THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA*. 



AMONG the most intelligent and impartial of our recent travel- 

 lers in the new world, is Mr. Adam Fergusson, a Scottish country 

 gentleman, who visited the Canadian provinces, and a portion of the 

 United States, in the summer of 1831. Mr. Fergusson sailed from 

 Liverpool, for New York, in the month of February, in that year, 

 and upon his arrival bent his course northward, by the Hudson 

 River to Albany, and from that city by Lake Champlain to Montreal, 

 and down the River St. Lawrence to Quebec. From Quebec he 

 returned to Montreal, and thence proceeded, by steam navigation, to 

 Kingston, York, and the Falls of Niagara, coming back through 

 Buffalo, Rochester, Geneva, and Auburn, to the city of Albany, and 

 thence again to the city of New York. During this route, although 

 it was completed in a somewhat hurried and galloping fashion, Mr. 

 Fergusson made many valuable remarks upon the comparative merits 

 and advantages, for agricultural emigrants, of the United States and 

 the Canadian provinces, proving we think most unquestionably 

 that in all that regards climate, similarity of modes of agriculture, 

 and general resemblance to the mother country, the British farmer 

 will find his interest upon the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence 

 River. 



He visited the district now possessed by the Canada Land Company, 

 the affairs of which body would appear to be well managed, and 

 promising most beneficial consequences to the province, by the con- 

 centration of much capital and labour in a single spot, contrary to the 

 great evil of these colonies, a scattered and scanty population, with- 

 out unity of strength, wealth, or power. The soil in the district of 

 the Canada Land Company is dry and calcarious, and Mr. Fergusson 

 indeed remarks, that a substratum of gypsum prevails over the whole 

 extent of Upper and Lower Canada. He found the settlers uni- 

 versally thriving, healthy, and happy, and every where scenes of 

 plenty and contentment presented themselves. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Guelph, a town belonging to the Canada Land Company, 

 are many very fine farms, of one of which Mr. Fergusson remarks : 



" I was struck with the conspicuous activity and industry of a Negro 

 family. Numbers of these poor creatures are ever watching an opportunity 

 to escape from bondage in the Slave States of the Union, and are to be met 

 with in various parts of Canada. It has been alledged that the Negro will 

 prove too indolent for labour in a state of freedom, a remark which, without 

 stopping to prove unphilosophical, and at variance with every principle of 



* 1. Practical Notes made During a Tour in Canada, and a portion of the 

 United States, in 1831. By Adam Fergusson, of Woodhill, Advocate. William 

 Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1833. 



2. A Moral and Political Sketch of the United States of America. By 

 Achille Murat, Ci-devant Prince of the Two Sicilies, and Citizen of the United 

 States. London, Effingham Wilson, 1832. 



3. Three Years in North America. By James Stewart, Esq., 2. vols. 

 Cadell, Edinburgh ; and Whittaker and Co., London, 1833. 



