70 SCOTCH AND ENGLISH OATS. 



is manufactured into meal. For these reasons, English 

 oats and oatmeal are generally quite diflferent from, and 

 inferior, both in quality and flavour, to those of Scotland ; 

 and hence one reason of the dislike which many profess 

 against an oatmeal diet. Thus the definition of Dr John- 

 son, instead of being unjustly regarded as a bit of ill-na- 

 tured satire, should be considered rather as the expression 

 of a wise opinion, in which he was before his time — that, 

 "while Scottish oats were food for man, English oats were 

 only food for horses." As elsewhere in the province, the 

 land on the Upper St John is generally ill-treated, — the 

 take-all-and-give-nothing system being pursued, partly 

 from ignorance and partly from idleness. The old Aca- 

 dian French, who are settled in numbers in the upper 

 part of this valley, are described as fine industrious men ; 

 but the Lower Canadians, who came across from the 

 shores of the St Lawrence, are represented by the Eng- 

 lish settlers as a " miserable set." This probably arises 

 from the fact that, as the Irish do with us, the poor Lower 

 Canadians come into and through the country as beggars 

 in great numbers. 



There was little change in the character of the country 

 till we were more than half-way to Edmonston, The 

 upland was covered with soft wood, rare clearings, little 

 rich intervale land, and that chiefly at the mouths of the 

 small streams which come into the St John from the north. 

 But beyond this the country improved much, both in 

 beauty and fertility. The river channel opens up into a 

 wide valley, with extended cultivation, scattered farm- 

 houses, and a striking back-ground of mountains towards 

 the north. For the last twelve miles the river had 

 become the boundary — the one bank being British, and 

 the other American, as it is usual to express it. This 

 beautiful valley, with the rich lands which border the 

 river above the mouth of the Madawaska, as far almost 

 as that of the river St Francis, is the peculiar seat of the 



