18 REPORT OF THE SCOTTISH COMMISSION 



than the New England States. The week we visited the island 

 1100 people left for harvesting in the west. Some would not come 

 home again, and not a few of those who came home would not 

 rest satisfied until they returned permanently to the plains. 



Nova Scotia 



We left Charlottetown at 8.20 on the morning of 15th August 

 for Pictou, Nova Scotia. We had intended at once to join our 

 special train at Pictou and proceed to Truro. The Provincial 

 Government, however, had provided lunch for us in the Wallace 

 Hotel, at which Mr Macgregor, the member for the county of Pictou, 

 represented the Government. The lunch over, a number of repre- 

 sentative men accompanied us to New Glasgow, where we saw the 

 great coal mines of Nova Scotia. From New Glasgow we took train 

 to Truro. At the station we were met by Professor Gumming, the 

 Principal of the Agricultural College, who, in thorough business 

 fashion, set about getting the Commission into the carriages that 

 were waiting for them, leaving introductions and everything else 

 for after consideration. In the same systematic business-like way 

 stock and crops were examined. Subsequently we were entertained 

 to dinner by the College authorities, and had an opportunity of 

 discussing what we had seen. At 9 o'clock, accompanied by Prof. 

 Cumming and Mr Pearson, the Member for the District in the 

 Provincial Parliament, we left for Halifax. Next day was Sunday. 

 There was no programme and we spent the day in town. Early 

 on Monday morning we left by special train for the Annapolis 

 Valley, which is really composed of five valleys — the Gaspereau, 

 Avon, Cornwallis, Pereau, and Annapolis. Our first stop was at 

 the town of Windsor. On arriving at the station we were taken to 

 see the dyked-in marsh lands. The tide rises sixty feet in the Bay 

 of Fundy. Sweeping up, it carries much material which settles 

 down as sediment and is left by the returning tide. The old French 

 settlers erected dykes to keep the tide back as the Dutch have done 

 in Holland, but not before many feet of rich soil had been deposited, 

 which without any other fertiliser has gone on bearing heavy crops- 

 of hay ever since. Sometimes, when the soil becomes exhausted, 

 at long intervals these dykes are opened and the land is renewed. 

 We actually saw the process going on in the vicinity of Windsor. 

 We were out in the country for something more than an hour. 

 On reaching the station we took train to Grand Pre. Fifteen 

 minutes was not long to explore Evangeline's country, but it was- 

 all the time available. We saw at least the site of the old village 

 where Evangeline and her lover lived on the fateful night when the 

 Acadians were taken to the church hard by and thence to the not 

 distant shore to await their deportation to the exile from which 

 they never returned. From Grand Pre one section of the party 

 visited the Hillcrest orchards, and the orchards at Wolfville, Green- 

 wich, Port Williams, Starrs Point, and Church Street, lunching at 

 the Seminary Hotel as the guests of the Mayor of Wolfville and the 

 stafE of Acadia University. The rest of the Commissioners left 



