128 PEICE OF FARMS NEAR ST JOHN. 



currency. It requires high manuring ; but when well 

 cultivated, any part of it, the tenant said, would produce 

 four tons, and I was assured that five tons of hay was 

 occasionally reaped from such land. About St John, 

 and generally along the Bay of Fundy, fogs occasionally 

 prevail. St John has about a month of summer fogs, 

 which are not considered prejudicial to health ; and 

 though unfavourable to Indian corn, they encourage the 

 growth of grass. Turnip culture has extended very 

 much during the last three or four years in the province ; 

 and upon this dyked land farm, and on those of Dr 

 Peters and Mr Davidson, both within a mile or two of 

 St John, I saw excellent crops of this root. 



That of Dr Peters is an upland farm, the soil a light 

 granitic sand, and gravel, naturally poor, and exhausted 

 by previous tenants. The practice of tenants hitherto, 

 in this neighbourhood, had been the same in principle as 

 I had already seen in so many other places — to take a 

 crop of oats, lay down to grass, and cut as long as any- 

 thing was to be got, then to try oats again, followed by 

 grass as before ; and when to such alternations it would 

 yield nothing more, to give it up to the landlord. It 

 contains 160 acres, of which 50 were cleared when he 

 bought it for £320, or at the rate of £10 an acre all 

 over. By manuring heavily with cowfeeders' and 

 slaughter-house manure, which is here got for sixpence 

 sterling a cart, he is compelling the exhausted land to 

 yield beautiful crops. 



The adjoining farms, containing 120 acres of upland, 

 similar to that of Dr Peters, and 40 acres of marsh, 

 capable of growing ninety tons of hay, with house and 

 barns, was on sale at the price of £600. 



These farms are near a good market, but they are on 

 an old slate country, distinguished for thin, cold, poor, 

 and gravelly soils, over which, with the exception of a 

 few more favoured spots, only scattered clearings and a 



