CANADA. 97 



usually early in 1836, so that the unripe corn-crops were 

 frozen and spoiled. From whatever cause it might be, and 

 penuriously as they lived, they presently found that they 

 were not making both ends meet. Existing as they did in 

 wretched poverty, it was depressing to find that, even so, 

 their toil was insufficient to maintain them. They soon 

 became convinced that they had made a serious mistake 

 in swerving from their original intention of choosing the 

 Upper Province, but still more in buying a wasted and 

 exhausted farm. It is true that about half of Philip 

 Gosse's acres were as yet virgin forest, which he might 

 have reclaimed and cultivated. But they consisted, for 

 the most part, of " black timber " — that is to say, the species 

 of pine, spruce, and fir which indicate low and swampy 

 soil, unfit for ploughing. Perhaps if he had more per- 

 severance, or a little capital, he might have turned this into 

 meadow. But his personal strength and skill were not 

 equal to the huge effort of clearing forest-land, and he soon 

 ceased to have the power to hire even the poorest labour. 

 He was accustomed, long afterwards, to reflect with 

 bitterness on what he might have done if they had kept to 

 their plans, and struck for the shores of Lake Huron. But 

 bearing in mind the conditions of the experiment, I cannot 

 feel that the result would have been much better. No 

 doubt the land they could have bought in the North-west 

 would have been far more fertile than at Compton, but it 

 was clothed with heavier timber, which they would have 

 been obliged to fell even before they could build a hut to 

 cover their heads. The labour would have been far more 

 severe, the life even more recluse and savage. But the 

 real fact is that my father had no natural gift for agricul- 

 ture ; he was not one of Emerson's " doctors of land, 

 skilled in turning a swamp or a sandbank into a fruitful 

 field." The thoughts that came to him at the plough were 



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