132 BUSHMEN AND FARMERS SQUATTERS. 



above each other, dove-tailed at the corners of the walls, and 

 the intervals betwixt the logs filled up with clay or other ma 

 terials. A block-house is composed of logs squared so as to 

 class on each other. A frame-house is sawn boards, nailed on 

 a frame, with lath and plaster inside, and corresponds w r ith the 

 wood barracks in Britain. There is another description of 

 frame-house in Upper Canada, which has slender lath on the 

 outside, simply rough-cast with lime and gravel, like stone 

 houses in Britain, with common lath and plaster inside. 

 Houses have pitched roofs, covered with thin pieces of wood, 

 called shingles, resembling and answering the purposes of slate. 

 A shanty differs from a log-house only in wanting a pitch 

 roof, and having bark or hollow trees in place of shingles. 



During this excursion, the cause of bushmen or pioneers 

 moving from first settlements to more remote parts of the 

 forest, became obvious. The destruction of forest, and ma 

 nagement of cleared land, are evidently different departments, 

 the latter requiring more capital, and a higher degree of know 

 ledge than pioneers generally possess ; and in Canadian farm 

 ing, the wood-chopper and husbandmen stand to each other in 

 relation of mason and joiner in British house-building, the 

 one forming a rude outline, which the other polishes, and may 

 be instanced as illustrative of the advantages of a division of 

 labour. In several instances I saw families of first settlers 

 possessing a considerable extent of excellent cleared land, 

 without the knowledge or means of rendering it productive, and 

 they certainly would benefit themselves by disposing of their 

 properties, and adopting another mode of life. Living almost 

 in idleness, they cultivated, in the most negligent manner, only 

 so much wheat and potatoes as was judged sufficient for home 

 consumption, relying on the hay crop for procuring what 

 necessaries they did not themselves produce, and appeared so 

 encrusted with sloth, that they were likely only to fire a gun 

 with the view of obtaining food, and to cut down a tree for 

 the purpose of cooking it. 



Amongst the numerous calls I made, was one on Trout 

 river, at the house of a Yankee squatter, who was from 



home. Mrs C was also a Yankee, a good-looking buxom 



dame, with two or three young children, and a help of small 



