RURAL ECONOMY AT RED RIVER. 



223 



before completion. The farms and farm buildings in the 

 occupation of the majority afford no sign of recent 

 improvement; and in general it may be said, that the 

 buildings which in Canada would be considered good, 

 roomy country houses are exclusively possessed and 

 occupied by the retired officers of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, the traders or merchants of the settlement, and 

 the clergy. 



The farmers' homesteads, and the hunters' and trappers' 

 cottages, if these classes here can with propriety be 

 separated, bear rather the appearance of slow decay, and 

 a decline in fortune, than a healthy, hopeful, progressive 

 condition. 



With few exceptions, and these are chiefly among the 

 Scotch, farming operations are conducted in a very 

 slovenly manner. Weeds abound in most of the fields 

 appropriated to grain ; some fields are seen here and 

 there to be altogether abandoned, and the out-houses 

 wear a neglected aspect, or one of ruinous decay. As 

 might be supposed in this primitive part of the world, 

 manure is allowed to accumulate in the front of the 

 stables and cattle sheds, or is sometimes thrown into the 

 river, or heaped in such a position that it may be swept 

 away by spring freshets. All these drawbacks and indi- 

 cations of negligence and imprudence are not uncommon, 

 within certain limits, in every new country, indeed in 

 any locality remote from markets, and wherever ignor- 

 ance of the first principles of rural economy prevails ; but 

 where such marked neglect and seeming dulness abound 

 in the midst of very general intelligence and acuteness, 

 and are limited to the so-called agricultural class, in pos- 

 session of a soil of unsurpassed excellence, the enjoyment 

 of an admirable summer climate for agricultural purposes, 

 and no greater share of periodical contingencies than 



