394 HOME VOICES AND ASSOCIATIONS. 



After emerging frora eighty miles of scarcely broken 

 forest, it was to me a very interestmg sight, upon the 

 first green spot of fenced land which caught my eye, to 

 discover a field of dark green broad-leaved turnips. 

 Home thoughts spontaneously awoke with many home 

 associations. 'Home pictures sprang up before me, and 

 home culture and home improvement were called to 

 mind by the sudden sight of these healthy and luxuriant 

 crops of what, without a pun, may be truly called the 

 root of agricultural improvement. Home breeds of stock 

 also, though mixed — the sound of Scottish voices — a 

 Scottish ploughman behind a Scottish plough — and 

 females, not disdaining to assist In raising the potato 

 which a kind Providence had this year preserved for 

 them — all spoke of my own land, and of those rural 

 districts where educated intelligence and contented In- 

 dustry unite in spreading the happy results of better 

 husbandry. Even the noisy and troublesome cur, rushing 

 out with his boisterous salute, was welcome to us, as we 

 emerged from the soundless woods, where three or four 

 rare birds were the only wild things we had seen In all 

 our journey. And yet the autumn-tinted maple-groves, 

 bordering the green fields, gave a peculiarity to the 

 landscape which commingled foreign with home feelings, 

 and kept still present before me the realities of my 

 actual position. Along with all these pleasant Imagin- 

 ings too, it was a great relief' to think that the more 

 uncertain and unpleasant part of my present journey w^as 

 over, and that for some time to come I might hope to 

 to see the accompaniments of civilised life, and the 

 evidences of human skill and Industry around me. 



These first settlements we came to are about eight 

 miles north, in a straight line, from the banks of the 

 Restigouche River, and 1250 feet above the level of the 

 sea. That the crops and culture and farming I saw 

 here should be possible at so high a level, shows, not 



