466 ILLINOIS AND UPPER CANADA. 



and a labourer s wages 880 a-year with board, he will get the 

 value of about twenty-seven acres of land. In Illinois, land 

 costs 8lJ, and wages being SlOO, the labourer gets the value 

 of eighty acres. But taking into account what has been stated 

 at page 460 regarding the difference of expense in raising crops 

 on forest and prairie land, I am justified in asserting the wages 

 of agricultural labour to be al^out thirty times higher in Illinois 

 than in Upper Canada, when estimated in reference to land 

 and what it can be made to produce in the respective countries. 



Purchasing extensive tracts of forest land is a hazard 

 ous speculation in Upper Canada, because it is now sell 

 ing far above its intrinsic value to actual settlers. The 

 soil continues unproductive while the forest remains, and 

 it has been already shown that land does not repay the expense 

 of clearing for years afterwards. Take for illustration a case 

 where a block of 7000 acres has been purchased at $4 per 

 acre, the block would cost L.7000 currency. Suppose the 

 proprietor clears 100 acres yearly for six successive years, at the 

 termination of which he finds the expense of improvement and 

 his family living has been disbursed by the crops, and I am 

 much mistaken if such an extent of operations and successful 

 issue has ever taken place. The legal interest of the country 

 being 6 per cent, the original purchase money will now 

 amount to L.9520, or a yearly burden on the cleared portion 

 of nearly twenty shillings per acre ; and if the purchase money 

 was only 82 instead of 84, the yearly burden would still be 

 ten shillings. Purchasing the prairie of Illinois is very diffe 

 rent, because the whole surface is productive without cultiva 

 tion, and keeping but a single sheep on it per acre, would leave 

 a profit on the outlay. A rise in the value of Illinois land 

 in course of a few years may be held to be certain, and in the 

 mean time it will continue productive. A rise in the value of 

 forest land in Upper Canada for twenty years to come is 

 doubtful, and until then it will remain unproductive. There 

 is no way of escaping from loss in holding a tract of forest land 

 in Canada but by selling it. 



A party of friends cannot conveniently settle themselves to 

 gether in the forest of Upper Canada. Each family would be 

 shut out from the others occupying a small clearance, with bad 



