326 BOOK NOTICES. 



CLEARING THE LAND. 



" A log hut constructed, wherein to live ; and such plain rough articles 

 of furniture as were really necessary provided, the next thing was to clear 

 the land, thickly covered with large trees and tangled bush. Many a swing 

 of the unhandy axe had to be made ere the trees could be felled, and dis- 

 posed of; and the ground made ready for the grain or root. 



" A few years later, and the settler would, in the dry summer season, 

 fire the woods, so as to kill the trees. By the next year they would have 

 become dry, so that by setting fire again they would burn down. In this 

 way much labour was saved. But sometimes the fire would prove unman- 

 ageable and threaten to destroy the little house and log barn, as well as 

 crops. Another mode of destroying the large trees, was to girdle them — 

 that is, to cut through the bark all around the tree, whereby it was killed, 

 so that the following year it would likewise burn down. 



" A portion of the disbanded troops, as well as other loyalists, had been 

 bred to agricultural pursuits ; and some of them, at least those who had 

 not been very long in arms, could the more readily adapt themselves to 

 th'eir new circumstances, and resume their early occupation. The axe of 

 the woodsman was soon swung as vigorously along the shores of the well 

 wooded river and bay, as it had been in the forests years before, in the 

 backwoods of New England. 



" It is no ordinary undertaking for one to enter the primeval forest, to 

 cut down the tough-grained trees, whose boughs have long met the first 

 beams of the rising sun, and swayed in the tempest wind ; to clear away 

 the thick underbrush, which impedes the step at every turn ; to clear out 

 a tangled cedar swamp, no matter how hardy may be the axe-man — how 

 well accustomed to the use of the implement. With the best mode of pro- 

 ceeding, with an axe of excellent make, and keen edge ; and, combined with 

 which, let every other circumstance be favourable ; yet, it requires a deter- 

 mined will, an iron frame and supple muscle, to undertake and carry out 

 the successful clearing of a farm. But, the refugees and disbanded soldiers, 

 who formed the pioneers of Upper Canada, enjoyed not even ordinary 

 advantages. Many of the old soldiers had not the slightest knowledge of 

 the duties of pioneer life, while others had but an imperfect idea. Some 

 scarcely knew how to fell a tree. Hardy and determined they were ; but 

 they possessed not the implements requisite to clear off the solid trees. 

 We have seen that the axe furnished by government was large and clumsy, 

 anb could be swung only with difficulty and great labour, being nothing 

 more than the ship axe then in use. Slow and wearisome indeed, must 

 have been the progress made by the unaccustomed woodsman in the work 

 of clearing, and of preparing the logs for his hut, while he had, as on-lookers, 

 too often a feeble wife and hungry children. ***** 



, " Although deprived of all those comforts, which most of them had enjoyed 

 in early life in the Hudson, and Mohawk valleys, and fruitful fields of Penn- 

 sylvania, they toiled on determined to conquer — to make new homes ; and, 

 for their children at least, to secure comforts. They rose early, and toiled 

 on all day, whether long or short, until night cast its solemn pall over their 

 rude quiet homes. The small clearing of a few acres gradually widened, 

 the sound of the axe was heard ringing all the day, and the crash of the 

 falling tree sent the startled wild beast to the deeper recesses of the wild 

 wood. The toilers were not all from the same social rank, but now in the 



