78 QUEBEC. 



lakes. Along the banks of some of the former there are 

 as productive intervales as can be found anywhere. The 

 island of Montreal, for instance, is a garden, and along 

 both banks of the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and 

 Quebec, there are many fertile districts and rich settle- 

 ments. Below Quebec the land is of inferior quality, the 

 seasons are shorter, and the people poorer. In many 

 districts the high lands are clothed with hard-wood timber, 

 and when this is the case they make good farms when 

 cleared. The best farms are, however, those which com- 

 bine upland and intervale. The latter is easily cleared, 

 and produces a yearly crop of hay without any further 

 labour, a great matter where winters are so long as in 

 Lower Canada. 



To every sportsman who has been much in the Cana- 

 dian forest, the log hut of the back settler and the new 

 settlement are familiar objects. If approached from the 

 side of the forest the first sign of civilization is the sound of 

 the cow-bells, which are strapped to the necks of the cattle 

 to enable their owners to find them. A good-toned bell on 

 a still day can be heard two or three miles off. The 

 roads leading out from these back settlements are of the 

 very roughest description in summer, but in winter, 

 thanks to the snow, are level and excellent. Of course 

 as the settlement progresses the roads improve, and in a 

 very few years the back settler's house of to-day is in the 

 centre of the settlement, accessible by good roads and 

 possessing every advantage. For the first seven or eight 

 years, however, the back settler leads a hard life. Having 

 chosen his land and purchased it (one-fifth of the purchase 

 money being paid down and the remainder in four annual 



