234 REMARKS ON EMIGRATION. 



emigrants. A sort of delusion has sprung over the 

 minds of emigrants, a delusion which ignorance or 

 private prejudices, and misrepresentations, have con- 

 tinued to increase, that either there was no south side 

 of the St. Lawrence, or that for useful purposes it was 

 unworthy notice. Facts, however, are stubborn 

 things. Farms, equal to any we have seen in Upper 

 Canada, are to be found there, lands cheap and good, 

 no oppressive laws, nothing wanting but the great 

 desiderata of the Colonies, money and labour. Crops 

 which amply repay their producers ; where all arti- 

 cles of consumption meet with a good and ready 

 demand; and main roads, which, during summer we 

 have seldom seen surpassed in Upper Canada, and 

 during winter, a constant layer of hard snow facili- 

 tating the transport of wood, &c., for local and do- 

 mestic purposes, and grain, &c., for general ones. 



We have alluded to a few general specialties : 1st. 

 — Winters, marked by the continuance of hard snow 

 on the ground, and the impossibility of following the 

 usual agricultural employment, of ploughing, &c. 



The continuance of hard snow on the ground for 

 several weeks will in all probability be thought by 

 some a feature not of the most desirable kind ; but 

 when considered in reference to Canadian farming and 

 the personal convenience of the agriculturist, or 

 general trader, it^ presence and continuance become 

 a matter of great moment. The greater part of the 

 farmer's productions are, at this period, to be trans- 

 ported for sale ; his supplies for summer or winter 

 consumption, and his implements, are to be brought 

 back, his timber logs are to be removed (if by land) 

 to the saw-mill, his fire wood lo be drawn home from 

 the uncleared land, and lastly the socialities of the 

 season require him to be moving about among his 

 friends ; for all these objects a good, even, hard road 

 is an indispensable requisite, not only as a matter of 

 comfort, but as a means of saving an immensity of 

 animal labour. 



In the Upper Province, or in great part of it, the 

 winter to be sure is not so lengthy by a few weeks as 

 in the major part of the lower ^ the degree of cold. 



