REMARKS ON EMIGRATION. 235 



however, is much the same in both. Snow falls about 

 the same time in each, but in the one it freezes, and 

 offers until the very end of winter a hard smooth 

 surface, over which vehicles (sleighs) loaded heavily 

 with produce, &c. are drawn with great facility, with 

 a very small expense of animal labour ; while in the 

 Upper Province thaws are frequent, so that the good 

 road, or sleighing ground of to-day, is a mass of mud 

 and puddle in a day or two after ; nor is the answer 

 made by the Upper Canadians, that the diminished 

 length of their winter allows them to get their crops 

 earlier out of the ground, so as to allow them an op- 

 portunity for fall ploughing, one which is unanswer- 

 able. The farmers of the Upper Province are more 

 intelligent in their business than those of the Lower; 

 the latter, with but few exceptions, never sowing 

 wheat in the fall ; and this is the only article of which, 

 for forwaraness and abundance, the Upper Province 

 may, with justice, claim a superiority. We should be 

 careful, then, in descriminating' whether it be not the 

 imperfect system of French Canadian farming, rather 

 than an inability to produce arising from climate or 

 soil. 



The object of most emigrants is, or rather should 

 be, the comfort of self and dependants. The pecu- 

 liarities of climate demand, therefore, to be attended 

 to. Health (a freedom from any serjous disease) is. in 

 a distant country, of more importance pehaps than at 

 home. Scarcity of professional aid, and its enormous 

 expense — a loss of one's bodily strength (for mental 

 energy will not avail so much there) are circum- 

 stances of no trifling import, and no candid observer 

 can fail to give the preference, in point of salubrity, 

 to the Lower Province — there, no intermittent fever 

 or ague, no lake remittent fever, manifest themselves. 

 The church-yards, in many of the first-settled districts, 

 and the venerable appearance of a number of the 

 earlier settlers, will satisfy the most scrupulous of its 

 correctness. 



We do not mean to assert that Upper Canada is 

 generally unhealthy, but the flats, swamps, &c., with 

 which it abounds, will convince any one that such 



