UPPER CANADA FOR DIFFERENT EMIGRANTS. 385 



many etceteras, must give them advantages over other classes. 

 I can conceive few situations more trying than a person without 

 capital, totally unacquainted with farming, placed in the 

 midst of a forest to live by his own exertions. 



The man without capital ought to consider well before 

 engaging with forest land, however cheap and advantageous 

 the terms may appear. Almost all who do so can scarcely 

 avoid being ruined, if interest is to be paid on the stipulated 

 price. At page 363, I have supposed a new settler in the 

 forest to have thirty acres in crop the fourth year. But when 

 all things are taken into consideration, it is found that a settler, 

 unaccustomed to chop wood, does not generally clear more 

 than six acres in a year, and attend to other necessary things. 

 Under these circumstances, it will be impossible for him to 

 spare a fraction of money to pay interest or principal for the 

 first five or six years. This is rendered evident also by the 

 consideration, that the first crop of wheat does not, by the 

 most favourable calculation, even pay the expense of clearing 

 the forest and cultivating the soil. It is therefore demon 

 strated, that clearing forest is at first unprofitable to a person 

 without capital, if he had the land for nothing, and that every 

 acre which he clears is at an immediate loss. The cleared 

 land, however, continues productive, and would ultimately 

 reward him, if there was no principal or interest to pay. By 

 suffering privations, he may wait like the capitalist for distant 

 returns, which, on arriving, would be paid to the real 

 proprietor of the land ; and like an over-rented East Lothian 

 farmer, he would not receive the fruits of his own labour. 

 It is overlooking the difficulties of first settlement, which has 

 involved half the recent settlers inextricably in debt, given 

 the storekeeper such influence over the farmer, and prevented 

 the labourer from obtaining cash wages. 



In almost all parts of the country, landowners or their 

 agents will urge people to settle on land, well knowing that 

 every yard which is cleared of trees will ultimately become 

 valuable to the estate, although the settler may be ruined by 

 his engagement. Is it from philanthropic or interested mo- 



2 B 



