CONDITION OF THE LUMBERERS. 37 



men were tempted Into what was considered a higher 

 and more manly, as well as a more remmierative line of 

 life ; many of the hardiest of the emigrants, as thej 

 arrived, followed their example: and thus not only was 

 the progress of farming discouraged and retarded, but a 

 belief began to prevail that the colony was unfitted for 

 agricultural pursuits. The occasional large sums of 

 money made by It induced also vast numbers of the 

 farmers themselves to engage in lumbering — as a lucky 

 hit in a mining country makes many miners — gradually 

 to involve themselves In debts, and to tie up their farms 

 by mortgages to the merchants who furnished the sup- 

 plies which their life In the woods required. Thus not 

 only were large numbers of the young men demoralised 

 by their habits In the woods, trained to extravagant 

 habits, and rendered unfit for steady agricultural labour, 

 but very many of the actual owners of farms had become 

 involved In overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, when 

 the crisis of the lumber trade arrived, and stopped all 

 further credit. 



What added to the apprehension of the colonists at this 

 time was the comparatively extensive emigration which 

 began to take place when the demand for timber became 

 less, and, consequently, for labourers to procure it. Un- 

 disposed to continuous farm-work, the lumberer left the 

 province — as our navigators wander from country to 

 country — to seek employment in Maine or elsewhere 

 towards the West, where their peculiar employment was 

 to be obtained. Even the pine forests of Georgia were 

 not too distant for their love of free adventure. Unable 

 to shake oif their encumbrances at home, many of the 

 embarrassed owners of farms also hastened to leave them 

 — some in the hands of their creditors, without even the 

 form of a sale — and made for the new states of the West, 

 under the Idea that in a new sphere they would be free 

 men again, and that probably a less degree of prudence 



