15 



taken but sixty or seventy. The consequence was, that 

 after working hard upon it for a few years, clearing some 

 fifty or sixty acres, and making other improvements, I 

 found I could not support my family, keep down the inte- 

 rest of what was due, and make the regular payments on 

 the purchase. I was discouraged. The landholder might 

 take away all I had whenever he should choose ; indeed, 

 I was literally his bondman. I felt that I might be taken 

 sick or die at any time, and leave my family in distress. 

 I have, therefore, sold out my betterments, and am now 

 ready to begin again." 



Here was a man, who had worked hard and eaten the 

 bread of carefulness, but whose ill success was occasioned 

 solely by having taken up too large a farm at the outset. 



It is usually the custom, for private landholders to re- 

 quire one-fourth or one-fifth of the purchase money down, 

 and the balance in four or five equal annual payments ; 

 the interest on the amount due to be paid every year. In 

 the early history of a settler, it will not be easy to gel 

 ready money ; and it will make a very great difference 

 whether he has to pay the interest on three hundred acres, 

 or on seventy. Besides this, a small farm well cultivated 

 is better than a large one poorly tilled. A man can do 

 but about a given amount of work, and he had better be- 

 stow all he can on a moderate sized farm. We have had 

 the very best opportunities of understanding this subject, 

 and we earnestly advise the reader to be moderate in his 

 purchase of land. In all our experience, we have scarce- 

 ly ever found an individual who could manage to pay for 

 and clear over, a hundred acres ; the majority are not 

 safe in contracting for more, nor, indeed, for so much. 



Some landholders are sufficiently mindful of the inter, 

 ests of their settlers, to reserve small pieces of land, thirty 

 to fifty acres perhaps, in the rear or by the side of the 

 first purchase ; and, after a little time, both parties can 



