DRAINING VERSUS BUYING LAND. 67 



of the land in this part of the province. First, his own 

 uncleared land was mostly wet ; and, second, the other 

 farm contained some dry cleared land of first-rate 

 quality. I spoke to him of draining. He did not from 

 experience know much of its later effects with us, 

 having been so long from his Dumfriesshire home 

 where he might now see many energetic and enter 

 prising farmers benefiting themselves and their country 

 by the practice of this means of improvement. He 

 admitted, nevertheless, that if he had laid out the pur 

 chase money of the second, in making his first farm dry, 

 he might have done as well for himself in the end. I 

 saw, however, that he felt, as many do, that the easiest, 

 speediest, and surest way of getting a few fields of dry 

 land, was to buy it. And I thought to myself how 

 very many men act upon the principle, though they may 

 never have heard the advice, of the old Northumber 

 land farmer, who, when delivering his dying injunctions 

 to his son, earnestly added to all the rest &quot; An Johnny, 

 gif thou wants a bit o Ian , buy t; but dinna spend thy 

 siller i drainin .&quot; 



The land in this neighbourhood, Mr Murray said, was 

 excellent for wheat, and had never failed with him. He 

 re-echoed to me what so many others had said before, 

 that nobody who is comfortable at home should come to 

 America. He did not think, however, that he should 

 himself have done so well had he remained at home ; 

 and he was sure that an industrious steady man might 

 make money in this country by farming, as he and all 

 his connections of the name of Murray had done. 



In his experience of the country also, the French on 

 this coast, he said, by the constant cropping, and by the 

 neglect of manures, and of the sowing of grass seeds, had 

 fallen off in their circumstances, instead of improving 

 them. 



Along this coast, all the way from the mouth of the 



