28 PKODUCE AND PRICE OF LAND. 



lull, and prices were on the decline. Great hopes had been 

 built on the opening up of the country by the two nearly 

 parallel lines of railway, which, at different points, traverse 

 Canada West, and connect Michigan with Lake Ontario. 

 These were realised more rapidly than could have been ex- 

 pected, aided by the high prices caused by a series of short 

 crops in Europe, which stimulated production immensely for a 

 time, and led to wild speculations in land. I have instances 

 before me of farms in this part of Canada, only partially clear- 

 ed, which then sold at 15. an acre, and are now hardly worth 

 the half of that money. A light sandy loam of good quality, 

 only half cleared, is still valued at from 7Z. to 81. an acre. It 

 is this comparatively high price of land, in addition to the 

 cost of clearing off the timber, that forces the emigrant west- 

 wards to a country where better soil, with equal facilities of 

 transport, can be bought for less than the mere cost of clearing 

 this of its timber. 



Some fifty miles farther bring us to London, a very rising 

 and flourishing town, overlooking the broad wooded valley of 

 the Thames. The soil here is a light loam, very favourable to 

 the production of fruit and vegetables, and of easy cultivation. 

 Onwards to Thamesville, Bothwell, and Chatham, the land 

 seemed less valuable, and three-fourths of it still in natural 

 forest. As we near the lake, and the St. Clair Eiver, it be- 

 comes marshy. There seemed no great source here for much 

 local traffic for a railway, and yet the Great Western cars 

 were crowded, but chiefly with through passengers to Detroit- 

 and the west. 



The climate of Canada West is more favourable to agri- 

 culture than that of Canada East, the winters being shorter 

 and not so severe. But Lower Canada is more free from fever 

 and ague. The diseases caused by malaria, (which is the most 

 fruitful origin of disease in North America) become much less 



