IN LOWER CANADA. 363 



nislied from 3,500,000 (Its amount In 1831) to less 

 than 1,000,000 bushels. The barley crop, on the 

 other hand, had increased by 800,000 bushels, that of 

 pease by 400,000, of potatoes by 2,500,000, and of oats 

 by the enormous quantity of 4,000,000 bushels. 



Whoever is acquainted with the practical operations of 

 husbandry, will be able to conceive how many anxieties 

 and losses, and repeated failures of usual crops, must have 

 beset the unhappy farmer, before his course of cropping 

 could be so changed as almost entirely to substitute oats 

 for wheat in the fields he had set aside for grain. The 

 wheat was clung to by the Canadians Tvith the more 

 pertinacity, because it was the crop which brought in 

 the annual supplies of money and other foreign articles, 

 and because it formed a considerable part of their usual 

 food. The failure of this source of supply brought debts 

 and mortgages, and transference of property ; and to it 

 is to be ascribed a considerable proportion of the mort- 

 gages which, as I have said, hang round the necks of 

 the rural population, over so much of this part of north- 

 eastern America. 



In relation to the corn-markets of the world, this change 

 converted Lower Canada, on the whole, from an exporter 

 into an importer of wheat — as it no longer produced 

 enough for its own consumption ; and in reference to a 

 large part of its own population, which was unable to buy 

 wheat, turned them from the consumption of this grain to 

 that of potatoes and oats, with a lesser quantity of pease 

 and barley. This was before the failure of the potato 

 crop ; and In this state of things, when, by the previous 

 failure of the wheat, the potato had become doubly pre- 

 cious, it will be understood how the potato disease must 

 have produced a more intense amount of suffering among 

 the Lower Canadians. The French population naturally 

 dislike the oat for food, and consume very unsightly and 

 distasteful varieties of soft bread, rather than live upon 



