118 MR NIXON'S experience. 



country, wheat used to be grown in large quantity, 

 for the supply of other parts of the province ; but the 

 ravages of the wheat-fly, for the last five years, have 

 made it necessary to substitute oats and buckwheat in 

 its place, even for local consumption. 



Our landlord, Mr Mxon, with whom we breakfasted, 

 had a comfortable house, a nice family, and certainly the 

 very cleanest and tidiest kitchen I have seen in New 

 Brunswick. He came from home, and settled here in the 

 wilderness, eighteen years ago. For liis farm of 275 

 acres, he paid £50. A hundred acres of it are now cleared, 

 twenty-five of them being still in stump. Over and above 

 the price they paid for the land, he and his two brothers had 

 only £60 to begin with ; but at the end of ten years the 

 farm and stock were valued at £1000, and he bought 

 his brothers out. The land and buildings are now, in the 

 depressed state of things, worth about £800. He con- 

 siders New Brunswick a good poor marl's country — an 

 expression which briefly includes all the main recommen- 

 dations of North America generally to the inhabitants of 

 Europe. " Those who are comfortable at home," as 

 another settler said to me, " had better stay there." 



The land on this farm is somewhat light and sandy ; 

 but it is greatly enriched by a covering of the river mud. 

 Of this, one hundred loads are applied to the acre — being 

 dug up dry during the frosts of winter, when other work 

 is scarce, and spread over the surface either of the tillage 

 or grass land — and its good efl'ects last for twenty years. 

 From his upland, by this treatment, he cuts two and 

 a-half tons of hay an acre, obtains 300 or 400 bushels of 

 potatoes, and as much as 1200 bushels of turnips. 



It is a subject of almost universal remark throughout 

 the province that, as a general rule, British-born settlers 

 succeed better than the provincial-born or natives. They 

 are steadier, more persevering, and more industrious. 

 And I could not help remarknig myself, that, in New 



