76 VALUE OF THE FLAT LANDS, AND OF 



Cumberland Basin, with its margin of low-lands and 

 wooded heights behind them, stretches far as the eye 

 can reach. On either hand the wide alluvial flats and 

 marshes, with the tiny silver streams flowing through 

 them ; and beyond these marshes, which fill the valleys, 

 the rich high-lands apparently closing around them in 

 the distance like a vast amphitheatre ; while scattered 

 farm-houses, long settlements, and compact villages, and 

 grazing cattle, and hay-coils dotting the fields, and still 

 unearned corn, threw an air of life and industry over 

 the whole. The name Beau Sejour given to the fort by 

 the French, and of Beau Basin to Cumberland Basin, 

 convey their idea of the beauty of the site, and of the 

 view it commanded in their time. 



This flat, as I afterwards saw by more particular 

 inspection, is not all equally rich, nor treated with equal 

 skill; but I could not look at the district without 

 endeavouring to form an idea in my own mind of the 

 future and possible agricultural capability of this great 

 alluvial plain, and of the rich uplands which border it. 

 I roughly estimated that there are upwards of two 

 hundred thousand acres of this flat land, dyked and 

 undyked, in the district under my eye, and spread all 

 around the head-waters of the Cumberland Basin. 

 Where not entirely swampy and barren, the produce 

 varies from one to three tons of hay per acre. But 

 take the average produce of the whole at only half-a-ton 

 an acre, and the owners may yearly reap one hundred 

 thousand tons of hay from these levels, supposing none 

 of them to be in arable culture. This would feed thirty 

 thousand head of cattle, which, if raised for beef, and 

 killed at three years old, would supply to the markets of 

 New Brunswick about ten thousand head of fat cattle 

 every year. 



Again, the manure produced from every ton of hay 

 employed in this manner, together with the fertilising 



