426 CLIMATE, ETC. 



best of roads. There is no wear and tear of farm-roads, 

 nor destruction of land, which takes place more or less on 

 every old-country farm during the wet winter. The 

 Canadian farmer and his team of horses have full em- 

 ployment all winter. Fence-rails are cut in the woods 

 and hauled on to the farm, where they are left ready to 

 be put up in the spring. Firewood is cut and hauled to 

 the farmyard. Lumber for carpentering and building 

 purposes is cut and carried to and from the sawmills. 

 Surplus produce is hauled to market. Manure is hauled 

 from the farmyard and from the town on to the farm. If 

 the farmer has not full employment for his own team or 

 teams he can easily get employment by carrying for 

 others at good wages. When the sleighing is good there 

 is hardly any limit to the weight of the loads that horses 

 will draw, and the length of the journeys they will 

 perform. It is an every-day sight to see teams trotting 

 along at the rate of 6 or 8 miles an hour, with loads 

 of from 2 to 3 tons behind them. I have seen one horse 

 drawing three loads of hay on the ice on three sleighs, one 

 tied behind the other, and each weighing over a ton, or, 

 in other words, one man and one horse doing the work of 

 three men and three horses. The first necessary step in 

 clearing new land also comes under the head of winter's 

 work, viz. chopping down the trees. The industrious 

 settler breaks in a few acres of fresh land every year, and 

 in the winter he chops down the trees, putting the brush 

 in piles to be fired, and hauls off the firewood, the fence- 

 Tails, and the logs. The backwoods settler generally con- 

 trives to turn some of the produce of the adjacent forest 

 into cash during the winter. He sometimes hauls cord 



