CAUSES OF THE GENERALLY BAD FARMING. 13 



Brunswick, and generally in these northern provinces, 

 considered indispensable to the farmer, as it is the sole 

 means of sustenance hitherto provided for the stock 

 during the long winter ; and that hence the value of 

 a farm is usually judged of by the number of tons 

 of hay it is capable of producing. When the cultiva 

 tion of green crops, and generally a better husbandry, 

 is introduced, these customs will undergo important 

 modifications. 



The bad farming which prevails generally over all 

 these new countries is to be ascribed mainly to the three 

 concurring causes that the emigrants who have settled 

 there consisted, for the most part, of persons either alto 

 gether ignorant of agriculture, or knowing only how to 

 farm badly ; that they found nobody, in the districts to 

 which they came, who were able to teach them or to 

 set them a good example, or whose advice they would 

 take 5 and that hitherto, no efforts have been made by 

 the local governments, through the medium of the schools, 

 to remove this ignorance, and to diffuse a knowledge of 

 the principles on which agriculture may be profitably 

 conducted, without permanent injury to the land. 



It will occur to many who read these observations, 

 that, among the emigrants from home, there are many who 

 were born and brought up in the rural districts, and that 

 these could scarcely fail to carry with them some know 

 ledge of farming operations. But a little closer inquiry 

 will satisfy us that, so far from being an advantage, this 

 little knowledge is often a disadvantage to the emigrant 

 settler. The small Highland or Irish farmer who is 

 driven from his holding, because his face is set against 

 all improvement and many emigrants are of this class 

 carries his prejudice, his obstinacy, and his conceited 

 ignorance to his new home ; and leaves to his children 

 as an unhappy legacy the same practices which, in his 

 fatherland, had brought poverty upon himself. Better 



