182 PRINCE EDWAED ISLAND. 



of turnips can be grown to the acre, about twenty bushels 

 of wheat, and forty bushels of barley and oats. The sandy 

 soil requires lime and also some stiffening substance. 

 Nature has supplied this compost in apparently inex- 

 haustible quantities, and has placed it within reach of 

 most farmers on the island. " Mussel mud," which 

 abounds in all the creeks and inlets to a depth of several 

 feet, is a stiff retentive substance composed of the remains 

 of many generations of oysters, mussels, clams, and other 

 molluscs. The shells, when exposed to the weather, 

 gradually crumble away and mix with the soil, imparting 

 to it the lime of which it has need. It remains in the 

 land for ten or twelve years. In winter, numerous parties 

 may be seen at work on the ice, each of them provided 

 with a long shovel-shaped implement. A hole is cut 

 through the ice, a block and tackle rigged up on a tripod 

 above the hole, the dredging shovel is lowered, pushed 

 along the bottom, and when full of mud, raised to the 

 surface by horse power, and its contents capsized into a 

 sleigh which is drawn up alongside ready to receive the 

 load. 



Good farms with house and barn accommodation can be 

 bought in the vicinity of towns for from 600J. to 15007. 

 Small farms of .100 acres in the country districts, with 

 20 acres cleared and small house and barn, cost from 

 200Z. to 300Z. There are no free-grant lands on the 

 island. Wilderness land can be bought for about 4s. an 

 acre in certain places. Farmers have always been able 

 to make a comfortable living, but within the last few years 

 prices of agricultural produce have doubled, and the 

 farmers now are as independent and comfortable as any 



