CHAPTER V. 



NOVA SCOTIA. 



NOVA SCOTIA, from the fact of its being the principal 

 naval station and the only military station in Canada, 

 is better known to Englishmen than any other province 

 of the Dominion. But yet many Englishmen spend years 

 in Nova Scotia and go away with a very limited know- 

 ledge or perhaps no knowledge at all of the capabilities 

 of the province. The reason of this is evident. Halifax, 

 the capital, where the mail steamer lands these people, 

 is situated on as barren and as rugged a tract of land as 

 is washed by the Atlantic Ocean. Men therefore who 

 never get beyond a day's drive or two from the capital 

 are apt to carry away with them a very unjust estimate 

 of the resources of the province. 



Nova Scotia is not an agricultural country. Scarcely 

 one-half of its total area is capable of cultivation, and of 

 this moiety less than a half would at present repay the 

 cultivator. In process of time, when the other resources 

 of the province become developed, farming will no doubt 

 be stimulated, but more as an auxiliary to mining, manu- 

 factures, &c., than as the main business of the people. 

 The land, though not so well adapted for extensive farm- 

 ing operations as some other parts of the Dominion, is yet 

 well calculated to afford comfortable homes to a large 

 manufacturing population, and to give these people what 



