8 f Relations of Geology to Agriculture 



New Brunswick. Kew York. Ohio- Canada West. 



Bush. Bush. Bush. Bush. 



Wheat 18 14 15f 13 



Barley 27 16 24 Yi\ 



Oats 33 26 £4 25 



Buckwheat. ... 28 14 20 16 



Rye 18 9i 16 \\\ 



Indian corn . . . 36^ 25 41 — 



Potatoes 204 90 69 84 



Turnips 390 88 — — * 



This table places the agricultural capability of New Bruns- 

 wick in a very favourable light, and shows that, notwithstanding 

 its severe winters, the soil of this province, if properly farmed, 

 may favourably compete with the most productive States and 

 Provinces of North America. And although the actual averages 

 for the whole of the cultivated land in New Brunswick do not 

 directly exhibit the amount of produce yielded by the more 

 favoured portions of the province in which the red sands, marls, 

 and limestones described in this paper exist, yet they do in 

 reality prove these districts to be highly productive, inasmuch 

 as the comparatively high averages for the whole colony arise 

 from the admixture of the higher numbers representing their yield, 

 with the lower numbers representing the general yield of the 

 soils of the widely-extended coal measures. 



IV. Influence of Circumstayices in Modifying the immediate 

 Relations of the Soils to the rocky Formations of a Country. 

 — The illustrations I have presented in this and a former paper 

 leave no room for doubt that in many cases the agricultural 

 value of the soil over very large areas is directly determined by 

 the nature of the rocks below, and sometimes by the mere geo- 

 logical epoch to which these rocks belong. It is so with the 

 coal measures of New Brunswick, and with the other rocks I 

 have described. 



But I have shown also that the physical geography of this 

 coal region — its extreme flatness especially — and the impervious 

 character of its thin-bedded strata, have materially modified, in 

 many places, the natural quality of the surface in respect to 

 agricultural value. Bogs, swamps, and carriboo plains, through 

 these agencies, are made to cover large areas, and thus to give 

 an economical character to the surface, which is altogether inde- 

 pendent of the chemical composition v/hich distinguishes the 

 rocks beneath. As the time appears now to have ?" Ived when 

 the influence of circumstances in producing such modifications 

 in the agricultural indications of general geology ought to obtain 

 a more prominent place in our systematic works, I take this 

 opportunity of illustrating the general effect of such influences 



* See the author's ' Notes on North America,' ii. p. 193. 



