98 HOW LUMBERING INTERFERES WITH FARMING. 



wood lie has obtained ; and if the price of wood be not 

 veiy low, he mav still have a handsome surplus. 



Such circumstances lure him on till an unfavourable 

 winter comes, and he is not successful in cutting as good 

 lumber, or in as large a quantity as usual, or in hauling 

 it to the floating place ; or a very late spring, or very 

 shallow water, prevents him from getting it to market. 

 Then his debt to the merchant for stores, and for money 

 to pay his men, must stand over to another year ; and his 

 farm is mortgaged as security for the payment. 



Meanwhile this farm has been more or less neglected, 

 and has been every year growing less produce. His 

 wood must be floated in spring, when his crops ought to 

 be put into the ground. He has been absent in winter, 

 when new land might have been cleared. His mind 

 is occupied with other cares : he does not settle to his 

 agricultural pursuits, and they are therefore badly con- 

 ducted, even when he is at home to superintend them. 

 And, lastly, while living in the woods, both employer and 

 employed live on the most expensive food. They scorn 

 anything but the fattest pork from the United States, and 

 the finest Genessee flour. The more homely food, there- 

 fore, which their own farms produce, becomes distasteful 

 to them ^ and thus expensive and sometimes immoral 

 habits are introduced into their families, which cause 

 more frequent demands upon the merchant, and a con- 

 sequent yearly increase of the unpaid bills. 



In such a state of things, the foreclosing of mort- 

 gages, the sale of farms, and the emigration of ruined 

 families, must necessarily be of occasional occurrence. 

 But if the price of lumber fall very much at any period, 

 they must become more frequent ; or, if a merchant who 

 holds many of these mortgages himself fails, a common 

 ruin will involve all. Both of these evils have at once 

 befallen the lumbering farmers on the Miramichi, and 

 much distress has been the result. To this cause was 



