FAVOURED BY THE CLERGY. 299 



bettering tlie future condition of practical agriculture 

 everywhere. 



M. VilleneuvCj the Principal of the Eoman Catholic 

 college at Montreal, I found already alive to the subject. 

 He had taken one of the college farms into his own 

 hands, with a view to model improvements ; and on his 

 library table I was pleased to find a copy oF the fifth 

 American edition of my published Lectures. In no 

 country in the world, as my subsequent experience 

 taught me, is the application of a greater amount of 

 knowledge to the soil more necessary than in Lower 

 Canada. Through the primary schools it can be brought 

 to bear upon the practice of the next generation, 

 without interfering directly with the prejudices of the 

 present; and thus, without clashing of interests, the 

 common good of all may be surely and peacefully 

 promoted. 



My stay in Montreal was too short to allow me the 

 opportunity of meeting and conversing with the nume- 

 rous other persons who are interested in the improve- 

 ment of Lower Canadian agriculture. I w^as happy, 

 however, to find that the heads of the Roman Catholic 

 clergy, here and at Quebec, were among the chief 

 supporters of the Agricultural Society of the Lower 

 Province, and were exerting themselves to interest the 

 inferior clergy, so influential among the habitants. In the 

 introduction of a modicum of agricultural instruction 

 into the schools under their charge. 



In the afternoon of this day I crossed the St Law- 

 rence with Mr Wettenhall, an influential member of 

 Assembly from Upper Canada, and Major Campbell, of 

 St Hllaire, Secretary to the Governor-general, who had 

 kindly invited us to visit him at his place of St Hilaire, 

 about fifteen miles from Montreal. We crossed the 

 river by a steamboat, and descended a little way to 

 Longeuil, whence we proceeded by the St Lawrence 



