and wilds, the wild vine, and also with the hop, which here grows luxuriously, with no labour or attention to its culture, these stoops have a very rural appearance. In summer serving the purpose of an open anti-room, in which you can take your meals and enjoy the fanning breeze without being inconvenienced by the extreme heat of the noonday sun. The situation of the house was remarkably well chosen, just on the summit of a little elevated plain, the ground sloping with a steep descent to a little valley, at the bottom of which a bright rill of water divided the garden from the opposite cornfields, which clothed a corresponding bank. In front of the stoop, where we dined, the garden was laid out with a smooth plot of grass, surrounded with borders of flowers, and separated from a ripening field of wheat, by a light railed fence, over which the luxuriant hop-fine flung its tendrils and graceful blossoms. Now I must tell you the hop is cultivated for the purposes of making a barm for raising bread. As you take great interest in housewifery concerns, I shall send you a recipe for what we call hop-rising. See appendix. The Yankees use a fermentation of salt, flour, and warm water or milk. But though the salt-rising makes beautiful bread to look at, being far whiter and firmer than the hop-yeast bread, there is a peculiar flavor imparted to the flour that does not please every one's taste, and it is very difficult to get your salt-rising to work in very cold weather. And now, having digressed, while I gave you my recipes, I shall step back to my party within the stoop, which I can assure you was very pleasant and most cordially disposed to enjoy the meeting. We had books and drawings and good store of pretty Indian toys, the collection of many long voyages to distant shores to look at and admire. Soon after sunset we walked down through the woods to the landing at the lakeshore, where we found our Bart Canoe ready to convey us home. During our voyage, just at the head of the rapids, our attention was drawn to some small object in the water, moving very swiftly along. There were various opinions as to the swimmer, some thinking it to be a water snake, others a squirrel or a muskrat. A few swift strokes of the paddle brought us up so as to intercept the passage of the little voyager. It proved to be a fine red squirrel, bound on a voyage of discovery from a neighbouring island. The little animal, with the courage and address that astonished his pursuers, instead of seeking safety in a different direction, sprung lightly on the point of the uplifted paddle, and from thence with a bound to the head of my astonished baby, and having gained my shoulder, leaped again into the water, and made direct for the shore, never having deviated a single point from the line he was swimming in, when he first came in sight of our canoe. I was surprised and amused by the agility and courage displayed by this innocent creature. I could hardly have given credence to the circumstance had I not been an eyewitness of its conduct, and moreover been wetted plentifully on my shoulder by the sprinkling of water from his coat. Perhaps you may think my squirrel anecdote incredible, but I can vouch for the truth of it on my own personal experience, as I not only saw, but also felt it. The black squirrels are most lovely and elegant animals, considerably larger than the red, the grey and the striped. The latter are called by the Indians chit-monks. We were robbed greatly by these little depredators last summer. The red squirrels used to carry off great quantities of our Indian corn, not only from the stalks while the crop was ripening, but they even came into the house through some chinks in the log-walls, and carried off vast quantities of the grain, stripping it very adroitly from the cob, and conveying the grain to their store-houses in some hollow log or subterranean granary. These little animals are very fond of the seeds of pumpkins, and you will see the soft creatures whisking a boat among the cattle, carrying away the seeds as they are scattered by the beasts and breaking the pumpkins. They also delight in the seeds of the sunflowers, which grow to a gigantic height in our gardens and clearings. The fowls are remarkably fond of the sunflower seeds, and I saved the plants with the intention of laying up a good store of winter food for my poor chicks. One day I went to cut the ripe heads, the largest of which was the size of a large dessert-plate, but found two wicked red squirrels busily employed gathering in the seeds, not for me, be sure, but themselves. Not contented with picking up the seeds, these little thieves dexteriously sawed through the stalks and conveyed away whole heads at once. So bold were they that they would not desist when I approached till they had secured their object, and encumbered with a load twice their weight, of their own agile bodies, ran with a swiftness along the rails, and over-root stump and log till they eluded my pursuit. Great was the indignation expressed by this thrifty little pair on returning a gain for another load to find the plant divested of the heads. I had cut what remained and put them in a basket in the sun on a small block in the garden, close to the open glass door, on the steps of which I was sitting shelling some seed-beans, when the squirrels drew my attention to them by their sharp, scolding notes, elevating their fine feathery tails and expressing the most lively indignation at the invasion. They were not long before they discovered the Indian basket with the ravished treasure. A few rapid movements brought the little pair to the rails within a few paces of me and the sunflower heads. Near then they paused, and sitting up, looked in my face with the most imploring gestures. I was too much amused by their perplexity to help them, but turning away my head to speak to the child they darted forward, and in another minute had taken possession of one of the largest of the heads, which they conveyed away, first one carrying at a few yards, then the other, it being too bulky for one alone to carry it far at a time. In short, I was so well amused by watching the maneuvers that I suffered them to rob me of all my store. I saw a little family of tiny squirrels at play in the spring on the top of a hollow log, and really I think they were, without exception, the liveliest, most graceful creatures I ever looked upon. The flying squirrel is a native of our woods and exceeds in beauty, to my mind, any of the tribe. Its color is the softest, most delicate, tint of gray, the fur thick and short, and as silken as velvet. The eyes, like all the squirrel kind, are large, full, and soft the whiskers and long hair but the nose, black. The membrane that assists this little animal in its flight is white and delicately soft in texture, like the fur of the chinchilla. It forms a ridge of fur between the fore and hind legs, the tail is like an elegant broad gray feather. I was agreeably surprised by the appearance of this exquisite little creature, the pictures I had seen, given it a most inelegant and bat-like look, almost disgusting. The young ones are easily tamed, and are very playful and affectionate when under confinement. How my little friend Emily would delight in such a pet! Tell her, if ever I should return to dear old England, I will try to procure one for her. But at present she must be contented with the stuffed specimens of black, red, and striped squirrel which I enclose in my parcel. I wish I could offer you any present more valuable. But our arts and manufacturers, being entirely British, with the exception of the Indians' toys, I should find it a difficult matter to send you anything worth your attention. Therefore I am obliged to have recourse to the natural productions of our woods as tokens of remembrance to our friends at home, for it is ever thus we speak of the land of our birth. You wish to know if I am happy and contented in my situation, or if my heart pines after my native land. I will answer you candidly, and say that, as far as regards matters of taste, early association, and all those holy ties of kindred, and old affections that make home in all countries, and among all nations in the world, a hallowed spot I must ever give the preference to Britain. On the other hand, a sense of the duties I have chosen, and a feeling of conformity to one's situation, less than the regret I might be inclined to indulge in. Besides there are new and delightful ties that bind me to Canada. I have enjoyed much domestic happiness since I came hither, and is it not the birthplace of my dear child? Have I not here first tasted the rapturous delight arising from maternal feelings? When my eye rests on my smiling darlin', or I feel his warm breath upon my cheek, I would not exchange the joy that fills my breast for any pleasure the world could offer me. But this feeling is not confined to the solitude of your Canadian forests, my dear friend, you will say. I know it, but here there is nothing to interfere with your little nursing. You are not tempted by the pleasures of a gay world to forget your duties as a mother. There is nothing to supplant him in your heart, his presence and dears every place, and to learn to love the spot that gave him birth, and to think with complacency upon the country, because it is his country, and in looking forward to his future welfare you naturally become doubly interested in the place that is one day to be his. Perhaps I rather estimate the country by my own feelings, and when I find, by impartial survey of my present life, that I am to the full as happy, if not really happier, than I was in the old country, I cannot but value it. Possibly if I were to enter into a detail of the advantages I possess, they would appear of a very negative character in the eyes of persons reveling in all the splendour and luxury that wealth could procure, in a country in which nature and art are so eminently favourable towards what is usually termed the pleasures of life, but I never was a votary at the shrine of luxury or fashion. A round of company, a routine of pleasure, were to me sources of weariness, if not of disgust. There is nothing in all this to satisfy the heart, says Schiller, and I admit the force of the sentiment. I was too much inclined to spurn with impatience the fetters that etiquette and fashion are want to impose on society, till they rob its followers of all freedom and independence of wealth, and they soon are obliged to live for a world that in secret they despise and loathe, for a world too that usually regards them with contempt, because they dare not act with an independence which would be crushed directly it was displayed. And I must freely confess to you that I do prize and enjoy my present liberty in this country exceedingly. In this we possess an advantage over you and over those that inhabit the towns and villages in this country, where I see a ridiculous attempt to keep up an appearance that is quite foreign to the situation of those that practice it. Few, very few, are the immigrants that come to the colonies, unless it is with the view of realizing an independence for themselves or their children. Those that could afford to live in ease at home, believe me, would never expose themselves to the privations and disagreeable consequences of a settler's life in Canada. Therefore this is the natural inference we draw that the immigrant has come hither under the desire and natural hope of bettering his condition and benefiting a family that he has not the means of settling in life in the home country. It is foolish then to launch out in a style of life that everyone knows cannot be maintained. Rather ought such persons to rejoice in the consciousness that they can, if they please, live according to their circumstances, without being the less regarded for the practice of prudence, economy, and industry. Now we bush-settlers are more independent. We do what we like, we dress as we find most suitable and most convenient. We are totally without the fear of any mister or missus Grundy, and having shaken off the trammels of Grundyism, we laugh at the absurdity of those who voluntarily forge afresh and hug their chains. If our friends come to visit us unexpectedly, we make them welcome to our humble homes, and give them the best we have. But if our fare be indifferent, we offer it with good will, and no apologies are made or expected. They would be out of place, as everyone is aware of the disadvantages of a new settlement, and any excuses for want of variety or the delicacies of the table would be considered rather in the light of a tacit reproof to your guest for having unseasonably put your hospitality to the test. Our society is mostly military or naval, so that we meet on equal grounds, and are, of course, well acquainted with the rules of good breeding and polite life. Too much so to allow any deviation from those laws that good taste, good sense, and good feeling have established among persons of our class. Yet here it is considered by no means derogatory to the wife of an officer or gentleman to assist in the work of the house, or to perform its entire duties if occasion requires it. To understand the mystery of soap, candle, and sugar-making, to make bread, butter, and cheese, or even to milk her own cows, to knit and spin, and prepare the wool for the loom. In these matters we Bush ladies have a wholesome disregard of what Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so thinks or says. We pride ourselves on conforming to circumstances, and as a British officer must needs be a gentleman, and his wife a lady, perhaps we repose quietly on that incontestable proof of our gentility, and can afford to be useful without injuring it. Our husbands adopt a similar line of conduct. The officer turns his sword into a plowshare, and his lance into a sickle, and if he be seen plowing among the stumps in his own field, or chomping trees on his own land, no one thinks less of his dignity, or considers him less of a gentleman than when he appeared upon parade in all the pride of military etiquette, with sash, sword, and epaulet. Surely this is as it should be in a country where independence is inseparable from industry, and for this I prize it. Among many advantages we in this township possess, it is certainly no inconsiderable one that the lower or working class of settlers are well disposed, and quite free from the annoying Yankee manners that distinguish many of the earlier settled townships. Our servants are as respectable, or nearly so, as those at home, nor are they admitted to our tables or placed on inequality with us, accepting at bees and such kinds of public meetings, when they usually conduct themselves with a propriety that would afford an example to some that call themselves gentlemen, these young men who voluntarily throw aside those restraints that society expects from persons filling a respectable situation. Intemperance is to prevailing a vice among all ranks of people in this country, but I blush to say it belongs most decidedly to those that consider themselves among the better class of immigrants. Let none such complain of the heirs of equality displayed towards them by the laboring class, seeing that they degrade themselves below the honest sober settler, however poor. If the sons of a gentleman lower themselves, no wonder if the sons of poor men endeavor to exalt themselves above him in a country where they all meet on equal ground, and good conduct is the distinguishing mark between the classes. Some months ago, when visiting a friend in a distant part of the country, I accompanied her to stay a few days in the house of a resident clergyman, curate of a flourishing village in the township of Blank. I was struck by the primitive simplicity of the mansion and its inhabitants. We were introduced into the little family-sitting room, the floor of which was painted after the Yankee fashion, instead of being carpeted. The walls were of unornamented deal, and the furniture of the room of corresponding plainness. A large spinning-wheel, as big as a cart-wheel, nearly occupied the centre of the room, at which a neatly dressed matron of mild and ladylike appearance was engaged spinning yarn. Her little daughters were knitting beside the fire while their father was engaged in the instruction of two of his sons. A third was seated affectionately in a little straw chair between his feet, while a fourth was plying his axe with nervous strokes in the courtyard, casting from time to time, wistful glances through the parlor window at the party within. The dresses of the children were of a coarse sort of stuff, a mixture of woolen and thread, the produce of the farm, and their mother's praiseworthy industry. The stockings, socks, muffetties, and warm comforters were all of home manufacture. Both girls and boys wore moccasins of their own making, good sense, industry, and order presided among the members of this little household. Both girls and boys seemed to act upon the principle that nothing is disgraceful but that which is immoral and improper. Hospitality without extravagance, kindness without insincerity of speech, marked the manners of our worthy friends. Everything in the house was conducted with attention to prudence and comfort. The living was but small, the income arising from it, I should have said, but there was a gleam land and a small dwelling attached to it, and by dint of active exertion with outdoors, and economy and good management within. The family were maintained with respectability. In short we enjoyed, during our sojourn, many of the comforts of a cleared farm, poultry of every kind, beef of their own killing, excellent mutton and pork. We had a variety of preserves at our tea-table, with honey in the comb, delicious butter, and good cheese, with diverse sorts of cakes, a kind of little pancake made from the flour of buckwheat, which are made in a batter, and raised with barm. Afterwards dropped into a boiling lard and fried. Also a preparation made of Indian corn flour, called Soporn Cake, which is fried in slices, and eaten with maple syrup, were among the novelties of our breakfast fair. I was admiring a breed of very fine fowls in the portrait yard one morning, when my friend smiled and said, I do not know if you will think I come honestly by them. I am sure you did not acquire them, by dishonest means, I replied, laughing. I will vouch for your principles in that respect. Well, replied my hostess, they were neither given me nor sold to me, and I did not steal them. I found the original stock in the following manner. An old black hen, most unexpectedly, made her appearance one spring morning at our door. We hailed the stranger with surprise and delight, for we could not muster a single domestic fowl among our little colony at that time. We never rightly knew but what means the hen came into our possession, but suppose some emigrant's family going up the country must have lost or left her. She laid about ten eggs, and hatched chickens from them. From this little brood we raised a stock, and soon supplied all our neighbors with fowls. We prized the breed, not only on account of its fine size, but from the singular, and as we thought, providential manner in which we obtained it. I was much interested in the slight sketch given by the pastor one evening, as we all assembled round the blazing log-fire, that was piled half way up the chimney, which reared its stone fabric so as to form deep recesses at either side of its abutments. Alluding to his first settlement, he observed it was a desolate wilderness of gloomy and unbroken forestries when we first pitched our tent here. At that time an axe had not been laid to the root of a tree, nor a fire, saved by the wandering Indians kindled in these woods. I can now point out the identical spot where my wife and little ones ate their first meal, and raised their feeble voices in thankfulness to that almighty and merciful being who had preserved them through the perils of the deep, and brought them in safety to this vast solitude. We were a little flock, wandering in a great wilderness under the special protection of our mighty shepherd. "'I have heard you, my dear young lady,' he said, addressing the companion of my visit. Talk of the hardships of the bush! But let me tell you, you know but little of its privations compared with those that came hither some years ago. Ask these, my elder children and my wife, what were the hardships of a bush-sutler's life ten years ago? And they will tell you, it was to endure cold, hunger, and all its accompanying evils, to know at times the want of every necessary article of food. As to the luxuries and delicacies of life, we saw them not. How could we? We were far removed from the opportunity of obtaining these things. Potatoes, pork, and flour were our only stores, and often we failed of the two latter before a fresh supply could be procured. We had not mills nearer than thirteen miles, through roads marked only by blazed lines. Nor were there at that time any settlers near us. Now you see us, in a cleared country, surrounded with flourishing farms and rising villages. But at the time I speak of it was not so. There were no stores of groceries or goods, no butcher's shops, no cleared farms, dairies, nor orchards. For these things we had to wait with patience till industry should raise them. Our fair knew no other variety than salt-pork, potatoes, and sometimes bread for breakfast, pork and potatoes for dinner, pork and potatoes for supper, with a porridge of Indian corn-flower for the children. Sometimes we had the change of pork without potatoes and potatoes without pork. This was the first year's fair. By degrees we got a supply of flour of our own growing, but bruised into a coarse mill with a hand mill, for we had no water or windmills within many miles of our colony, and good bread was indeed a luxury we did not often have. We brought a cow with us, who gave us milk during the spring and summer, but owing to the wild garlic, a wild herb common to our woods, on which she fed, her milk was scarcely palatable, and for want of shelter and food she died the following winter, greatly to our sorrow. We learned experience in this, and in many other matters, at a hard cost. But now we can profit by it. Did not the difficulties of your first settlement incline you to despond, and regret that you had ever embarked on a life so different to that you had been used to? I asked. They might have had that effect, had not a higher motive than mere worldly advancement, actuated me in leaving my native country to come hither. Look you, it was thus, I had for many years been the pastor of a small village in the mining districts of Cumberland. I was dear to the hearts of my people, and they were my joy and crown in the Lord, a number of my parishioners, pressed by poverty and the badness of times, resolved on emigrating to Canada. Urged by a natural and not unlawful desire of bettering their condition, they determined on crossing the Atlantic, encouraged by the offer of considerable grants of wild land, which at that period were freely awarded by government to persons desirous of becoming colonists. But previous to this undertaking several of the most respectable came to me, and stated their views and reasons for the momentous step they were about to take, and at the same time besought me in the most moving terms, in the name of the rest of their emigrant friends, to accompany them into the wilderness of the West, lest they should forget their Lord and Saviour when abandoned to their own spiritual guidance. At first I was startled at the proposition. It seemed a wild and visionary scheme. But by degrees I began to dwell with pleasure on the subject. I had few ties beyond my native village. The income arising from my curesy was too small to make it any great obstacle, like Goldsmith's curate I was. Passing rich with forty pounds a year. My heart yearned after my people. Ten years I had been their guide and adviser. I was the friend of the old and the teacher of the young. My Mary was chosen from among them. She had no foreign ties to make her look back with regret upon the dwellers of the land in distant places. Her youth and maturity had been spent among these very people. So that when I named to her the desire of my parishioners, and she also perceived that my own wishes went with them, she stifled any regretful feelings that might have arisen in her breast, and replied to me in the words of Ruth, Thy country shall be my country, thy people shall be my people, where thou dyest I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death, part thee and me. A tender and affectionate partner, thou hast been to me, Mary, he added, turning his eyes affectionately on the mild and dignified matron, whose expressive countenance bespoke with more eloquence than words, the feelings passing in her mind. She replied not by words, but I saw the big bright tears fall on the work she held in her hand. They sprang from emotions too sacred to be profaned by intrusive eyes, and I hastily averted my glance from her face, while the pastor proceeded to narrate the particulars of their leaving England, their voyage, and finally their arrival in the land that had been granted to the little colony in the then unbroken part of Township Blank. We had obtained a great deal of useful advice and assistance from the government agents previous to our coming up hither, and also hired some choppers at high wages to initiate us in the art of felling, logging, burning, and clearing the ground, as it was our main object to get in crops of some kind. We turned to without any delay further than what was necessary for providing a temporary shelter for our wives and children, and prepared the ground for spring crops, helping each other as we could, with the loan of oxen and labour, and here I must observe that I experienced every attention and consideration for my friends. My means were small, and my family all too young to render me any service. However, I lacked not help, and had the satisfaction of seeing a little spot cleared for the growth of potatoes and corn, which I could not have affected by my single exertions. My biggest boy, John, was but nine years old, willy seven, and the others still more helpless. The two little ones you see there, pointing to two young children, have been born since we came hither. That yellow-haired lassie sitting beside you was a babe at the breast, a helpless, wailing infant, so weak and sickly before we came here that she was scarcely ever out of her mother's arms. But she grew and throve rapidly under the rough treatment of a bush-settler's family. We had no house built, or dwelling of any kind, to receive us when we arrived at our destination. And the first two nights were passed on the banks of the creek that flows at the foot of the hill, in a hut of cedar and hemlock boughs that I cut with my axe, and with the help of some of my companions raised to shelter my wife and the little ones. Though it was the middle of May, the nights were chilly, and we were glad to burn a pile of wood in front of our hut, to secure us from the effects of the cold, and the stings of the mosquitoes that came up in myriads from the stream, and which finally drove us higher up the bank. As soon as possible we raised a shanty, which now serves as a shed, for my young cattle I would not pull it down, so often urged to do so, as it stands in the way of a pleasant prospect from the window. But I like to look on it, and recall to mind the first years I passed beneath its lowly roof. We need such mementos to remind us of our former state. But we grow proud, and cease to appreciate our present comforts. Our first Sabbath was celebrated in the open air, my pulpit, a pile of rude logs, my church, the deep shade of the forest, beneath which we assembled ourselves. But, sincere or more fervent devotion, I never witness than that day. I well remember the text I chose, for my address to them, was from the Eighth Chapter of Deuteronomy, the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Verses, which appeared to me applicable to our circumstances. The following year we raised a small blockhouse, which served as a schoolhouse and church. At first our progress in clearing the land was slow, for we had to buy experience, and many in greats were the disappointments and privations that befell us during the first few years. One time we were all ill with Agu, and not one able to help the other. This was a sad time, but better things were in store for us. The tide of emigration increased, and the little settlement we had formed began to be well spoken of. One man came and built a sawmill, a gristmill followed soon after, and then one store, and then another, till we beheld a flourishing village spring up around us. Then the land began to increase in value, and many of the first settlers sold their lots to advantage and retreated further up the woods. As the village increased, so, of course, did my professional duties, which had for the first few years been paid for in acts of kindness and voluntary labor by my little flock. And now I have the satisfaction of reaping a reward without proving burdensome to my parishioners. My farm is increasing, and besides the salary arising from my curacy, I have something additional for the school, which is paid by government. We may now say it is good for us to be here, seeing that God has been pleased to send down a blessing upon us. I have forgotten many very interesting particulars relating to the trials and shifts this family were put to in the first few years, but the pastor told us enough to make me quite contented with my lot, and I returned home after some days pleasant sojourn with this delightful family, with an additional stock of contentment and some useful and practical knowledge that I trust I shall be the better for all my life. I am rather interested in a young lad that has come out from England to learn Canadian farming. The poor boy had conceived the most romantic notions of a settler's life, partly from the favourable accounts he had read, and partly through the medium of a lively imagination which it aided in the deception and led him to suppose that his time would be chiefly spent in the fascinating amusements and adventures arising from hunting the forest in search of deer and other game, pigeon and duck-shooting, spearing fish by torch-light, and voyaging on the lakes in a birchbark canoe in summer, skating in winter, or gliding over the frozen snow like a laplander in his sleigh, wrapped up to the eyes in furs, and travelling at the rate of twelve miles an hour to the sound of a harmonious peal of bells. What a felicitous life to captivate the mind of a boy of fourteen, just let loose from the irksome restraint of boarding school! How little did he dream of the drudgery inseparable from the duties of a lad of his age. In a country where the old and young, the master and the servant are alike obliged to labour for a livelihood, without respect to former situation or rank. Here the son of the gentleman becomes a hewer of wood and drawer of water. He learns to chop down trees, to pile brush-heaps, split rails for fences, attend the fires during the burning season, dressed in a coarse overgarment of hempen cloth, called a logging-shirt, with trousers to correspond, and a Yankee straw hat flapped over his eyes, and a hand-spike to assist him in rolling over the burning brands, to tend and drive oxen, plow, sow, plant Indian corn and pumpkins, and raised potato-hills are among some of the young emigrants' accomplishments. His relaxations are but comparatively few, but they are seized with a relish and a viddyty that give them the greater charm. You may imagine the disappointment felt by the poor lad on seeing his fair visions of amusement fade before the dull realities and distasteful details of a young settler's occupation in the backwoods. Youth, however, is the best season for coming to this country. The mind soon bends itself to its situation and becomes not only reconciled, but in time pleased with the change of life. There is a consolation, too, in seeing that he does no more than others of equal pretensions as to rank and education are obliged to submit to, if they would prosper, and perhaps he lives to bless the country which has robbed him of a portion of that absurd pride that made him look with contempt on those whose occupations were of a humble nature. It were a thousand pitties willfully to deceive a person's desirous of emigrating with false and flattering pictures of the advantages to be met with in this country. Let the pro and con be fairly stated, and let the reader use his best judgment, unbiased by prejudice, or interest in a matter of such vital importance not only as regards himself, but the happiness and welfare of those over whose destinies with nature has made him the guardian. It is, however, far more difficult to write on the subject of emigration than most persons think. It embraces so wide a field that would be perfectly correct as regards one part of the province would by no means prove so as regarded another. One district differs from another, and one township from another, according to its natural advantages, whether it be long settled or unsettled, possessing water privileges or not, the soil and even the climate will be different according to situation and circumstances. Much depends on the tempers, habits and dispositions of the emigrants themselves. What suits one will not another. One family will flourish and accumulate every comfort about their homesteads, while others languish in poverty and discontent. It would take volumes to discuss every argument for and against, and to point out exactly who are and who are not fit subjects for emigration. Have you read Dr. Dunlop's spirited and witty Backwoodsman? If you have not, get it as soon as you can, it will amuse you. I think a backswood woman might be written in the same spirit, setting forth a few pages in the history of Bush ladies as examples for our sex. Indeed, we need some wholesome admonitions on our duties and the folly of repining at following and sharing the fortunes of our spouses whom we have vowed in happier hours to love, in riches and in poverty, in sickness and in health. Too many pronounce these words without heeding their importance, and without calculating the chances that may put their faithfulness to the severe test of quitting home, kindred and country, to share the hard lot of a settler's life, for even this sacrifice renders it hard to be born, but the truly attached wife will do this and more also if required by the husband of her choice. But now it is time I say farewell. My dull letter, grown to a formidable packet, will tire you, and make you wish it at the bottom of the Atlantic. CHAPTER XVI. INDIAN HUNTERS Living in a former letter, given you some account of a winter visit to the Indians, I shall now give a short sketch of their summer encampment, which I went to see one beautiful afternoon in June, accompanied by my husband and some friends that had come in to spend the day with us. The Indians were encamped on a little peninsula, jutting out between two small lakes. Our nearest path would have been through the bush, but the ground was so encumbered by fallen trees that we agreed to go in the canoe. The day was warm, without being oppressively hot, as it too often is during the summer months, and for a wonder the mosquitoes and black flies were so civil as not to molest us. Our light bark skimmed gaily over the calm waters, beneath the overhanging shade of cedars, hemlock and balsams, that emitted a delicious fragrance as the passing breeze swept through the boughs. I was in raptures with a bed of blue irises mixed with snow-white waterlilies that our canoe passed over. Turning this stony bank that formed the point, we saw the thin blue smoke of the camp curling above the trees, and soon our canoe was safely moored alongside those belonging to the Indians, and by help of the straggling branches and underwood I contrived to scramble up a steep path, and soon found myself in front of the tent. It was a Sunday afternoon, all the men were at home. Some of the younger branches of the families, for there were three that inhabited the wigwam, were amusing themselves with throwing the tomahawk at a notch cut in the bark of a distant tree, or shooting at a mark with their bows and arrows, while the elders reposed on their blankets within the shade, some reading, others smoking, and gravely eyeing the young rival marksmen at their feats of skill. Only one of the squads was at home. This was my old acquaintance, the hunter's wife, who was sitting on a blanket with her youngest little David, a papouse of three years, who was not yet weaned and reposing between her feet. She often eyed him with looks of great affection, and patted his shaggy head from time to time. Peter, who is a sort of great man, though not a chief, sat beside his spouse, dressed in a handsome blue, surchewed coat, with a red, worsted sash about his waist. He was smoking a short pipe, and viewing the assembled party at the door of the tent with an expression of quiet interest. Sometimes he lifted his pipe for an instant to give a sort of inward exclamation at the success or failure of his son's attempt to hit the mark on the tree. The old squaw, as soon as she saw me, motioned me forward, and, pointing to a vacant portion of her blanket, with a good natured smile, signed for me to sit beside her, which I did, and amuse myself with taking note of the interior of the wigwam and its inhabitants. The building was of an oblong form, open at both ends, but at nights I was told the openings were closed by blankets. The upper part of the roof was also open. The sides were rudely fenced, with large sheets of birch bark, drawn in and out between the sticks that made the framework of the tent. A long, slender pole of ironwood formed a low beam, from which depended sundry iron and brass pots and kettles, also some joints of freshly killed venison and dried fish. The fires occupied the centre of the hut, around the ambers of which reposed several meek deer-hounds. They envisioned something of the quiet apathy of their masters, merely opening their eyes to look upon the intruders, and seeing all as well, returned to their former slumbers, perfectly unconcerned by our entrance. The hunter's family occupied one entire side of the building, while Joseph Muscratt, with his family, and Joseph Boland's, and his squaw shared the opposite side. There several apartments being distinguished by their blankets, fishing spears, rifles, tomahawks, and other property. As to the cooking utensils, they seemed from their scarcity to be held in common among them. Perfect enmity appeared among the three families, and if one might judge from outward appearance, they seemed happy and contented. On examining the books that were in the hands of the young men, they proved to be hymns and tracks. One side printed in English, the other the Indian translation. In compliance with our wishes the men sang one of the hymns, which sounded very well, but we missed the sweet voices of the Indian girls, whom I had left in front of the house, sitting on a pine log and amusing themselves with my baby, and seeming highly delighted with him and his nurse. Outside the tent the squaw showed me a birchbark canoe that was building. The shape of the canoe is marked out by sticks stuck in the ground at regular distances. The sheet of bark being wedded, and secured in their proper places by cedar lays, which are bent so as to serve the purpose of ribs or timbers. The sheets of bark are stitched together with the tough roots of the tamarack, and the edges of the canoe also sewed or laced over with the same material. The whole is then varnished over with a thick gum. I had the honour of being paddled home by Mrs. Peter in a new canoe, just launched, and really the motion was delightful. Seated at the bottom of the little bark, on a few light hemlock bows, I enjoyed my voyage home exceedingly. The canoe, propelled by the Amazonian arm of the swarthy matron, flew swiftly over the waters, and I was soon landed in a little cove within a short distance from my own door. In return for the squaw's civility, I delighted her by a present of a few beads for working moccasins and knife-sheeds, with which she seemed very well pleased, carefully securing her treasure by tying them in a corner of her blanket with a bit of thread. With a peculiar reserve and gravity of temper there is at the same time a degree of childness about the Indians in some things. I gave the hunter and his son one day some coloured prints, which they seemed mightily taken with, laughing immoderately at some of the fashionably dressed figures. When they left the house they seated themselves on a fallen tree, and called their hounds round them, displaying to each, severally, the pictures. The poor animals, instead of taking a survey of the gaily dressed ladies and gentlemen, held up their meek heads and licked their master's hands and faces. But old Peter was resolved the dogs should share the amusement of looking at the pictures and turn their faces to them, holding them fast by their long ears when they endeavoured to escape. I could hardly have supposed the grave Indian capable of such childish behaviour. These Indians appear less addicted to gay, intensely adornments than formerly, and rather affect a European style in their dress. It is no unusual sight to see an Indian habited in a fine cloth coat and trousers, though I must say the blanket coats provided for them by government and which form part of their annual presence are far more suitable in becoming. The squads, too, prefer cotton or stuffed gowns, aprons and handkerchiefs, and useful articles, to any sort of finery. Though they like well enough to look at and admire them, they delight nevertheless in decking out the little ones, embroidering their cradle wrappings with silks and beads, and tacking the wings of birds to their shoulders. I was a little amused by the appearance of one of these Indian cupids, adorned with the wings of the American warbird, a very beautiful creature, something like our British bullfinch, only far more lively in plumage, the breast and under feathers of the wings being a tint of the most brilliant carmine shaded with black and white. This bird has been called the warbird from its having first made its appearance in this province during the late American war, a fact that I believe is well authenticated, or at any rate has obtained general credence. I could hardly help smiling at your notion that we in the backwoods can have easy access to a circulation library. In one sense, indeed, you are not so far from the truth, for every settler's library may be called a circulating one, as their books are sure to pass from friend to friend into rotation. And, fortunately for us, we happen to have several excellently furnished ones in our neighborhood, which are always open to us. There is a public library at York, and a small circulating library at Coburg, but they might just as well be on the other side of the Atlantic for any access we can have to them. I know how it is. At home you have the same idea of the facility of traveling in this country as I once had. Now I know what bush roads are. A few miles' journey seems an awful undertaking. Do you remember my account of a day's traveling through the woods? I am sorry to say they are but little amended since that letter was written. I have only once ventured to perform a similar journey, which took several hours hard traveling. And more by good luck than any other thing arrived with whole bones at my destination. I could not help laughing at the frequent exclamation of the Teamster, a shrewd Yerkshire lad. Oh, if I had but the driving of his Excellency the Governor along this road how I would make the old horse trot over the stumps and stones till he should cry out again, I warn't he do some it to mend them before he came along them again. Unfortunately it is not a statute road on this side of the river, and has been cut by the settlers for their own convenience, so that I fear nothing will be done to improve it, unless it is by the inhabitants themselves. We hope soon to have a market for our grain nearer at hand than Peterborough. A grist mill has just been raised at the new village that is springing up. This will prove a great comfort to us. We have at present to fetch flour up at a great expense through bad roads, and the loss of time to those that are obliged to sent wheat to the town to be ground is a serious evil. This will soon be remedied to the joy of the whole neighborhood. You do not know how important these improvements are, and what effect they have in raising the spirits of the immigrant, besides enhancing the value of his property in no trifling degree. We have already experienced the benefit of being near the sawmill, as it not only enables us to build at a smaller expense, but enables us to exchange logs for sawn lumber. The great pine-trees, which under other circumstances would be an encumbrance, and draw back to clearing the land, prove a most profitable crop when cleared off in the form of saw-logs, which is easily done, where they are near the water. The logs are sawn to a certain length and dragged by oxinger in the winter when the ground is hard to the lake's edge. When the ice breaks up, the logs float down with the current, and enter the mill-race. I have seen the lake opposite to our windows, covered with these floating timbers, voyaging down to the sawmill. How valuable would the great oaks and gigantic pines be on an estate in England? Well, here they are as little thought of as saplings would be at home. Some years hence the timbers that are now burned up will be regretted. Yet it is impossible to preserve them. They would prove a great encumbrance to the farmer. The oaks are desirable for splitting, as they make the most durable fences. Pine, cedar, and white ash are also used for rail-cuts. Maple and dry beach are the best sorts of wood for fires. White ash burns well. In making lie for soap, care is taking to use none but the ashes of hardwood, as oak, ash, maple, beach. Any of the resinous trees are bad for the purpose, and the lie will not mingle with the fact. In boiling, to the great mortification of the uninitiated soap-boiler, who, by being made acquainted with this simple fact, might have been spared much useless trouble and waste of material after months of careful saving. An American settler's wife told me this, and bade me be careful not to make use of any of the pinewood ashes in running the lie. And here I must observe that of all the people the Yankees, as they are termed, are the most industrious and ingenious. They are never at a loss for an expedient. If one thing fails them they adopt another, with a quickness of thought that surprises me. Well, to them it seems only a matter of course. They seem to possess a sort of innate presence of mind, and instead of wasting their energies and words, they act. The old settlers that have been long among them seem to acquire the same sort of habits, in so much that it is difficult to distinguish them. I have heard the Americans called a loquacious, boasting people. Now, as far as my limited acquaintance with them goes, I consider they are almost laconic. And if I dislike them, it is for a certain cold brevity of manner that seems to place a barrier between you and them. I was somewhat struck with a remark made by a travelling clockmaker, a native of the State of Ohio. After speaking of the superior climate of Ohio, in answer to some questions of my husband, he said he was surprised that gentlemen should prefer the Canada's, especially the Bush, where for many years they must want all the comforts and luxuries of life, to the rich, highly cultivated and fruitful State of Ohio, where land was much cheaper, both clared and wild. To this we replied that in the first place British subjects preferred the British government, and besides they were averse to the manners of his countrymen. He candidly admitted the first objection, and in reply to the last observed that the Americans, at large, ought not to be judged by the specimens to be found in the British colonies as they were, for the most part persons of no reputation. Many of them had fled to the Canada's to escape from debt or other disgraceful conduct, and added it would be hard if the English were to be judged as a nation by the convicts of Botany Bay. Now there was nothing unfair or rude in the manners of this stranger, and his defence of his nation was mild and reasonable, and such as any unprejudiced person must have respected him for. I have just been interrupted by a friend who has called to tell me he has an opportunity of sending safe and free of expense to London or Liverpool, and that he will enclose a packet for me in the box he is packing for England. I am delighted by the intelligence, but regret that I have nothing but a few flower seeds, a specimen of Indian workmanship, and a few butterflies to send you. The latter are for Jane. I hope all will not share the fate of the last I sent. Sarah wrote me word, when they came to look for the green moth I had enclosed in a little box, nothing of his earthly remains was visible beyond a little dust and some pink feet. I have, with some difficulty, been able to procure another and finer specimen, and for fear it should meet with a similar annihilation I will at least preserve the memory of its beauty and give you a description of it. It is just five inches from wing to wing, the body, the thickness of my little finger, snow white, covered with long, silken hair, the legs bright red, so are the antennae, which are toothed like a comb on either side, shorter than those of butterflies and elegantly curled. The wings, both upper and under, are of the most exquisite pale tint of green, fringed at the edges with golden colour. Each wing has a small shaded crescent of pale blue, deep red and orange, the blue forming the centre, like a half-closed eye. The lower wings elongated in deep scallop, so is deformed two long tails, like those of the swallow-tail butterfly, only a full inch in length and deeply fringed. On the whole this moth is the most exquisite creature I have ever seen. We have a variety of the peacock butterfly that is very rich with innumerable eyes on the wings. The yellow swallow-tail is also very common, and the black and blue admiral, and the red, white and black admiral, with many other beautiful varieties that I cannot describe. The largest butterfly I have yet seen is a gay vermillion, marked with jet-black lines that form an elegant black lace pattern over its wide wings. Then for dragonflies we have them of every size, shape and colour. I was particularly charmed by a pair of superb blue ones that I used to see this summer in my walk to visit my sister. They were as large as butterflies with black gauze wings. On each pair was marked a crescent of the brightest azure blue. Shaded with scarlet, the bodies of these beautiful creatures were also blue. I have seen them scarlet and black, yellow and black, copper-coloured, green and brown. The latter are great enemies to the mosquitoes and other small insects, and may be seen in vast numbers, flitting around in all directions of an evening in search of prey. The fireflies must not be forgotten, for of all others they are the most remarkable. Their appearance generally precedes rain. They are often seen after dark, on mild, damp evenings, sporting among the cedars at the edge of the wood, and especially near swamps, when the air is illuminated with their brilliant dancing light. Sometimes they may be seen in groups, glancing like falling stars in mid-air, or descending so low as to enter your dwelling and flit about among the draperies of your bed or window-curtains. The light they emit is more brilliant than that of the glow-worm, but it is produced in the same manner from the under part of the body. The glow-worm is also frequently seen, even as late as September on mild, warm, dewy nights. We have abundance of large and small beetles, some most splendid, green and gold, rose-colour, red and black, yellow and black, some quite black, formatively large, with wide branching horns. Wasps are not so troublesome as in England, but I suppose it is because we cannot offer such temptations as our home-gardens hold out to these ravenous insects. One of our troppers brought me the other day what he called a hornet's nest. It was certainly too small and delicate a piece of workmanship for so large an insect, and I rather conjecture that it belonged to the beautiful black and gold insect called the wasp-fly. But of this I am not certain. The nest was about the size and shape of a turkey's egg, and was composed of six paper-cups inserted one within the other, each lessening to the innermost of all appeared not larger than a pigeon's egg. On looking carefully within the orifice of the last cup, a small comb containing twelve cells of the most exquisite neatness might be perceived, if anything superior in regularity to the cells of the comb of the domestic bee, one of which was at least equal to three of these. The substance that composed the cups was of a fine silver-grey silken texture, as fine as the finest India silk paper, and extremely brittle. When slightly wetted it became glutinous and adhered a little to the finger. The hole was carefully fixed to a stick. I have seen one since, fastened to a rough rail. I could not but admire the instinctive care displayed in the formation of this exquisite piece of insect architecture to guard the embryo animal from injury, either from the veracity of birds or the effect of rain which could scarcely find entrance in the interior. I had carefully, as I thought, preserved my treasure by putting it in one of my drawers, but a wicked little thief of a mouse found it out and tore it to pieces for the sake of the drops of honey contained in one or two of the cells. I was very much vexed, as I proposed sending it by some favorable opportunity to a dear friend living in Gloucester Place who took great delight in natural curiosities, and once showed me a nest of similar form to this, that had been found in a beehive. The material was much coarser, and if I remember right, had but two cases instead of six. I have always felt a great desire to see the nest of a hummingbird, but hitherto have been disappointed. This summer I had some beds of mignette and other flowers with the most splendid, major convolvuluses or mourning-gloves, as the Americans call them. These lovely flowers tempted the hummingbirds to visit my garden, and I had the pleasure of seeing a pair of those beautiful creatures, but their flight is so peculiar that it hardly gives you a perfect sight of their colors. Their motion, when on the wing, resembles the whirl of a spinning-wheel, and the sound they make is like the hum of a wheel at work. I shall plant flowers to entice them to build near us. I sometimes fear you will grow weary of my long dull letters. My only resources are domestic details and the natural history of the country, which I give whenever I think the subject has novelty to recommend it to your attention. Possibly I may sometimes disappoint you by details that appear to place a state of the emigrant in an unfavorable light. I merely give facts as I have seen or heard them stated. I could give you many flourishing accounts of settlers in this country. I could also reverse the picture, and you would come to the conclusion that there are many arguments to be used both for and against emigration. Now the greatest argument, and that which has the most weight, is necessity, and this will always turn the scale in the favor of emigration. And that same imperative dame necessity tells me it is necessary for me to draw my letter to a conclusion. Farewell, ever faithfully and affectionately you are attached, sister." End of LETTER XVI. LETTER XVII. You will have been surprised and possibly distressed by my long silence of several months, but when I tell you it has been occasioned by sickness, you will cease to wonder that I did not write. My dear husband, my servant, the poor babe, and myself were all at one time confined to our beds with ague. You know how severe my sufferings always were at home with intermittence, and need not marvel, if they were no less great in a country were lake-fievers and all kinds of intermittent-fievers abound. Few persons escaped the second year without being afflicted with this weakening complaint. The mode of treatment is repeated doses of calamel, with castor oil or salts, and is followed up by quinine. Those persons who do not choose to employ medical advice on the subject dose themselves with ginger tea, strong infusion of hyacin or other powerful green tea, pepper and whisky, with many other remedies that have the sanction of custom or quackery. I will not dwell on this uncomfortable period further than to tell you that we considered the complaint to have had its origin in Malaria, a rising from a cellar below the kitchen. When the snow melted this cellar became half full of water, either from the moisture draining through the spongy earth or from the rising of a spring beneath the house. See it as it may, the heat of the cooking and frankling stoves in the kitchen and parlor caused a fermentation to take place in the stagnant fluid before it could be emptied. The effluvia rising from this mass of putrefying water affected us all. The female servant who was the most exposed to its baneful influence was the first of our household that fell sick, after which we each in turn became unable to assist each other. I think I suffer an additional portion of the malady from seeing the sufferings of my dear husband and my beloved child. I lost the ague in a fortnight's time, thanks to Calomel and Queenine, so did my babe and his nurse. It has, however, hung on my husband during the whole summer and thrown a damp upon his exertions and gloom upon his spirits. This is the surgeon effect of ague. It causes the same sort of depression on the spirits as a nervous fever. My dear child has not been well ever since he had the ague and looks very pale and spiritless. We should have been in a most miserable condition, being unable to procure a female servant, a nurse, or anyone to attend upon us and totally unable to help ourselves. But for the prompt assistance of Mary on one side and Susanna on the other, I do not know what would have become of us in our sore trouble. This summer has been excessively hot and dry. The waters and the lakes and rivers, being lower than they had been known for many years, scarcely a drop of rain fell for several weeks. This extreme drought rendered the potato crop a decided failure. Our Indian corn was fine, so were the pumpkins. We had some fine vegetables in the garden, especially the peas and melons. The latter were very large and fine. The cultivation of the melon is very simple. You first draw the surrounding earth together with a broad hoe into a heap. The middle of this heap is then slightly hollowed out so as to form a basin. The mold being raised round the edges. Into this hollow you insert several melon seeds and leave the rest to the summer heat. If you water the plants from time to time it is well for them. The soil should be fine black mold and if your hills are inclining to a hollow part of your ground so as to retain the moisture so much finer will be your fruit. It is the opinion of practical persons who have bought wisdom by some years' experience of the country that in laying out and planting a garden the bed should not be raised as is the usual custom and give us a reason that the sun having such great power draws the moisture more readily from the earth where the beds are elevated above the ground. And in consequence of the dryness of the ground the plants wither away. As there appears some truth in the remark I am inclined to adopt the plan. Vegetables are in general fine and come quickly to maturity considering the lateness of the season in which they are usually put into the ground. Peas are always fine especially the marrow fats which are sometimes grown in the fields on cleared lands that are under the plow. We have a great variety of beans all of the French or kidney kind. There is a prolific white runner of which I send you some of the seed. The method of planting them is to raise a small hillock of mold by drawing the earth up with the hole. Flatten this or rather hollow it a little in the middle and drop in four or five seeds round the edges. As soon as the bean puts forth its runners insert a pole of five or six feet in the center of the hill. The plants will all meet and twine up it bearing a profusion of pods which are cut and foiled as the scarlet runners or else in their dry or ripe state stewed and eaten with salt meat. This I believe is the more usual way of cooking them. The early bush bean is a dwarf with bright yellow seed. Lettuces are very fine and may be cultivated easily and very early by transplanting the seedlings that appear as soon as the ground is free from snow, cabbages and savoys, and all sorts of roots keep during the winter in the cellars or root houses, but to the vile custom of keeping green vegetables in the shallow moist cellars below the kitchen much of the sickness that attacks settlers and the various forms of agus, intermittent, remittant, and lake fevers may be traced. Many of the lower class especially are not sufficiently careful in clearing these cellars from the decaying portions of vegetable matter which are often suffered to accumulate from year to year to infect the air of the dwelling. Where the house is small and the family numerous and consequently exposed to its influence by night the baneful consequences may be readily imagined. Do not tell me of lakes and swamps as the cause of fevers and agus look to your cellars was the observation of a blunt but experienced Yankee doctor. I verily believe it was the cellar that was the cause of sickness in our house all the spring and summer. A root house is indispensably necessary for the comfort of a settler's family. If well constructed with double log walls and the roof secured from soaking in of the rain or melting snows it preserves vegetables, meat, and milk excellently. You will ask if the use be so great and the comfort so essential why does not every settler build one. Now, dear mama, this is exactly what every newcomer says, but he has to learn the difficulty there is at first getting these matters accomplished. Yet, unless indeed, he have, which is not often the case, the command of plenty of ready money and can afford to employ extra workmen. Labor is so expensive, and the working seasons so short, that many useful and convenient buildings are left to a future time. And a cellar, which one man can excavate in two days if he work well, is made to answer the purpose. Till the season of leisure arrives or necessity obliges the root house to be made. We are ourselves proof of this very sort of unwilling procrastination. But the logs are now cut for the root house, and we shall have one early in the spring. I would, however, recommend any one that could possibly do so at first, to build a root house without delay, and also to have a well dug. The springs lying very few feet below the surface render this neither laborious or very expensive. The creeks will often fail in very dry weather, and the lake and river waters grow warm and distasteful during the spring and summer. The spring waters are generally cold and pure, even in the hottest weather, and delightfully refreshing. Our winter seems now fairly setting in. The snow has twice fallen, and as often disappeared since the middle of October, but now the ground is again hardening into stone. The keen northwest wind is abroad, and every outward object looks cold and wintery. The dark line of pines that bound the opposite side of the lake is already hoary and heavy with snow, while the half frozen lake has a deep leaden tint, which is only varied in shade by the masses of ice which shoot out in long points, forming mimic bays and peninsulas. The middle of the stream, where the current is strongest, is not yet frozen over, but runs darkly along like a river between its frozen banks. In some parts where the banks are steep and overhung with roots and shrubs, the fallen snow and water take the most fantastic forms. I have stood of a bright winter day, looking with infinite delight on the beautiful mimic waterfalls, congealed into solid ice along the bank of the river, and by the mill dam. From contemplating these pretty frolics of father frost, I have been led to picture to myself the sublime scenery of the Arctic regions. In spite of its length and extreme severity, I do like the Canadian winter. It is decidedly the healthiest season of the air, and it is no small enjoyment to be exempted from the torments of the insect tribes that are certainly great drawbacks to your comfort in the warmer months. We have just received your last packet. A thousand thanks for the contents. We are all delighted with your useful presence, especially the warm shawls and marinos. My little James looks extremely well in his new frock and cloak. They will keep him very warm this cold weather. He kissed the pretty fur-lined slippers you sent me, and said, Pussy, Pussy! By the way, we have a fine cat called Norakrina, the parting gift of our friend, Blank, who left her as a keepsake for my boy. Jamie dotes upon her, and I do assure you I regard her almost as a second Whittington's cat. Neither mouse nor chipmunk has dared intrude within our log-walls since she made her appearance. The very crickets that used to distract us with their chirping from morning till night have forsaken their old haunts. Besides the crickets, which often swarm so, as to become intolerable nuisance, destroying our clothes and woolens, we are pestered by large black ants that gallop about, eating up sugar-preserves, cakes, anything nice they can gain access to. These insects are three times the size of the black ants of Britain, and have a most voracious appetite. When they find no better prey, they kill each other, and that with the fierceness and subtlety of the spider. They appear less sociable in their habits than other ants, though from the numbers that invade your dwellings I should think they formed a community like the rest of their species. The first year's residence in a new log-house you are disturbed by a continual creaking sound which grates upon the ears exceedingly till you become accustomed to it. This is produced by an insect commonly called a Sawyer. This is the larvae of some fly that deposits its eggs in the bark of the pine trees. The animal, in its immature state, is of a whitish color. The body, composed of eleven rings, the head, armed with a pair of short, hard pincers. The skin of this creature is so rough that on passing your finger over it it reminds you of a rasp. Yet to the eye it is perfectly smooth. You would be surprised at the heap of fine sawdust that is to be seen below the hole they have been working in all night. These sawers form a fine feast for the woodpeckers. And jointly they assist in promoting the rapid decomposition of the gigantic forest-trees that would otherwise encumber the earth from age to age. How infinite is that wisdom that rules the natural world! How often do we see great events brought about by seeming insignificant agents? Yet are they all servants of the most high, working his will, and fulfilling his behests? One great want, which has been sensibly felt in this distant settlement, I mean the want of public worship on the Sabbath day, promises to be speedily remedied. A subscription is about to be opened among the settlers of this and part of the adjacent township for the erection of a small building which may answer the purpose of church and school-house, also for the means of paying a minister for stated seasons of attendance. Blank has allowed his parlor to be used as a temporary church, and service has been several times performed by a highly respectable young Scotch clergyman. And I can assure you we have a considerable congregation considering how scattered the inhabitants are, and that the emigrants consist of Catholics and dissenters as well as Episcopalians. These distinctions however are not carried to such lengths in this country as at home, especially where the want of religious observances has been sensibly felt. The word of God appears to be listened to with gladness. May a blessing attend those that in spirit and truth would restore again to us the public duties of the Sabbath, which, left to our own guidance, we are but too much inclined to neglect. Fair well. END OF LETTER XVII. LETTER XVIII. BUSY SPRING. This has been a busy spring with us. First sugar-making on a larger scale than our first attempt was. And since we had workmen making considerable addition to our house, we have built a large and convenient kitchen, taking the former one for a bedroom. The root-house and dairy are nearly completed. We have a well of excellent water close beside the door, and a fine frame barn was finished this week, which includes a good granary and stable, with a place for my poultry, in which I take great delight. Besides a fine brood of fowls, the produce of two hens and a cock, or rooster, as the Yankees term that bird, I have some ducks, and am to have turkeys and geese this summer. I lost several of my best fowls, not by the hawk, but a horrid beast of the same nature as our pole-cat, called here a skunk. It is far more destructive in its nature than either fox or the hawk, for he comes like a thief in the night, and invades the perch, leaving headless mementos of his barbarity and bloodthirsty propensities. We are having the garden, which hitherto has been nothing but a square enclosure for vegetables, laid out in a prettier form. Two half-circular wings sweep off from the entrance to each side of the house. The fence is a sort of rude basket or hurdle-work, such as you see at home, called by the country-folk Wattled Fence. This forms a much more picturesque fence than those usually put up of split timber. Along this little enclosure I have begun planting a sort of flowery hedge, with some of the native shrubs that abound in our woods and lakeshores. Among those already introduced are two species of shrubby honeysuckle, white and rose-blossomed. These are called by the American botanists quillostium. Then I have the white spirea fructus, which grows profusely on the lakeshore. The Canadian wild rose, the red-flowering raspberry, rubus spectabilis, leatherwood, dirkis, called American mesurian, or moosewood. This is a very pretty, and at the same time useful shrub, the bark being used by farmers as a substitute for cord in tying sacks, etc. The Indians sow their birchbark baskets with it occasionally. Wild gooseberry, red and black currants, apple trees with here and there a standard hawthorn, the native tree bearing nice red fruit I named before, are all I have as yet been able to introduce. The stoop is up, and I have just planted hops at the base of the pillars. I've got two bearing shoots of a purple wild grape from the island near us, which are long to see in fruit. My husband is in good spirits, our darling boy as well, and runs about everywhere. We enjoy a pleasant and friendly society, which has increased so much within the last two years that we can hardly regret our absence from the more populous town. My dear sister and her husband are comfortably settled in their new abode, and have a fine spot cleared and cropped. We often see them, and enjoy a chat of home, sweet, never-to-be-forgotten home, and cheat ourselves into the fond belief that, at no very distant time, we may again retrace its fertile fields and flowery dales. With what delight we should introduce our young Canadians to their grandmother and aunts. My little bushman shall early be taught to lisp the names of those unknown but dear friends, and to love the lands that gave birth to his parents, the Bonnie Hills of the North, and my own beloved England. Not to regret my absence from my native land, and one so fair and lovely with all, would argue a heart of insensibility. Yeah, to must say, for all its roughness I love Canada, and am as happy in my humble log-house as if it were courtly hall or bower. Habit reconciles us to many things that at first were distasteful. It has ever been my way to extract the sweet rather than the bitter in the cup of life, and surely it is best and wisest so to do. In a country where constant exertion is called for from all ages and degrees of settlers it would be foolish to a degree to damper energies by complaints and cast a gloom over our homes by sitting dejectedly down to lament for all that was so dear to us in the old country. Since we are here let us make the best of it, and bear with cheerfulness the lot we have chosen. I believe that one of the chief ingredients in human happiness is a capacity for enjoying the blessings we possess. Though at our first outset we experienced many disappointments, many unlooked for expenses, and many annoying delays, with some wants that to us seemed great privations. On the whole we have been fortunate, especially in the situation of our land, which has increased in value very considerably. Our chief difficulties are now over. At least we hope so, and we trust soon to enjoy the comforts of a cleared farm. My husband is becoming more reconciled to the country, and I daily feel my attachment to it strengthening. The very stumps that appeared so odious, through long custom, seemed to lose some of their hideousness. The eye becomes familiarized even with objects the most displeasing till they cease to be observed. Some centuries hence how different will this spot appear? I can picture it to my imagination with fertile fields and groves of trees planted by the hand of taste. All will be different. Our present, rude dwellings will have given place to others of a more elegant style of architecture, and comfort and grace will rule the scene, which is now a forest wild. You ask me if I like the climate of Upper Canada. To be candid, I do not think it deserves all that travellers have said of it. The summer heat of last year was very oppressive, the drought was extreme, and in some respects proved rather injurious, especially to the potato crop. The frost set in early, and so did the snows. As to the far-famed Indian summer it seems to have taken its farewell of the land. For little of it we have seen during these three years' residence. Last year there was not a semblance of it, and this year one horrible, dark gloomy day that reminded me most forcibly of a London fog, and which was to the full as dismal and depressing, was declared by the old inhabitants to be the commencement of the Indian summer. The sun looked dim and red, and a yellow, lurid mist darkened the atmosphere, so that it became almost necessary to light candles at noonday. If this be Indian summer, then might a succession of London fogs be turned the London summer. Thought I, as I groped about in a sort of bewildering dusky light all that day, and glad was I when, after a day or two's heavy rain, the frost and snow set in. Very variable, as far as our experience goes. This climate has been. No two seasons have been at all alike, and it is opposed it will be still more variable as the work of clearing the forest goes on from year to year. Near the rivers and great lakes the climate is much milder and more equable. More inland the snow seldom falls so as to allow of slaying for weeks after it has become general. This, considering the state of our bush roads, is rather a point in our favour as travelling becomes less laborious, though still somewhat rough. I have seen the aurora borealis several times, also a splendid meteoric phenomenon that surpassed everything I had ever seen or ever heard of before. I was very much amused by overhearing a young lad giving a gentleman a description of the appearance made by a cluster of the shooting stars as they followed each other in quick succession a thwart the sky. Sir, said the boy, I never saw such a sight before, and I can only liken the chain of stars to a logging chain. Certainly a most natural and unique simile, quite in character with the occupation of the lad, whose business was often with the oxen and logging chain, and after all not more rustic than the familiar names given to many of our most superb constellations. Charles's wane, the plow, the sickle, etc. Coming home one night last Christmas from the house of a friend I was struck by a splendid pillar of pale greenish light in the west. It rose to some height above the dark line of the pines that crowned the opposite shores of the autonomy, and illumined the heavens on either side with a chaste pure light, such as the moon gives in her rise and setting. It was not quite pure a mythical, though much broader at the base than at its highest point. It gradually faded till a faint white glimmering light alone marked where its place had been, and even that disappeared after some half hour's time. It was so fair and lovely a vision I was grieved when it vanished into thin air, and could have cheated fancy into the belief that it was the robe of some bright visitor from another and better world. Imagination apart could it be a phosphoric exhalation from some of our many swamps or inland lakes, or was it at all connected with the aurora that is so frequently seen in our skies. I must now close this epistle. I have many letters to prepare for friends, to whom I can only write when I have the opportunity of free conveyance. The inland postage being very high, and you must not only pay for all you receive, but all you send to and from New York. Adieu, my kindest and best of friends! Jero, May 1st, 1833. END OF LETTER XVIII. APENDICS A. OF THE BACKWARDS OF CANADA by Katharine Parr-Trail. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE BACKWARDS OF CANADA by Katharine Parr-Trail. APENDICS A. The following communications have been received from the writer of this work during its progress through the press. MAPLE SUGAR. This spring I have made maple sugar of a much finer color and grain than any I have yet seen, and have been assured by many old settlers it was the best or nearly the best they had ever met with. Which commendation induces me to give the plan I pursued in manufacturing it. The sap haven't been boiled down in the sugar-bush from about sixteen pails full to two. I first passed it through a thin flannel bag after the manner of a jelly bag to strain it from the first impurities, which are great. I then passed the liquor through another thicker flannel to the iron pot in which I proposed boiling down the sugar. And while yet cold, or at best but lukewarm, beat up the white of one egg to a froth and spread it gently over the surface of the liquor. Watching the pot carefully after the fire began to heat it, that I might not suffer the scum to boil into the sugar. A few minutes before it comes to a boil the scum must be carefully removed with a skimmer or ladle. The former is best. I consider that on the care taken to remove every particle of scum depends on a great measure the brightness and clearness of the sugar. The best rule I can give as to the sugaring off, as it is termed, is to let the liquid continue at a fast boil. Only be careful to keep it from coming over by keeping a little of the liquid in your stirring ladle, and when it boils to the top, or you see it rising too fast, throw in a little from time to time to keep it down. Or if you boil on a cooking stove, throwing open one or all the doors will prevent boiling over. Those that sugar off outside the house have a wooden crane fixed against a stump. The fire being lighted against the stump, and the kettle suspended on the crane. By this simple contrivance, for any bush-boy can fix a crane of the kind, the sugar need never rise over if common attention be paid to the boiling. But it does require constant watching. One idle glance may waste much of the precious fluid. I had only a small cooking stove to boil my sugar on. The pots of which were thought too small, and not well-shaped, so that at first my fears were that I must relinquish the trial. But I persevered, and experience convinces me a stove is an excellent furnace for the purpose, as you can regulate the heat as you like. One of the most anxious periods in the boiling I found to be when the liquor first begins to assume a yellowish frothy appearance, and cast up so great a volume of steam from its surface as to obscure the contents of the pot, as it may then rise over almost unperceived by the most vigilant eye. As the liquor thickens into molasses it becomes a fine yellow, and seems nothing but thick froth. When it is getting pretty well boiled down the drops begin to fall clear and ropey from the ladle, and if you see little bright grainy-looking bubbles in it, drop some on a cold plate, and continue to stir or rub it till it is quite cold. If it is ready to granulate you will find it gritty and turn whitish or pale straw-color and stiff. The sugar may then safely be poured off into a tin dish, pail, basin, or any other utensils. I tried two different methods after taking the sugar from the fire, but could find little difference in the look of the sugar, except that in one the quantity was broken up more completely. In the other the sugar remained in large lumps, but equally pure and sparkling. In the first I kept stirring the sugar till it began to cool and form a whitish thick substance, and the grains were well crystallized. In the other process, which I think is preferable, as being the least troublesome, I waited till the mass was hardened into sugar, and then, piercing the crust in many places, I turned the mass into a colander, and placed the colander over a vessel to receive the molasses that drained from the sugar. In the course of the day or two I frequently stirred the sugar, which thus became perfectly free from moisture, and had acquired a fine sparkling grain, tasting exactly like sugar candy, free from any taste of the maple sap, and fit for any purpose. I observed that in general maple sugar, as it is commonly made, is hard and compact, showing little grain, and weighing very heavy in proportion to its bulk. Exactly the reverse is the case with that I made. It being extremely light for its bulk, all the heavy molasses having been separated, instead of dried into the sugar, had the present season been at all a favourable one, which it was not, we should have made a good quantity of excellent sugar. Vinegar. By boiling down five gallons of sap to one, and when just a little above the heat of new milk, putting in a cupful of balm, hop-rising will do, if it be good, and letting the vessel remain in your kitchen chimney-corner during the summer, and perhaps longer, you will obtain a fine, cheap, pleasant, and strong vinegar, fit for any purpose. This plan I have pursued successfully two years. Care must be taken that the cask or keg be well seasoned and tight before the vinegar is put in, as the dryness of the summer heat is apt to shrink the vessel, and make it leak. If putty well wrought, tar or even yellow soap be rubbed over the seams, and round the inner rim of the head of the cask, it will preserve it from opening. The equal temperature of the kitchen is preferred by experienced housewives to letting the vinegar stand abroad. They aver the coldness of the nights in this country is prejudicial to the process, being as speedily perfected as if it underwent no such check. By those well skilled in the manufacture of homemade wines and beer, excellent maple wine and beer might be produced at a very trifling expense. That is, that of the labour and skill exercised in the making of it. Every settler grows as an ornament in his garden, or should grow hops, which form one of the principal components of maple beer when added to the sap. HOP RISING This excellent, and I might add, indispensable article in every settler's house is a valuable substitute for ale or beer-yeast, and is made in the following simple manner. Take two double handfuls of hops, boil in a gallon of soft water if you can get it, till the hops sink to the bottom of the vessel. Make ready a batter, formed by stirring a dessert plateful of flour and cold water, till smooth and pretty thick together. Strain the hop liquor while scalding hot into the vessel where your batter is mixed already. Let one person pour the hop liquor while the other keeps stirring the batter. When cooled down to a gentle warmth so that you can bear the finger well in it, add a cup or basinful of the former barm, or a bit of leaven to set it to work. Let the barm stand till it has worked well. Then bottle and cork it. Set it by in a cellar or cold place if in summer, and in winter it is also the best place to keep it from freezing. Some persons add two or three mealy potatoes, boiled and finely bruised, and it is a great improvement during the cool months of the year. Potatoes and bread may be introduced very advantageously, and to first settlers who have all their flour to buy, I think it must be a saving. The following method I found made more palatable and lighter bread than flour, mixed in the usual way. Supposing I want to make up about a stone and a half of flour. I boiled, having first parred them carefully, say three dozen good-sized potatoes in about three-quarts or a gallon of water, till the liquor had the appearance of a thin gruel, and the potatoes had become almost entirely incorporated with the water. With this potato gruel the flour was mixed up. No water being required, unless by chance I had not enough of the mixture to moisten my flour sufficiently. The same process of kneading, fermenting with barm, etc., is pursued with the dough as with other bread. In baking it turns of a bright, light brown, and is lighter than bread made after the common process, and therefore I consider the knowledge of it serviceable to the emigrant's family. Salt-Rising. This is a barm much used by the Yankee settlers, but though the bread is decidedly whiter and prettier to look at than that raised in any other way, the peculiar flavor it imparts to the bread renders it highly disagreeable to some persons. Another disadvantage is the difficulty of fermenting this barm in the winter season as it requires a temperature which is very difficult to preserve in a Canadian winter day. Moreover, after the barm has once reached its height, unless immediately made use of, it sinks and rises again no more. Careful people, of course, who know this peculiarity, are on the watch, being aware of the ill consequences of heavy bread, or having no bread but banox in the house. As near as I can recollect, the salt rising is made as follows. For a small baking of two or three loaves, or one large baked kettle loaf, about the size of a London peckloaf, take about a pint of moderately warm water, a pleasant heat to the hand, and stir into the jugger pot, containing it, as much flour as will make a good batter, not too thick. Add to this half a teaspoon of salt, not more, and set the vessel in a pan of moderately warm water, within a little distance of the fire, or in the sun. The water that surrounds the pot, in which a rising is, must never be allowed to cool much below the original heat, more warm water being added in the pan, not to the barm, till the hole is in an active state of fermentation, which will be from six to eight hours, when the dough must be mixed with it, and as much warm water or milk as you require. Need the mass till it is tough, and does not stick to the board. Make up your loaf, or loaves, and keep them warmly covered near the fire till they rise. They must be baked, directly the second rising takes place. Those that bake, would I term a shanty loaf in an iron bake-pot or kettle, placed on the hot embers, set the dough to rise over a very few embers, or near the hot hearth, keeping the pot or pan turned as the loaf rises. When equally risen all over, they put hot ashes beneath and upon the lid, taking care not to let the heat be too fierce at first. As this is the most common method of baking, and the first that the settler sees practised, it is as well they should be made familiar with it beforehand. At first I was inclined to grumble and rebel against the expediency of bake-pans, or bake kettles, but as cooking-stows, iron ovens, and even brick and clay-built ovens, will not start up at your bidding in the bush. These substitutes are valuable, and perform a number of uses. I have eaten excellent light bread, baked on the emigrant's hearth in one of these kettles. I have eaten boiled potatoes, baked meats, excellent stews, and good soups, all cooked at different times in this universally useful utensil. So let it not be despised. It is one of those things peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of settlers in the bush before they have collected those comforts about their homesteads within and without, that are the reward and the slow gleaning up of many years of toil. There are several other sorts of rising, similar to the salt-rising, milk-rising, which is mixed with milk, warm from the cow, and about a third warm water, and bran-rising, which is made with bran instead of flour, and is preferred by many persons to either of the former kinds. SOFT SOAP Of the making of soft soap I can give little or no correct information, never having been given any certain rule myself, and my own experience is too limited. I was, however, given a hint from a professional gentleman, which I mean to act upon forthwith. Instead of boiling the soap, which is some trouble, he assured me, the best plan was to run off the lie from a barrel of ashes. Into this lie I might put four or five pounds of any sort of grease, such as pot skimmings, rinds of bacon, or scraps from frying down soot. In short, any refuse of the kind would do. The barrel, with its contents, may then be placed in a secure situation in the garden or yard, exposed to the sun and air. In course of time the lie and grease become incorporated. If the grease predominates it will be seen floating on the surface. In such a case add more lie, if the mixture does not thicken add more grease. Now this is the simplest, easiest, and clearest account I have yet received on the subject of soap making, which hitherto has seemed a mystery, even though a good quantity was made last spring by one of my servants, and it turned out well. But she could not tell why it succeeded, for want of being able to explain the principle she worked from. Candles Everyone makes their own candles, that is, if they have any materials to make them from. The great difficulty of making candles, and as far as I see the only one, is procuring the tallow, which a bush-shetler, until he begins to kill his own beef, sheep and hogs, is rarely able to do, unless he buys, and a settler buys nothing that he can help. A cow, however, that is unprofitable, old, or unlikely to survive the severity of the coming winter, is often suffered to go dry during the summer, and get her own living, till she is fit to kill in the fall. Such an animal is often slaughtered very advantageously, especially if the settler have little fodder for his cattle. The beef is often excellent, and good store of candles and soap may be made from the inside fat. These candles, if made three parts beef and one part hogs-lard, will burn better than any store candles, and cost less than half price. The tallow is merely melted in a pot or pan, convenient for the purpose, and having run the cotton wicks into the molds, tin or pewter molds for six candles, cost three shillings at the stores, and last many, many years. A stick or skewer is passed through the loops of your wicks, at the upper part of the stand, which serves the purpose of drawing the candles. The melted fat, not too hot, but in a fluid state, is then poured into the molds, till they are full. As the fat gets cold, it shrinks, and leaves a hollow at the top of the mold. This requires filling up when quite cold. If the candles do not draw readily, plunge the mold for an instant into hot water, and the candles will come out easily. Many persons prefer making dip candles for kitchen use. But for my own part I think the trouble quite is great, and give the preference, in point of neatness of look, to the molds. It may be my maid and I did not succeed so well in making the dips as the molds. Pickling The great want of spring vegetables renders pickles a valuable addition to the table, at the season when potatoes have become unfit and distasteful. If you have been fortunate in your maple vinegar, a store of pickled cucumbers, beans, cabbage, etc., may be made during the latter part of the summer. But if the vinegar should not be fit at that time, there are two expedients. One is to make a good brine of boiled salt and water, into which you throw your cucumbers, etc. The cabbage by and by may be preserved in the root-house, or cellar, quite good, or buried in pits, well covered, till you want to make your pickle. Those vegetables kept in brine must be covered close, and when you wish to pickle them, remove the top layer, which are not so good, and having boiled the vinegar with spices, let it stand till it is cold. The cucumbers should previously have been well washed, and soaked in two or three fresh waters and drained, then put in a jar, and the cold vinegar poured over them. The advantage of this is obvious. You can pickle at any season. Another plan, and I have heard it much commended, is putting the cucumbers into a mixture of whisky and water, which in time turns to a fine vinegar, and preserves the color and crispness of the vegetable, while the vinegar is apt to make them soft, especially if poured on boiling hot, as is the usual practice. Note, in the back woodsman this whisky receipt is mentioned as an abominable compound, perhaps the witty author had tasted the pickles in an improper state of progression. He gives a lamentable picture of American cookery, but declares the badness arises from want of proper receipts. These yeast receipts will be extremely useful in England, as the want of fresh yeast is often severely felt in country districts. End of Appendix A. Appendix B. omitted for this reading. End of The Backwoods of Canada by Catherine Parr Trail.