118 NEW BRUNSWICK. 



Taxes Kiver, followed the course of the larger stream, till, 

 nearly opposite a beautiful spring, where they had 

 stopped to water their horses, they turned into a barway, 

 and in a moment more reached Wilson's, their prospec- 

 tive head-quarters. 



Wilson's habitation was a quaint-looking log house, 

 perched on the edge of a bank overhanging what is 

 called the interval, or fruitful stretch of level land lying 

 between the river and the hills, and its evident antiquity 

 bore testimony that it had belonged to one of the earliest^ 

 settlers. 



A well-stocked garden, an extensive barn, a large 

 drove- of sheep and cows, suggested what an industrious 

 and comely wife and daughter confirmed, that Wilson's 

 was a well-to-do family. 



As a general thing, the people of this region are of the 

 most short-sighted possible character ; they live for the 

 present, and an easy way of making a dollar is irresistible, 

 though it may entail the final loss of ten. The country 

 is slowly going back to a savage condition; farmers, 

 instead of attending to their farms, speculate in lumber, 

 because it enriches one man in fifty; mortgage their 

 farms, which are sold under foreclosures to strangers and 

 allowed to grow up with weeds and bushes. Tens of 

 thousands of acres are in this condition, and are being 

 fast rendered irreclaimable. Instead of encouraging fish- 

 ermen to come and spend money among them, although 

 they admit it is about the only money they see, they 

 annoy and overcharge at such a rate that they have 

 driven away all but a few from Fredericton. Insteac 1 

 of preserving and increasing the fish, they obstruct the 



