Prairie farming in America

Front matter

translation of compound words- which often are^ therefore, very liable to be mist ranslated

FRENCH DICTIONARY.

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Introduction

Present Position of Agriculturists in England_Continued Rise of Rent.

— Increased Rate of Wages not equally certain.—Competition in

the Hire of Land_Whence it arises. — Foreign Produce. —That of

Lands of superior Fertility chiefly affects us.— Increasing Value of Live Stock. — Home Competition the true Source of diminished Profits. — Extent to which the Business of Farming is giving place to other Occu¬ pations.—Area of ordinary Farming thus curtailed.—Necessity for Farmers to thin the ranks of Home Competition.— Daily Consumption of Foreign Grain. — Offers a good Prospect to the Emigrant.— The

Prairies of Illinois a suitable Field for him_Their Advantages.—

Price. — Ague. — Stock Fanning and Indian Corn. — Cost of Voyage and Journey.—The present a very favourable Time - - Page 1

Letter I

Voyage in the “Persia.” — New York—The Hudson River.—Barren Soil. —American Railways. — Saratoga. —Extravagant Prices— Lake George. — Lake Champlain.—Sunshine and Storm. — Burlington in Vermont—Maine Liquor Law.— The Boundary Line. — Poor French Canadians. — The St. Lawrence. — Montreal. •— The Victoria Tubular Bridge. — Grand Trunk Railway. — Ottawa. — The Lumber Trade. — Ottawa or Montreal as the Capital.— Shorter Water Route to the West¬ ern Lakes. — Value of Land.— Grants of Land. —Prescott. — Kingston.

— Coburg. — Process of clearing the Forest.—Toronto.—Hamilton.

— Complaint of low Wages and want of Employment - - - 7

LETTER IL

Falls of Niagara. — Canada West. — Mode of Farming. — Short Wheat Crop. — Average Produce— London. — Price of Land. — Climate. — Diseases produced by Malaria_Rich Lands more subject to them than

CONTENTS.

vi

poor. — Proposed Route to British Columbia. — Red River and the Valley of the Saskatchewan.— The Hudson Bat Territory. —Alleged Fertility of the Country. — Failure of the Selkirk Settlement. — Plague of Grasshoppers. — Mr. Kitson’s Account of the Settlement on Red River. — Policy of abandoning that Country to Canada. — Probable Over-estimate of its Value.Page 17

LETTER ILL

Michigan. — Ferry Steamer. — Detroit. — State Agricultural Show. — Railway Hints for Home, to prevent Dust, and communicate with Driver —Shelter for Engine Driver. — Illinois. — Extent of the rich Valley of the Upper Mississippi.—Chicago—Its wonderful Progress.—Railway

Investments-Development too rapid_Encouraged by high Prices

of Agricultural Produce. — Money Panic succeeded by Failure of Crops and unhealthy Season. — Immigration suspended. — Capacity of Country for rapid Improvement. — View of the State of Illinois on a Line of 700 Miles.—Settlers from Vermont.—Galena.—Dunleith 29

LETTER IV.

General View of the State of Illinois. — Comparison of Soil and Extent with England. — Dunleith to Mendota.—Vast Wheat Fields. — Ex¬ perience of a Scotch Carpenter. —Farming by Shares. —Cost of Farm¬ houses. — The River Illinois. — Coal Lands of La Salle.— Corn Starch Factory.—Bloomington. — Settlers from New York State.—Account of his Operations by Pioneer of Settlement. — Unusual Failure of Wheat Crop. — Discouragement caused by this.—Temptations of Credit System.

— Instance of Purchase and Cost of making a Farm. — History of an early Settler. — The Banking System of the Country. — Profits of Banking. — “ Shin Plaster” Banks ------ 42

LETTER V.

Springfield. — Appearance of Country. — Cattle Show. — Stock Farming.

— Experience of a successful Farmer. —His Mode of laying his Farm to Grass. — Novel Implements. — Merino Sheep Farming. — Account of it by the Owner of a large Flock. — System of managing Prairie Land

recommended. — Sowing Grass Seeds on Snow. — Valuable Meadow-

Price of Merino Sheep. — Superiority of Prairie to Timbered Country.— The Governor of Illinois. — The Public Officers of State. — Manners of the People. — Decatur. — Lost on the Prairie. — The American Settler.

— Mutual Help. — Fences. — Pana and its Neighbourhood. — Settlement

of French Canadians.54

CONTENTS.

LETTER VI.

Pana to Centralia.— The Grey Prairie. — Best Wheat Soil_Fruit.—

Tobacco. — Vines. — Silk. — Rich Mineral District South of Centralia.— Lines of Communication with Ocean by New Orleans, and by Chicago.— Probable Market for Wheat in Cuba. — Description of Grey Prairie. — Value of Oxen.—German Settlement. — Large Purchase of Land by Kentucky Grazier. — His Plan and Prospects. — Farina. — Trading Spirit of the People. —TJrbana. — Complaints of Wheat Failure.—Peach Growing. — Large Grazing Farm. — Management of Stock. — Uni¬ formity of Soil. — Coldness of Weather.—Steam Plough. — Machines for economising Manual Labour in greater Demand. — Bement. — Kentucky Settler. — His Plan of managing 8000 Acres. —Onarga.—Its Neighbourhood. — Dairy Farming.—Artesian Wells. — Kankakee to Momence. — Price of Land. — Broom Corn. — Country from Momence to Monee. — Management and Produce. — Monee to Chicago Page 65

LETTER VII.

Soil and Climate of Illinois.— Nature of Prairie Soil.—Its chemical Com¬ position. — Rich in Nitrogen. — Wheat Culture and Produce. — Indian Corn. — Facility of Culture. — Oats_Barley. — Sorghum. — Substi¬

tute for Sugar-cane.— Potatoes.—Stock Farming. — Prairie Grass.— Blue Grass.—Timothy - -- -- -- -76

LETTER VIII.

Average Prices of agricultural Produce in Illinois. — Cost of Labour. — Cost of Indian Com in England. — Cost at which Pork may be raised

by it.— Profits of Farming in Hlinois_Detailed Example. — Lands of

Illinois Central Railway. —Advantages of their Position_The Com¬ pany’s Terms of Sale for Cash or Credit_Exemption from State Taxes

till paid for. — Comparison between Farming in England and owning Land in Illinois. — Capital necessary to start one Farmer in England

sufficient for three Land Owners in Illinois_Profits of Sheep Farming.

— Lands farther West only apparently cheaper. — Great Opportunity for Farm Labourers of Character and Skill— Farming by Shares. — Facility for investing Money in Land. — Even the Labourer can so invest his Savings from Time to Time_Prospects of Emigrants from Towns 83

LETTER IX.

The Ague; Opinion of a leading Physician. — Easily curable. — Wis¬ consin. —Life-guardsman turned Implement Maker. — Success of Emi-

CONTENTS.

viii

grants. — Madison. — Milwaukee. — Its Trade Facilities. — Schools. — Public Buildings. — Catholic Church. — Western Shore of Lake Mi¬ chigan.— General Nature of Country. — Green Bay.—Early French Settlements. — Their Hold in the North-west. — Character of various Races of Settlers.—Price of Land.—Its Value chiefly dependent on cheap Access. — Interest of Money. — Credit Low. — “ Custom ” pleaded for Abuses. — London Carpenter’s Experience as a Settler. — The Missis¬ sippi. — Nails and Glass only allowed by American Government to their

Surveying Engineers. — River Steamers_Anecdotes. —Lake Pepin.—

St. Croix . ..Page 92

LETTER X.

St. Paul’s. — Route to Red River. — Minnesota, — Daily Newspapers.— Market Place.—Red Indians selling wild Ducks.—American Militia.— Fort Snelling. —Minnehaha. —Falls of St. Anthony. — Lands and Funds set apart for public Objects.—The Credit System. — Dubuque-Bur¬

lington.— Iowa. —Natural Obstacle to Progress of Population westwards. — Wages. — Nauvoo. — St. Louis in Missouri. — Slave State. — Iron Mountain. —Relative Cost of Production of British and American Iron.

LETTER XL

Ohio. — Cincinnati_Vine Culture. — Kentucky. — Bourbon Whisky.

— Cincinnati to Columbus. — Small Farmers decreasing.—Westward movement of Population—Indian Corn never fails—Wheat precarious.

— Average Produce very low. — Live Stock. — Profits of Farming. — Labour economised by Steam. — Quantity of Whisky produced. — Public Expenditure on Education. — Compared with England.—Rate of Taxation. — Crossing the Alleghanies. — Virginia. — Maryland. —

Washington. —Baltimore. — Philadelphia. — New York_Boston—

Appendix I.—Composition of Prairie and other fertile Soils - 125

Appendix II.—Composition of four Prairie Soils, showing the portion solu¬ ble in acids, and the portion insoluble.126

Appendix IH.—Letter of Professor Voelcker 127

PRAIRIE FARMING IN AMERICA,

INTRODUCTION.

Present Position of Agriculturists in England. — Continued Rise of Rents. — Increased Rate of Wages not equally certain. — Competition in the Hire of Land. — Whence it arises. —• Foreign Produce. — That of Lands of superior Fertility chiefly affects us.—Increasing Value of Live Stock. — Home Competition the true Source of diminished Profits. — Extent to which the Business of Farming is giving place to other Occu¬ pations. — Area 'of ordinary Farming thus curtailed. — Necessity for Farmers to thin the ranks of Home Competition. — Daily Consumption of Foreign Grain. — Offers a good Prospect to the Emigrant. — The Prairies of Illinois a suitable Field for him.— Their Advantages.— Price. — Ague. — Stock Farming and Indian Corn. — Cost of Voyage and Journey. — The present a very favourable Time.

The present position of the agricultural body in the United Kingdom is interesting and peculiar. The landowner and the agricultural labourer are both profiting by the same cause, a limited supply of the commodity in which they deal. So long as this country continues to prosper, the value of land must increase, for there can be no increase of the land itself. But the demand for labour varies, and the supply is subject to causes which render it uncertain. While, so long as the present system of taxation continues, there must be a continued rise in the value of land, there appears to me no equal certainty of a progressive advance in the rate of wages.

But the hirer of land, the farmer, must inevitably suffer *0

COMPETITION FOR FARMS from the continued competition for its possession. He has not only to meet his own class, a necessarily increasing body, in this competition, hut to contend with men who, having made money in other pursuits, wish to retire to the more pleasurable occupations of a country life. It is this competition which is the true cause of the reduced profits of farming, and this is more likely to increase than diminish. Great Britain is the most attractive place of residence on the surface of the glohe, whether we regard its equable and healthy climate, its varied scenery and field sports, the almost sacred character of the rights of property in the eyes of its people, and the admirable com¬ bination of liberty and order which is preserved under its political constitution. Men will pay for these advantages, when they can afford it, a price which is not measured by the ordinary rates of profit.

Besides this competition, which raises the rate of rent, the farmer must now meet in his own market the produce of lower-priced foreign lands. He will, no doubt, always have the cost of transport in his favour, and this would generally be sufficient to balance the difference of rent; but the land of this country cannot be cultivated without manure, and the farmers of those foreign countries whose soil is rich enough to yield corn for many years without manure, are thereby able to undersell the British producer in his own market. The cost of labour, when the value of the food of working stock is calculated, is nearly the same at home and abroad, and superior fertility alone will be found to turn the advantage in favour of the foreign producer.

The special adaptation of Britain for the production of live stock, and the constantly increasing demand for that branch of the farmer’s produce, have hitherto modified the effects of foreign competition in corn. But even these, excellent though they have proved, cannot permanently

WILL COMPEL EMIGRATION.

counteract the cause of the farmer’s diminished profits: viz. home competition for the possession of land. The soil here is now becoming more valuable for other purposes than ordinary farming, and the proportion between the producers and consumers of food is undergoing a rapid change. It appears from the Census thdt, in 1851, only 16 per cent, of the adult population of England was occu¬ pied in the business of agriculture. During the previous twenty years the proportion had fallen from 28 to 16 per cent., from no actual decrease of the numbers employed in agriculture, but from the far greater proportional increase of trade. The same gradual change is going on. At this time there is probably not more than one-tenth of the adult population of England employed in the culture of the land. The manufacturing, mining, and town populations are thus gradually absorbing the business of the country, increasing the value of the land and the profits of the landowner, but in the same proportion diminishing the area left for ordinary farming.

The time seems thus to have arrived when the farmers must thin the ranks of home competition by sending off the young and enterprising to countries where they may become the owners of a fertile soil, and profitably contribute to supply the wants of the old country, whose land can no longer meet the demands of her dense population. During the last year we have imported into this country at the rate of nearly one million quarters of grain each month. We have thus, in addition to our home crop, consumed each day the produce of Ten Thousand acres of foreign land, a demand so vast as to offer to young men of our own country the strongest inducements to take their share in its supply.

Having, during last autumn, had an opportunity of making a pretty careful inspection of a part of the valley

ILLINOIS OFFERS of the Upper Mississippi, probably the most fertile com region in the world, I have collected for publication, in the form of a series of letters, the notes made by me at the time. There may be other countries which present equally good prospects to the agricultural emigrant. I venture to speak only of that which I have seen. This seems to me to offer the very field which we want at present,—a virgin soil of easy culture, with no forests to clear, of extraordi¬ nary natural fertility *, in a country traversed by a most perfect system of railways, where no settler need be more than ten miles from a station, whose shore is washed by one of those great lakes through which an outlet is found to the Atlantic, and which possesses in the Mississippi itself a vast artery of commerce, navigable by steamers for thousands of miles. A great part of the country is un¬ derlaid with coal, iron, and lime, thus affording a present supply of such minerals, and the prospect of a great in¬ crease of value should the people ever turn their attention to manufactures. There is a complete organisation of markets throughout the country; and, setting aside the export to England, there is a very large and increasing local demand for every article of agricultural produce. The price of labour is economised by the most extensive and profitable use of agricultural machinery, and by the comparatively small cost of maintaining horses and working cattle. The grazing of cattle and sheep is very profitable, and the production of merino wool, already large, admits of vast increase.

The fee simple of this land can be purchased at from 40s. to 50s. and 60s. an acre.

As a mere investment, this land would pay well to pur¬ chase and hold for a few years, and the increasing supply of gold, of which America herself yields an annual crop of

* See “ Chemical Analysis of Soils,” by Professor Voelcker, Appendix I.

A FAVOURABLE FIELD.

ten millions sterling, will every year contribute to the higher relative value of land here and elsewhere. But the British emigrant, when he purchases this land, secures to himself not only the profits of farming it, hut has also the growing increase in the value of the land itself, a right to which he can have no share at home. The country is now brought within a fortnight’s journey from oxu - shores, and is actually more accessible from Great Britain than most parts of Ireland were fifty years ago.

There is one drawback to which I have several times ad¬ verted in these letters. Besides the ordinary hardships to which men are content to submit when they leave the comforts of an old country for the prospect of future great benefit to themselves and their families, emigrants to rich new countries, south of the 45th degree of latitude, are in certain seasons more or less liable to an attack of ague. It is very fatal to old people, but the young seldom suffer more than temporary inconvenience from it; and the climate which produces ague is nearly free from some other and more fatal complaints which are met with in colder latitudes. By degrees the emigrant becomes ac¬ climated, and very many never experience the disease at all. Care and remedial measures prevent or remove it, and it gradually disappears with the general settlement and cultivation of the country. The population returns prove that the ague has no serious effect on the health of the people. A country whose people double in ten years, as Illinois did between 1845 and 1855, cannot be very un¬ healthy. Indeed, compared with many States in the Union, Illinois stands high in the tables of health. She is before New York, Connecticut, and Massachusets, Eastern States which are generally deemed healthy. And in comparison with England, the mortality in Illinois con¬ trasts most favourably, — De Bow’s compendium of the

STOCK AND INDIAN CORN.

seventh census of the United States showing that her death rate in 1850 was less than 14 in the 1000, while that of England is at present rather more than 24. While I think it right to direct the emigrant’s attention to the ague as an element in his calculations, it forms in reality a very small counterpoise to the many advantages which are open to those who make judicious and well-chosen settlements on the Western Prairies.

There are two branches of his business to which I would specially ask the attention of the British emigrant to Illinois, viz. stock farming, and the cultivation of Indian corn. Full details will be found on both subjects in these letters. A good stock of cattle or sheep can be bought by a comparatively small outlay of capital; and, so long as the open Prairie is thinly settled, grass for half the year may be had for nothing, and hay for the other half for only the cost of saving it. In regard to Indian corn, both climate and soil are more suitable to it than wheat. It can be grown to any extent, with a certain measure of success, every year, and, unlike wheat, this grain may be harvested with safety over a period of many weeks. A small and regular supply of labour thus suffices for the management of a large extent of land. There is always a market for it, and the lowest price at which we have ever seen it in England will afford a very good return to the Prairie farmer of Illinois, after deducting all the charges of transport.

An emigrant from this country may be set down in Illinois at a total cost from Liverpool or Glasgow of 61 . 7s., inclusive of provisions.

The present is a most favourable time for commencing to farm in Illinois. The panic of 1857 has not yet been forgotten, and the prices at which every sort of contract (building, fencing, ploughing) may be executed, are 50 per cent, below the average rates.

LETTER I.

Voyage in the “Persia."—New York.—The Hudson River. — Barren Soil. — American Railways. — Saratoga. — Extravagant Prices. — Lake George. — Lake Champlain. — Sunshine and Storm. — Burlington in

Vermont. — Maine Liquor Law_The Boundary Line. — Poor French

Canadians. — The St. Lawrence. — Montreal. — The Victoria Tubular

Bridge. — Grand Trunk Railway. — Ottawa. — The Lumber Trade-

Ottawa or Montreal as the Capital. — Shorter Water Route to the West¬ ern Lakes. — Value of Land. — Grants of Land. - Prescott. — Kingston.

— Coburg. — Process of clearing the Forest. — Toronto.— Hamilton.

— Complaint of low Wages and want of Employment.

On the 4th of September, 1858, I embarked with a friend on board the “Persia” at Liverpool, and loosed from our moorings in the afternoon to proceed on our voyage to New York. The ship had a full cargo and more than 200 cabin passengers. Great order and regularity prevailed on board, and though we had heavy head winds all the way across the Atlantic, and two severe gales, the voyage on the whole was pleasant and prosperous. On the evening of the twelfth day we reached New York.

The bright clear sky and the sunny look of the houses and public buildings, with the frequent cafes, reminded us that we were now in the latitude of Naples. And the appearance of the people was so different from that of Englishmen that we almost felt surprised to hear them speaking the English language. Everything was new and pleasant, except the manners of the people, and the ex¬ tortionate charges of every one from whom it was necessary to obtain the slightest service.

After spending a short time pleasantly in New York we left it for Montreal, taking the Hudson River route to

HUDSON RIVER SCENERY.

Albany. I was somewhat disappointed with the far-famed scenery of this river, the hanks of which (as indeed is the case with land everywhere in America at this season) are strikingly deficient in verdure. The aspect of the rocky cliffs and the broad river is very pleasing, enlivened as the latter was by numerous white-sailed little sloops passing up down, and now and then by a white steamer trailing half a dozen loaded canal boats. On reaching West Point the wooded hills in the foreground are backed by the Catskill Mountains, and the reaches of the river are here ex¬ tremely picturesque. But the wood, though there is plenty of it, is little better than copse or brushwood. There are no fine trees, and the soil appears to be beyond measure barren. There are houses here and there, peeping out from the woods, with green outside blinds, and towers with tall steeples, all very white. But in the 150 miles between New York and Albany I saw no good land and no grass which any British ox would touch. From Albany to Troy the railroad cars were crammed with people, all hurrying about, and yet it was difficult to see what occupied them, as there are few signs of manufacture, and the soil is evidently unfruitful and neglected. There seemed nothing here to attract or create much capital. No cheapness of price would compensate for the natural inferiority of such land to good land in our own country. The lowland along the river is marshy and aguish-looking, and the upland seemed either bare rock or stiff clay. Between Albany and Troy there were some patches of Indian corn, but the country is very uninviting, — no verdure, and no pleasant homesteads.

I liked New York from its variety and picturesque novelty. But the countiy so far disappoints me, and the same barren aspect, changed from clay to blowing sand, continues to Lake Champlain. The railways are very un-

LA ICE GEORGE.

even and uneasy. When I awoke after my first day’s ride I thought myself at sea again, feeling the sensation which one experiences after a stormy voyage. This was at Saratoga, the great watering-place to which the Americans resort during the fashionable season. The season was now over, and only a few lingering visitors remained. The town is an assemblage of hotels, at which you are “ taken in and done for” at 10s. 6 d. a day. The hotel in which we stayed is the largest. It has beds for about 1000, and the waiters are all blacks, slow, and not very obliging. The prices of everything are enormous. A guide-book costs 8s. 4 d., a bottle of sherry 8s. 4 d. to 10s. 6d, Madeira 24s., Bass’ beer 2s. 6d., a cab for three miles 8s. to 10s. The horses are not unlike their masters. They hold up their heads, shake their little cocktails, and away they fly with the spider-wheel carriage which the fast Yankees drive. They seem in a desperate hurry at the start, and yet I have not found them more enduring than an English horse at the end of the day’s journey.

Lake George may he visited by spending another day, and it will well repay the time, being exceedingly beautiful, more so than Loch Lomond, which it resembles in size. The mountains are not so high, but are wooded to their summits. The hotel accommodation is excellent, and good sport may be had by boat-fishing. The woods afford a sport novel to Europeans, that of hunting rattle-snakes, with which they abound, and which are taken for the rattle in their tails. In driving down from Lake George to Ticonderago, you pass through a little village with four conspicuous churches. One of them looks neglected; the driver "guesses she was a Baptist, but he reckons she didn’t pay, and they stopped running her.”

At Ticonderago we embark in the steamer up Lake Champlain, the day so extremely hot and calm that the

LAKE CHAMPLAIN-VERMONT.

most shady and airy place is welcomed. For some hours the fast steamer speeds oft at fifteen miles an hour through the smooth water, the scene on the left presenting a pretty foreground of farms along the lake, backed by the lofty wooded mountain range of this part of the State of New York. On the right the land is broken into rounded hills, with patches of woodland and corn, but chiefly in grass, green for this country, and giving to the State its character and name of Vermont. Suddenly we feel a whiff in our faces. The wind has changed, a dense blackness is cover¬ ing the sky northwards, and in half an hour we have sailed into a thunderstorm. It was accompanied and followed by a gale, and in another half hour the lately placid sum¬ mer lake was surging like the Atlantic. Our white galaday steamer was quite unfit to cope with this, and the shakes she gave when struck by a heavy sea shook the nerves of most of the passengers on board. By the even¬ ing we reached Burlington, on the Vermont shore, where, with other Englishmen, we landed for the night, at a large hotel, with the hope of a good supper after our storm-tossing. But we had reckoned without our host;— we found ourselves in a temperance State, actually under the Maine Liquor Law,—plenty to eat, but not a drop of anything stronger than water to drink, without a medical certificate. The men looked no better than those in the other States, the bar room being filled with idlers chewing and spitting. The women certainly seemed more fresh and ruddy, yet it is odd that they alone should show the good effects of a law which could not have been intended for the gentler sex.

Next morning we proceeded by railway towards Montreal, crossing Lake Champlain at a narrow point by a long wooden bridge, and shortly afterwards entered Canada. The line between the two countries is an ideal one, not

MONTREAL.

more definite than the march of two Highland farms. The land is cold and poor, held in strips by French Canadians, whose listless gait and lean cattle betoken a poor business. The notices at the railway crossings are in French, and the country people at the stations, and those travelling by the railway, converse in French. The weather was cold, the thermometer having fallen since the previous morning from 74 to 44.

The country is very flat, but the land improves in quality as we approach the St. Lawrence, which, opposite Montreal, is a magnificent stream, like an arm of the sea, rushing with a great tide, two miles broad. From the ferry steamer the city is seen to great advantage, its wharves stretching along the river, and the tin roofed houses and church cupolas sparkling brilliantly in the sun. It is a remarkably handsome town, backed by a lofty wooded hill, the Mountain, which all strangers are ex¬ pected to visit, and from which the prospect is very ex¬ tensive. One striking object is the Great Victoria Tubular Bridge now being constructed across the St. Lawrence, two miles in length, as the viaduct of the Grand Trunk Rail¬ way, a prodigious engineering work, but which, when com¬ pleted, will in all seasons, summer and winter, afford to the railway a continuous outlet to the Atlantic for the whole stream of traffic from British America and the North Western States of the Union. The vast expenditure on this railway and its works has greatly enriched Montreal.

From Montreal I proceeded to Ottawa, taking railway to La Chine, and there embarking on a wide lake-like water which is the confluence of the rivers St. Lawrence and Ottawa. Some miles farther up we reach the rapids of St. Anne, the scene of Moore’s song, and the point at which the Grand Trunk Railway crosses from the island of Montreal to the mainland by another large engineering

OTTAWA AS A CAPITAL.

work, a tube and bridge, five hundred yards long. Beyond this the stream divides, sending part of its waters along the northern side of the island of Montreal, which is nearly forty miles in length and fertile, farmed by French pea¬ sants and English and Scotch farmers. On the opposite northern shore a fine tract of wooded country, about ten miles square, has been reserved for an Indian tribe, whose village is on the shore. They are said to be completely controlled by French priests, who suffer no intercourse with ■ settlers, and allow no wharf to be made in case it might encourage traffic.

We escape another series of rapids by changing to railway for ten miles, through a wooded country, which, where partially cleared, is nearly covered with huge boulders of granite, a poor country, supporting a poor French popu¬ lation. We then again embarked on the river. Its banks nearly all the rest of the way to Ottawa, sixty-five miles, are low and swampy, farther back partially cleared, with wooded highland on the north shore in the background. At the outlets of the rivers falling into the Ottawa there are generally saw-mills and large piles of “lumber” or sawn timber, the Rideau Falls thus being made to cut up 170,000 logs in a season.