340 With Rod and Gun in New England 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



f4oVA Scotia and its Game a^d pistf. 



Many of our people on this side of the Bay of Fundy, who have had 

 no opportunity to form a better and more correct opinion, believe that 

 Nova Scotia is simply a land of fogs and "blue noses," of barrens and 

 forests, of short and unsatisfactory summers, and long, cold, almost unbear- 

 able winters ; of unproductive soil, and of a shiftless people, stolid, and 

 without energy or ambition. This opinion does great injustice to a most 

 interesting, and, in many ways, a delightful province. 



Its winters are no more severe than those of New England ; its summers 

 are in every way most enjoyable, its climate is one of the best and most 

 health-giving to be found, and its scenery is picturesque, no matter where 

 it is viewed. 



But it is not in these points alone that Nova Scotia excels, for there is 

 hardly on the face of the earth a country that possesses a greater and 

 more varied wealth of the things that civilization requires. Her timber 

 lands are of exceeding value, she producing for export almost everything 

 that is found in her latitude, and her mineral resources are quite wonder- 

 ful. In many localities it is a rare exception that, in breaking a bowlder or 

 rock, some interesting mineral is not to be found, while her mines of coal, 

 iron, plaster, gold, antimony, manganese and slate have attracted the atten- 

 tion of capitalists, both in Europe and America. 



To the sportsman she seems a veritable paradise. Her forests, which 

 in some localities are still primeval, are inhabited by moose, caribou, bear 

 and other large game ; the younger growths near the settlements teem with 

 ruffed grouse, woodcock and hares, and her lakes and streams abound in 

 trout, and, in some sections, salmon, and the sea fowl, and shore birds that 

 are met with are, in some seasons, almost innumerable. 



As sea fishing has been for many years a leading industry, the country 

 about the shores is more thickly settled than that in the interior, and the 

 exportation of fish and lobsters has been a principal source of income to 

 those who dwell by the ocean. 



But there are many settlements in the interior, as well as towns of 

 considerable size and prosperity, and scattered along the post roads which 

 traverse the Province are farms, sometimes of considerable magnitude and 



