114 PATIENT TEMPER OF THE HABLTANTS. 



fern grows naturally, something more valuable may be 

 made to grow by art — and so it was remarked to me of 

 the sweet fern in Nova Scotia ; but except for rye or 

 buckwheat, or the horse-chesnut, or some similar sand- 

 loving plants, the soils on which the Comptonia abounded 

 have generally appeared to me very little adapted to the 

 economical production of vegetable forms likely to 

 minister to the sustenance of man. 



Eleven miles farther brought us to the Cocagne River, 

 in the neighbourhood of wliich there are extensive 

 clearings, and much improved land, but generally light 

 and sandy. A shade of red had begun some time ago 

 to appear in the soil, as if a portion of red drift from the 

 old red sandstones of Prince Edward's Island had been 

 transported, and mixed up with the natural debris of the 

 coal measures of the country. 



We saw a few patches of Indian corn on our route 

 to-day, generally poor crops, unlike what we had seen 

 upon the St John, and on the farms of the old French 

 settlers. Along this coast the French are numerous. 

 They have suffered much from the failures of the crops 

 during the last two or three years, but few have left the 

 country. They are a much more patient and contented 

 race than the Anglo-Saxon settlers, who are always 

 painting in brighter colours the beauty and fertility of 

 places they have never seen, and shading more deeply 

 the evils that surround them. Six miles beyond Cocagne 

 I stopped at a farm of 500 acres, bought by its owner 

 thirty years ago for £14, and now valued, with the 

 stock upon it, to the poor-rate at £1000. Yet this man, 

 who had so prospered, wished to sell his farm, that he 

 might start for Indiana. He had no good reason to 

 give for going but the same failure of crops which the 

 humbler habitants so patiently bear. It is to be hoped 

 that, both for Europe and America, these visitations are 

 now for a period overpast. 



