DYKED MARSH OF ST JOHN. 127 



upon hut liwiself. He was a kind of squatter, supported 

 himself as a day-labourer, and was evidently one of 

 those inconsiderate, idly-disposed, discontented men, of 

 whom too many, unfortunately for Ireland, love to 

 linger and complain on our own side of the Atlantic. 



We reached St John at nine P.M., after travelling 

 three hundred and eighty-two miles with the same pair 

 of horses, in very hot weather, and at the rate of about 

 fifty miles a-day. 



\st Sept. — In the neighbourhood of St John there is a 

 large tract of dyked marsh, containing upwards of a 

 thousand acres. This consists of a black, spongy, vege- 

 table mould, very different from, and inferior in quality 

 to, the rich, alluvial, dyked land of the head-waters of 

 the Bay of Fundy, hereafter to be described. At the 

 mouths of nearly all the rivers which empty themselves 

 into the Atlantic, along the shores of New England and 

 New Brunswick, such inferior marsh lands are met with. 

 They abound in vegetable matter, yield large crops of 

 hay in favourable seasons ; but when dyked round and 

 defended from the sea, rarely form rich and productive 

 corn-bearing land. Like our peaty or fenny soils at 

 home, they are propitious to green crops and the growth 

 of straw, but do not generally fill the ear. 



The marsh land of St John lies in a narrow valley, 

 bordered by high ground on each side, but itself very 

 little elevated above the sea. The upper end of the flat 

 is only two feet above high-water mark ; but as the tide 

 rises here twenty-seven feet, its height is considerable 

 above mean-water level, and the entrance of high tides 

 is prevented by a sluice at the mouth of the valley. 



I visited what is considered one of the best farms on 

 this flat. It consists of 120 acres of marsh, and 100 of 

 upland. The upland is partially cleared, and affords 

 pasture and firewood, but the marsh alone is under 

 arable culture. The whole is rented for i'150 a-year 



