202 



Settling in JVew Countries. 



Vol. XL 



tion, remote from stagnant ponds and marsh- 

 es. In the next place, pay but little atten- 

 tion to what strangers say to you ; their ob- 

 ject is speculation; have a mind of your 

 own. Do not be fascinated with the notion 

 of spending all your means in rich land, be- 

 cause it is cheap, for you will soon find that 

 wild land will need extensive improvements 

 before it will bring much money in return ; 

 and during the time you are improving your 

 land, and fitting it to yield an income, you 

 will find many necessary wants and require- 

 ments, that were never thought of in the 

 old country. We have seen new settlers 

 become hastily entangled in embarrassments 

 and trouble, on account of spending every 

 dollar of their means after arriving, before 

 they had facilities for income. This, no 

 doubt, was brought about by the luxuri- 

 ant appearance of the country and soil, — 

 these were so flattering, that the mind be- 

 came absorbed in the contemplation of wealth 

 which never could be realized. Another 

 land mark which should elicit much solici- 

 tude to be avoided by the new comer, is 

 those sharks that infest the borders of a new 

 country, and who have learned by necessity 

 and sad experience, to study plans of art to 

 entrap the unwary traveller, in the guise of 

 friendship. We have known many an hon- 

 est man, who had toiled on with an accumu- 

 lating family of children, just living from 

 hand to mouth in an old country, and who 

 by dint of industry, had hoarded sufficient to 

 enable them to reach the far West, cheered 

 with the expectation of obtaining a home to 

 make his family comfortable, and crowning 

 his years with happiness, soon stripped of 

 every dollar, by a set of crafty speculators, 

 who always are contriving to lay their bait, 

 by flattering pretensions of friendship and 

 plausible stories. Let the emigrant bear in 

 mind that friendship built upon the calcula- 

 tion of dollars and cents, invariably turns 

 out to be little better than enmity. 



After this preliminary advice for the first 

 and opening steps of a new comer, we will 

 proceed to devise what should engage his 

 attention in the way of cultivation and im- 

 provement. It has been a general custom 

 from the early settlement of this country, 

 for farmers to depend mainly for their in- 

 come on raising wheat. The reason of this 

 practice we cannot account for; it however 

 is an error which every resident is aware of 

 Although the chemical principles of the soil 

 are well adapted by nature for growing- 

 wheat, yet it is our opinion, founded on ob- 

 servation and experience, that the climate 

 is too changeable to make wheat the staple 

 crop of dependence. For nine years past 

 we have only known three fair yields, or 



crops, that would pay the farmer for his la- 

 bours, including all the contingencies. The 

 fault of depending exclusively upon the 

 growth of wheat is, as we have already 

 mentioned, the uncertainty and variableness 

 of the climate. 



We have seen a hundred acre field of 

 wheat, well sprouted, grow and survive the 

 winter, in "living grain," and owing to the 

 thaws and breaking up in the spring, toge- 

 ther with the frosty nights, and heaving of 

 the ground, during the months of March and 

 April, to become so nearly killed, that not 

 ten acres of the hundred were harvested. 

 So great a loss as this to farmers of lim- 

 ited means, — and by far the larger part are 

 such in a new country — produces general 

 distress and depression. This fact has been 

 fairly demonstrated the past season. The 

 wheat crop was cut oflT by rust and blight, 

 so that no more than one-fourth of an ave- 

 rage crop has been realized. This, together 

 with the unusual sickness, produces hard 

 limes. 



It has been remarked by some of our agri- 

 cultural writers, that our farmers can afford 

 to raise wheat for fifty cents per bushel. 

 This is a great error; even if the yield was 

 20 bushels per acre, it could not be done, 

 for obvious reasons. In the first place, the 

 wheat harvest comes in equally, at once, 

 through every section of country; it must 

 be instantly secured or lost. But few have 

 sufficient help within themselves to secure 

 the amount grown. To hire cannot be done 

 at present, as the country affords but few 

 spare labouring hands that depend on hire- 

 ing out for employment ; the harvest wages 

 are ten shillings per day, which, added to the 

 threshing, cleaning, the cost of seed, and 

 the transportation to market, say fifty miles 

 to each man, taking the country through, 

 the crop would all be consumed in expenses. 

 We do not intend to condemn the grow- 

 ing of wheat throughout the country entire- 

 ly, by any means, for it is essentially neces- 

 sary. The only system of farming that we 

 think can be adopted with safety and pru- 

 dence, to insure success and a prosperous 

 and onward growth of the country, is the 

 mixed system of farming. Indeed, the only 

 sure way in this country, is for the farmer 

 to raise as much as practicable of every 

 thing within himself; and this constitutes 

 the true mixed system. He should lay out 

 to grow a portion of every kind of grain 

 that can be made use of for his own con- 

 sumption, which will invariably insure a 

 portion, at least, of that which is most sale- 

 able to part with. For instance, if the corn 

 crop should be abundant, and on that account 

 bear too small a price to sell at a profit, he 



