AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
183 
of the vine, I beg leave to inclose a plate 
taken from drawings sent to me from Oporto, 
to which I have the pleasure to refer you. 
A very few words will suffice to sum up 
the probable result of the progress of the 
disease in vineyards, unless some effectual 
and cheap remedy should be discovered 
easily applicable to vines so grown, (in hot 
and greenhouses several remedies have 
proved more or less successful,) or that cer¬ 
tain atmospheric changes and improvements 
should enable the vines to throw off the dis¬ 
ease, viz: 
The quantity of wine produced must go 
on rapidly diminishing every season, and the 
vine must gradually be exterminated. The 
farmer, when he finds himself year by year 
laboring in vain in his vineyard, will root up 
his vines and turn his attention to the culti¬ 
vation of other things, (as is already the 
case at Madeira,) for he will clearly see that 
while he waits for such a change as I have 
mentioned, his capital will be dwindled 
away, if rich, and if poor, his family ruined 
and starved. 
The blight has now at length attacked 
Spain, and arguing from analogy, its course 
will no doubt be the same. Already has the 
French government wisely permitted the 
entry of all wine into France duty free; 
thus the small stocks of other countries 
will be drawn into France. It is not long 
since a very nice, delicate old wine, or good, 
stout young port wine, could be shipped for 
£18 per pipe on board ; now the same wine 
could not be shipped under £38 to £40 if 
young, or £50 if old. The shipment this 
year, to the end of September, is consider¬ 
ably less than in 1853 to the same period. 
Consumption going on and production dimin¬ 
ishing, the result is clear—enormous prices, 
which will only be limited by their rising so 
high as to lessen the consumption very 
greatly. I have the pleasure to draw your 
attention to Mr. H. Harris’s prices, assuring 
you that his stock, both at Oporto and here, 
is of a very superior quality, consisting of 
old wines for bottling, 1847’s (now very rare 
to be met with,) 1851’s, and a variety of 
other classes of wines. 
There can not be a stronger proof of the 
impolicy of looking on when wines are rapid¬ 
ly rising, and there is no reasonable hope, in¬ 
deed, scarcely a bare possibilty, of any de¬ 
cline in price, than the fact, that those who 
have hesitated for the last few months, and 
now really require a supply, will have to pay 
fully £8 to £10 per pipe more, an^, my de¬ 
cided opinion is, that prices must continue 
to advance for a long period, even under the 
most favorable circumstances to which the 
most sanguine can look forward. 
Your faithful, humble servant, 
QUARLES HARRIS. 
AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE IN THE 
CANADAS. 
We find in the last Gardeners’ Chronicle 
the following article on the present and pros¬ 
pective condition of agriculture in the British 
Possessions in North America, which, we 
think, will convey to many readers much in¬ 
teresting information, and we transfer it to 
our columns: 
If we turn to a map of the New World, 
and cast our eyes to the north of the United 
States, a vast tract of land will be seen 
stretching north to the regions of perpetual 
ice and snow, and east and west across the 
whole of the immense continent of America. 
This huge territory contains more than four 
millions of square miles, more than 2,630 
millions of acres, and is equal to about one- 
ninth of the whole terrestrial surface of the 
globe. Nay, more, it owns the supremacy 
of our own sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, 
and the British Possessions in North America 
are open to the energy and enterprize of 
Englishmen. If we examine a little more 
closely the south-eastern portion of the dis¬ 
trict in question, we shall find in Upper and 
Lower Canada a country with a healthy 
climate and immense resources, highly pros¬ 
perous and rapidly increasing in population 
and importance. The census of the Canadas, 
published last year in Quebec, furnishes the 
materials from which we select the following 
facts in support of this statement. We con¬ 
fine ourselves more particularly to such de¬ 
tails as bear upon agriculture and gardening. 
The two Canadas consist, together, of an 
area of 242,482 square miles and 155,188,425 
acres; of these last 7,300,839 are occupied 
and cultivated. The population is 1,842,265 ; 
so that there are, or rather were in 1852, 
four cultivated acres to each inhabitant; 
164,488 persons, or a little more than one- 
eleventh of the whole population, are re¬ 
turned as farmers, while only 141,949 are re¬ 
turned as laborers; so that, even supposing 
that by laborer is always meant agricultural 
laborer, there are actually 22,539 farmers 
more than there are laborers. This is in 
striking contrast with the condition of our 
own country. England and Wales, as ap¬ 
pears from the census of 1851, contain an 
area of 58,320 square miles, and 37,324,915 
statute acres. The population is 17,927,609 ; 
so that upon the whole there were, in 1851. 
little more than 2 acres to a person, or 
half the quantity which exists in Canada ; 
indeed, even less than that, for the acreage 
of England and Wales, as given above, in¬ 
cludes the uncultivated as well as the culti¬ 
vated land. With respect, again, to our 
agricultural population, it appears there are 
in England and Wales 225,318 farmers, who 
employ G65,651 laborers, so that, instead of 
there being, as in Canada, fewer agricultural 
laborers than farmers, there are nearly three 
times as many of the former as of the lat¬ 
ter. But from the list of occupations in the 
English census, out of the entire population 
of Great Britain, amounting to nearly 21 
millions of persons, one million are set 
down as agricultural out-door laborers ; so 
that, although as compared with the farmers 
the number of laborers in England and 
Wales is much greater than in Canada, still, 
as compared with the whole population, the 
reverse is the case, for here only one person 
in 21 is an agricultural laborer, while there 
one person in every 13 is so. We confess 
that we should have thought that there had 
been more than three agricultural laborers 
for every farmer in England and Wales ; but 
from a table in the English census it appears 
that as many as 91,698 returned themselves 
as farmers employing no laborers, and more 
than 33,000 as employing only one ; these 
large numbers of course materially affect the 
average. 
Leaving agriculture for the present, and 
turning our attention to horticulture, we find 
that in Canada (Upper and Lower) there are 
only 421 gardeners and 42 horticulturists, 
florists, nursery, and seedmen taken alto¬ 
gether. In Lower Canada there are fewer 
persons of this description than in Upper 
Canada, and it seems somewhat surprising 
that except in Montreal and Qubec there 
should not be a single nursery or seedsman 
throughout the whole of the former province, 
and that for the same district only one per¬ 
son should be returned as a horticulturist, 
and absolutely none as a florist. When it is 
remembered that the area of Lower Canada 
is nearly 210,000 square miles, and that its 
population is 890,000 persons, it does seem 
strange that only 149, or 1 in a little less 
than 6,000 should be found making garden¬ 
ing and horticulture the business of their 
lives. Compare this with Great Britain. 
The population may be taken at 21 millions, 
and of this number 80,946 (we may sav 
81,000) are returned as gardeners, exclusive 
of 5,000 who are also domestic servants, 
and exclusive of 2,675 nurserymen and of 
1,156 seedsmen. In England, Wales, and 
Scotland, therefore, there is one non-domes¬ 
tic gardener to every 260 inhabitants ; or, in 
proportion to the population, 23 times as 
many as in Lower Canada. In upper Cana¬ 
da there are, both absolutely and relatively, 
more gardeners, &c., than in the lower prov¬ 
ince ; in the former, with a population of 
952,000, there are 314 gardeners, florists, 
&c., that is to say, there is one to every 
3000 inhabitants; or, in proportion to the 
population, twice as many in Lower Canada. 
Canada is not the place for luxuries ; in the 
upper province there are only 94 barbers and 
hairdressers, or one to every 10,000 persons ; 
and in the lower province there are only 30, 
or one to every 26,000; on the other hand, 
if we turn to, the useful and necessary 
branches of industry, we find 10,268 carpen¬ 
ters, 7,075 blacksmiths, and 8,967 boot and 
shoe makers. 
The Canada census contains some very 
interesting returns relative to the agricultu¬ 
ral produce of the country. From them it 
appears that in both provinces together there 
are 1,136,311 acres of wheat, yielding in 
Upper Canada 16, and in Lower Canada 9 
bushels per acre, and 13 and 3 bushels per 
individual respectively. There are nearly 
78,000 acres of rye, yielding on an average 
11 bushels per acre ; 329,755 acres of peas, 
yielding in Upper Canada 14, and in Lower 
Canada 9 bushels per acre ; 913,356 acres of 
oats, yielding as before 26 and 20 bushels 
per acre ; and 65,650 acres of barley yield¬ 
ing on an average 21 bushels per acre. 
Barley is the only crop which it appears 
from the returns is yielded in greater quan¬ 
tities per acre in Lower than in Upper Cana¬ 
da. W heat is in the tables valued at 4s. the 
bushel; rye at 2s. fid.; barley at 3s.; oats at 
Is.; and hay at 40s. per ton. Horses are es¬ 
timated at £12 10; milk cows at £3 15; 
oxen at £6 ; sheep at 7s. 6d.; swine at £l. 
A rapidly increasing population is always 
admitted to be a sure sign of prosperity, and 
we can not conclude the present article bet¬ 
ter than by the following facts relating to 
this subject. In the 10 years ending in 1851, 
the population of Great Britain increased 
more than 13 per cent, that of the United 
States more than 35 per cent, and that of 
Upper Canada more than 104 per cent. In 
the far west of Canada, the Counties of 
Huron, Perth, and Bruce increased from 
5,600 in 1841 to 37,580 in 1851, being up¬ 
ward of 571 per cent in 10 years—an in¬ 
crease almost beyond comprehension. Eng 
land has in the average 332 persons to a 
square mile ; Wales, 136; Scotland, only 92 ; 
while Upper Canada has 29 ; Lower Canada, 
4 ; and the United States 16 ; so that the 
land even now occupied in Upper Canada 
would hold more than 11 times its present 
population, say 11,000,000 inhabitants, to be 
as densely peopled as England. In fact, 
about two-thirds of the population of London 
alone may be taken to represent the number 
of persons in all Canada. 
Strawberry beds should be mulched, and 
tender raspberries laid down and protected. 
So should bulbs and flower-beds generally. 
Various animals lend their mite to make 
up English words—for example : Man-age- 
ment,, dog-matism, cat-egory, cro-nology, 
pus-illanimous, duc-tility, and rat-ification. 
Tiie man who lives in vain, lives worse 
than in vain. He who lives to no purpose, 
lives to a bad purpose. 
