14 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



"the Bay of Fundy, which are not only wonderfully fertile but also 

 remarkably lasting, producing great crops year after year without any 

 care whatever. Even when they do finally degenerate their fertility can 

 be renewed by admission ol the tide. These marshes are well developed 

 on the Shepody, at several points along the Petitcodiac, on the Me;u- 

 ramcook, but reach their perfection on the great Tantramar marsh in 

 the basins of the Tantramar and Aulac Eivers. These marshes have 

 powerfully influenced settlement in Xew Brunswick, for not only were 

 the first permanent settlements established beside them, but they 

 determine some of the most prosperous farming siettlements of the 

 present day. Next after the marshes come the river intervales, which 

 are also naturally rich, and which have their fertility frequently renewed 

 'by the annual freshets. Second only to the marshes these intervales 

 attracted the early settlers, and they determine to-day some of the 

 haost prosperous of our farming communities. They reach their 

 'greatest development along the St. John, especially below Fredericton, 

 but they are abundant also higher up that river, and on its branches, 

 on the Kestigouche, and to a lesser extent on many other rivers. Next 

 in value come two kinds of upland soils, both of great fertility. The 

 'first are the soft red sandstones which occur very sparingly at Passa- 

 maquoddy Bay (St. Andrews), in the valley of the Tobique, and af 

 the mo'uth of the Restigouche, determining the best farming settle- 

 toents in those regions, while a band of this soil extends through the 

 Province diagonally north-eastward, bearing several prosperous fanning 

 districts in its course. Of a somewhat different character and siomewhat 

 "less fertile aire some red sandstones in the south-eastern part of the 

 Province, where they determine also some good settlements. Equally 

 ^or more fertile, and far more extensive, are the calcareous soils oocupy- 

 'ing the northern and western parts of the Province, especially west of 

 the line from Woodstock to Campbellton. On these rich upland 

 soils occur the most prosperous upland settlements of the Province, 

 including those west of the St. John in Carleton County. The sand- 

 stones of the great eastern plain make fair soils where the drainage 

 is good, as it is for the most part near the coast; but where drainage 

 is poor, as it is in the section between Grand Lake and the coast, great 

 bogs and l)arrens develop and the soils are usieless. Indeed areas of 

 poor drainage are not infrequent elsewhere in the Province, notably 

 in the soulh-western parts, where considerable bogs and swamps 

 Vlevelop, making the ridges the only possible farming land. All of 

 'the above-mentioned soils have their characiteristics determined by the 

 ■underlying rocks, Init in additioTi to those New Brunswick po^sess:»5 

 great quantities of mixed soils laid dinvn as the debris of glacial action. 



