COUNTr.Y NEAR WOODSTOCK. 53 



with the upper portion of that state. The boundary line 

 between Maine and New Brunswick runs about ten miles 

 west of Woodstock. 



From the mouth of Eel River, twelve miles below 

 Woodstock, where we left the granite region, the soil 

 has gradually improved ; and from the neighbourhood of 

 the town northwards to the Grand Falls, and on both 

 sides of the St John, it is generally equal in quality to 

 the best upland in New Brunswick. The Cambrian 

 appears in this region to have given place to the Silurian 

 slates, and the soil resembles in some degree those of the 

 upper Silurian slates, which I afterwards saw in the wheat 

 region of western New York. 



The president of the county Agricultural Sopiety drove 

 me a few miles inland to what is called Scotch Corner, in 

 the direction of the Maine boundary. A long, flat, second 

 terrace, or intervale, stretches inland about a mile from 

 Woodstock. The cleared land on this flat is valued at 

 £5 an acre. The country as we proceeded was beau- 

 tifully undulated — chiefly covered, where the forest 

 remained, w^ith large hardwood trees. The rock maple 

 and black birch, mixed with butter-nut and elm, indicate 

 good, deep, heavy land — the beech a heavier soil. 



At Scotch Corner, I saw a fine second crop of potatoes, 

 grown without manure ; and I examined a field of oats, 

 which was the tenth grain crop (oats, pease, and buckwheat 

 in succession) grown on it without manure. The soil 

 consisted of fragments of a shivery slate, which crumbles 

 readily, and which, at a depth of sixteen inches, rests on 

 the rotten slate rock. 



Old Country agriculturists, or those who, v/ithout being 

 farmers themselves, condemn every practice which differs 

 from what they have been in the habit of hearing com- 

 mended at home, cannot fairly appreciate the circum- 

 stances of the occupier of new land in a country like this. 

 For ten years — for eight, or twelve, or twenty years in 



