VI PEEFACE. 



speech for the respect and kindness which I eyerj- 

 where experienced. 



In addition to the matters usually commented 

 upon by those who visit foreign countries, the 

 reader will find in these volumes a kind and class 

 of observations which he will not have met with in 

 other books of travels. And though I maj appear 

 to incur the risk of injuring their popularity with the 

 general public by introducing agricultural remarks, 

 yet, in the present condition of our own agricultural 

 interest, there are few persons to whom some infor- 

 mation in regard to that of America will not be 

 acceptable. These observations on rural matters 

 are also so mixed up with remarks on other subjects 

 as not, I hope, to fatigue even the ordinary readers 

 of books of travels. 



It has long struck me as a vital defect in the 

 accomplishments of most of our travellers in foreign 

 countries, that the want of an agricultural eye has 

 prevented them from giving us any of that positive 

 and matter-of-fact information upon which alone a 

 correct estimate of the real character, capabilities, 

 and future economical prospects of a country can 

 be safely based. 



I have been more detailed in my remarks upon 

 the lower St Lawrence and the province of New 

 Brunswick, because this is almost untrodden ground, 

 and, so far as I am aware, we possess, in reahty, no 

 good account of this region by an eye-witness from 



