WILDERNESS LAND. 125 



they sigh for in vain in the crowded and smoky manufac- 

 turing districts of the Old World, viz. pure air, pure water, 

 little homesteads, and little patches of land for gardens, 

 potatoes, &c., &c. When I say that Nova Scotia is not an 

 agricultural province, I am well aware that it comprises 

 tracts of country which produce as good crops as any land 

 in the Dominion, but these are the exception, not the rule. 

 Conspicuous among these is the vale of Annapolis. In 

 this charming valley, which is sheltered from the cold 

 winds by a high range of hills, and consequently favoured 

 with a slightly higher temperature than any other part of 

 the province, Indian corn ripens and fruits grow to perfec- 

 tion. The Annapolis orchards are famous, and send to 

 Europe some of the best qualities of the " American apple " 

 of commerce. In King's county and in Cumberland there 

 are also some fertile tracts, but for every good farm the 

 traveller sees in Nova Scotia he sees many hundreds of 

 acres of rocky barren land. In many places there is such 

 a crop of mighty granite boulders deposited by the ice in 

 the glacial period, that the only wonder is how the stunted 

 spruce and birch trees and other hardy bushes and plants 

 have found soil enough to take root in. There are some 

 four million acres of Crown lands in the province which 

 are offered for sale at 8/. 16s. per 100 acres. But of 

 this a very small quantity, if any, is fit for profitable 

 cultivation. The labour of clearing this land is hercu- 

 lean. The young man who takes a tract of forest with 

 the intention of turning it into a good farm by the labour 

 of his own hands, has his life's work cut out for him. If 

 he has to clear rocks and stones as well as timber, it will 

 be more than he can accomplish. There are always, 



