in North-Eastern America. 



3 



least-agnculturally advanced and least-productive parts of tlie 

 low country of Great Britain. 



The second circumstance by which the agricultural relations of 

 this portion of New Brunswick are determined, is found in its 

 general physical conformation. It is distinguished by a general 

 flatness of surface : it undulates here and there, indeed, and is 

 intersected by rivers and occasional lakes ; but it consists for the 

 most part of table-lands more or less elevated, over which forests, 

 chiefly of pine-timber, extend in every direction. This general 

 flatness is owing to the small inclination of the sandstone strata 

 on which the country rests, and to the small number of striking 

 physical disturbances to which, as a whole, they have been sub- 

 jected. These level tracts of land are not unfrequently stony, 

 covered with blocks of grey sandstone of various sizes, among 

 which the trees grow luxuriantly, and from among which the 

 settler may reap a first crop of corn, but which almost defy the 

 labour of man to bring the land into a fit condition for the 

 plough. It is chiefly on the borders of the coal-field, however, 

 that these stony tracts occur, as if the disturbances, to which the 

 neighbouring rocks have in many places been subjected, had 

 broken up the edges of the sandstone strata, and scattered their 

 fragments over the adjoining surface. 



A characteristic feature which results from this physical flat- 

 ness is the occurrence of frequent bogs, swamps, carriboo plains, 

 and sandy barrens. The waters which fall in rain or accumulate 

 from the melted snow rest on the flat lands, fill the hollows, and, 

 for want of an outlet, stagnate, causing the growth of mosses and 

 of plants of various other kinds, to which such swampy places 

 are propitious. Thus bogs and barrens, more or less extensive, 

 are produced, and these greatly modify the natural agricultural 

 relations of the surface. 



Thus the geological age, the chemical composition, and the 

 physical disposition of this coal region, in reality appear almost 

 equally to conspire in producing the peculiar general agricul- 

 tural character of the central half of the province of New Bruns- 

 wick. To this conjoined influence of important modifying causes 

 I shall again advert before the close of the present article. 



But New Brunswick also presents examples of the most 

 striking and immediate dependence of agricultural value upon 

 geological structure alone. On the outskirts of the coal-field, 

 and rising up from beneath its edges, appear red sandstones 

 and red conglomerates, associated with limestones, red marls, and 

 gypsum. These give rise to soils of a remarkably fertile cha- 

 racter, in the midst generally of scenery of a most picturesque 

 description. In such localities rock and soil so closely accompany 

 each other, that the most sceptical is compelled to admit that the 



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