IRON ORE AND SMELTING FURNACES. 57 



neighbourhood is improved, and then selling at an increase 

 of price. This is provoking to poor men who wish to 

 buy farms, and settle near their friends; but it is injurious 

 to the whole community, in a country where roads are 

 comparatively few, and desirable lands in many localities 

 are at present worthless, because miles of tangled forest 

 shut them out from communication with the world. 



It is very difficult either to remedy or to prevent this 

 evil. The provincial Government are endeavouring to 

 make it less frequent in future, by limiting the extent of 

 individual grants, and by requiring that a certain pro- 

 portion of each grant shall be cleared within an assigned 

 number of years. 



Notwithstanding the obstacle presented by the pre- 

 emption of so much of the good land, in this neighbour- 

 hood, by persons who do not intend to improve it, the 

 extension of this settlement has proceeded rapidly of late. 

 The failure of the lumber-trade is inducing more young 

 men to adopt what is, after all, a surer mode of living ; 

 and back lots are taken up and being cleared, where the 

 line of farms next the road is already disposed of. The 

 same is the case on the Maine side of the boundary line, 

 where the land is also good and settlers fast pouring in. 



Iron ore is abundant in this neighbourhood. It is of 

 the hematite variety, and a smelting furnace has lately 

 been erected within a short distance of Woodstock, for 

 the purpose of smelting it. It is reduced by means of 

 charcoal, and the hot-blast is employed. The iron 

 obtained, up to the time of my leaving the province, was 

 too brittle for casting, but it was said to make good 

 malleable bars and steel. I visited the works on my 

 return down the river, and it appeared to me, considering 

 all the circumstances, that the company had begun their 

 works on too large and expensive a scale. Some of the 

 less ambitious establishments on the Housatonic river, in 

 Connecticut, would have probably been safer models foi; 



