NO EMIGRATION. 65 



five acres, (and it would thrive admirably), no person has 

 hitherto claimed this bounty. But the government have 

 been deemed dilatory in their proceedings, and the people 

 supine, so that the upper part of the province has been out 

 of the reach of trade or commerce ; and what little has been 

 carried on across the lines, has been mostly done by Indian 

 smugglers, who are not annoyed by the custom-house offi 

 cers. It is not unlikely that the Welland Canal may cause 

 a great improvement. 



September 12. Crossed the river to Talbot Street, fif 

 teen miles of wood, to a small settlement on Howard Ridge, 

 which is a rich dry soil, well watered and healthy ; but a 

 canal or good road is wanted from hence to Rondeau, or 

 Round O as it is called, a distance of sixteen miles, which 

 would save the present route of ten times of that distance to 

 a market for produce. Lake Erie has few natural harbours, 

 and as yet but few are made. I have arrived once more at 

 Clear Creek, where there are mills standing many years 

 unfinished, one belongs to a land-surveyor ; and that class 

 get possession of the best lands, which they will not part 

 with at any reasonable rate. There are mills enough, but 

 they are frequently stopped for want of water, and grist 

 must then be carried thirty miles to be ground, while there 

 are probably plenty of springs in the immediate neighbour 

 hood without mills, but they are in many cases on the 

 government reserves for the crown and clergy. Overtook a 

 &quot; nigger&quot; and his boy, just come from Kentucky, where he 

 took French leave of his master, and brought a horse, which 

 he sold near Detroit. There are some hundreds of these 

 people settled at Sandwich and Amherstburg, who are 

 formed into a volunteer militia corps, and trained to arms. 



Sept. 16. Warm of late, the two last nights rather cold. 

 This morning the thermometer 53, and at noon at 71. 

 Cut the corn and set it up into shocks without being bound 

 into sheaves. The method of doing it is thus : with either 

 a sharp short-handled hoe, or a sickle, in one hand, you 

 put the other round one bunch, or what grows on one hill, 

 and chop it off close to the ground, when it is set up into 

 shocks, of two or three armfuls together, and a piece of a 

 stem wrapped round the top to prevent their baing blown 

 down ; after having stood a week or two, they are dragged 

 round a centre, and the husks stripped from the ears by 

 people sitting in a circle ; the husks are thrown in a heap 



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