NOVA SCOTIA 1 



IF you draw a line roughly in a diagonal direction across the 

 map, you divide Nova Scotia into two distinct portions. One 

 half is rocky and unsuitable to the needs of the farmer, though 

 / full of attractions to the sportsman. The other is a land of slow 

 i brimming rivers and fertile meadows, of smiling orchards and well- 

 cultivated areas of productive tillage. Cumberland County, with 

 its vast stretches of rich dyke lands, Yarmouth County and the 

 beautiful Annapolis Valley, contain the best stretches of fertile 

 lands, and here the meadows, dotted with graceful elms, and the 

 snug farmhouses, nestling in their luxuriant orchards, are often 

 suggestive of the peaceful country-side of the mother land. In 

 other sections the Englishman, unaccustomed to the dark northern 

 fir forests, finds a reminder of Norway or Sweden. The Annapolis 

 Valley is known as the Garden of Nova Scotia. Here, as Hon. 

 Joseph Howe used to say, ' You can ride for fifty miles under apple 

 blossoms ' ; had he lived to-day he might have said for one hundred 

 miles. ' Here/ it has been said, 'the tidal waters of the great Bay 

 of Fundy, rushing along the coast outside, seeking for admission into 

 the heart of the province, have found an opening three miles wide 

 between the huge trap needles of Cape Split and a cape on the 

 opposite shore. Swirling round Cape Split, and pressing through 

 the narrow passage like a mill-race, the turbid waters peacefully 

 expand into the Basin of Minas. The broad basin reposing at 

 your feet looks like a wide open hand, sending out beneficent fingers 

 all round into the heart of a grateful country. One of these fingers 

 touches the valley of the Cornwallis, and into its tips stream the 

 tidal rivers dyked by the old Acadians. On these fat and fair 

 dyked lands dwells to-day another race with other customs and 

 language in large modern farmhouses embowered in roses and 

 honeysuckle. Here the tidal rivers find a winding way deep into 

 the pasture ; the dykes, first built by the Brittany peasants, pro- 



1 The old French name for Nova Scotia was Acadie : sometimes New 

 Brunswick and a portion of the State of Maine were included under the 

 same designation. 



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