22 ALLUVIAL LANDS OF MINAS BAY. 



Having obtained a light carriage, and an intelligent 

 guide, I drove over some dozen miles of what is certainly 

 a naturally fertile, and was then a comparatively smiling, 

 district. But even at this low level, and so near the 

 waters of the broad bay, the drought had seared and yel- 

 lowed the usually luxuriant herbage ; and had I not come 

 from a far more arid region, it would have conveyed to my 

 mind the impression that the agricultural capabilities of 

 the township of CornwaUis had been much over-estimated. 



These dyked alluvial lands of the Bay of Fundy 

 are to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick what the carses 

 of Gowrie and Falkirk are to Scotland, and the warped 

 lands of Lincolnshire to Eastern England. The thick 

 waters of our Humber and Trent give a fair idea of 

 those of the Bay of Minas, and of the other broad creeks 

 which communicate with the Bay of Fundy ; only the 

 American waters are scarcely so dark in colour, and the 

 mud they deposit is of a redder hue. The frequent 

 villages, and the numerous scattered habitations, which 

 are visible from the higher ground of CornwaUis, are 

 abundant proof of the productiveness of the soil of this 

 more favoured part of Nova Scotia. It is not all, how- 

 ever, of equal quality. 



Three kinds of land are distinguished in this and the 

 adjoining province. First^ dyke-land — the rich alluvial 

 deposit of these waters, so called from its having been 

 laid dry by a succession of dykes, which for the last two 

 centuries have been gradually advancing beyond each 

 other towards the bay. This land sells at present at 

 from £15 to £40 sterling per acre ; and some of it has 

 been tilled for 150 years without any manure — a treat- 

 ment, however, of which it is now beginning seriously 

 to complain. It averages 300 bushels (9 tons,) and 

 sometimes produces 600 bushels (18 tons,) of potatoes to 

 the acre. Second^ Intervale — the generally light alluvial 

 soil, which in variable width fringes the banks of the 



