82 QUEBEC. 



There are large blocks of surveyed land in Lower 

 Canada which are offered free to lond fide settlers. These 

 free-grant lands are situated for the most part on coloniza- 

 tion roads runuing through remote districts of the country, 

 and are not of very good quality. Unless he has been at 

 least a year or two in the country and has acquired an 

 intimate knowledge of the locality, no immigrant should 

 be induced to settle on these free-grant lands. It cannot 

 be too often repeated that in a country like Canada, where 

 improved land can be bought reasonably, and where good 

 wild land in the vicinity of settlements and railways can 

 be bought for $1 per acre, that no immigrant should be 

 tempted to bury himself in a remote wilderness by the 

 offer of a free grant. By working for a year or two for 

 wages he will be able to lay by enough to buy a farm, and 

 he will thus acquire experience of the country to boot. 

 The free-grant lands of Quebec are chiefly on the south 

 shore of the St. Lawrence along military and colonization 

 roads which lead from the back settlement towards New 

 Brunswick and the peninsula of Gaspe. The latter 

 district is both from its soil and climate unsuited to 

 farming ; it is, however, rich in minerals, and the fisheries 

 on its shores are the richest in the world. Although the 

 farmer pure and simple cannot make a good living in this 

 district, yet here and there on the mouths of rivers and 

 elsewhere in the valleys there are patches of good land on 

 which the families of fishermen can raise sufficient crops 

 for household consumption. Much the same may be said 

 of the corresponding district on the north shore of the 

 St. Lawrence, with the doubtful exception of the Saguenay 

 valley, in which there is an agricultural population who 



