154 CHARLOTTE COUNTY A 



I was indebted for many civilities to the Honourable Mr 

 Hatch, president of the county agricultural society, 

 and one of the main promoters of the railway when, 

 bidding adieu to my kind friend the Mayor of St John, 

 I started for St Stephens, along with my new friend 

 Colonel Mowat. Steamers ply on the river between 

 the two places, and the distance by water is considerably- 

 shorter ; but, as I wished to see the interior of the 

 country, we preferred to go by land. 



For two miles after leaving St Andrews the red-sand 

 stone soils continue, after which, all the way to St 

 Stephens, metamorphic rocks prevailed, with their infe 

 rior slaty soils, their drifted slate gravels and stony slopes, 

 their swamps and their cold light-coloured clays. The 

 country rises into hills, and into low, sometimes isolated, 

 mountains and ridges. The county of Charlotte, taken 

 as a whole, is acknowledged to be poor and rocky, par 

 taking generally of the character of one spot in it, which 

 a humble Scotch settler described as a &quot; scraggly hole :&quot; 

 and to the traveller it presents very few temptations to 

 linger on his way, and few sunny spots which he could 

 conscientiously invite the European emigrant to come 

 over and possess. Instances of much energy, however, 

 are to be seen, and wide fences of stones, testifying to 

 the labour with which good fields have in some places 

 been made out of the rocky surface. But, as at home, 

 there are more cases of indolence, and in which labour 

 is begrudged even to naturally fertile land. &quot; My 

 neighbour, looking over the boundary fence one day,&quot; 

 remarked one of these improvers to me, u when he saw 

 me engaged with three men clearing off those stones, 

 sneeringly commented on my folly, adding, * If there 

 was not another foot of land on God s earth, I wouldn t 

 take them stones off. v I suppose it is to men of this 

 indolent stamp that the proverb applies which I first 

 heard used in this county &quot; One spur in the head is 



