ENPages
(seq. 16)
12
cultivated in Scotland and many that succeed better in England than in Scotland The common crops are wheat, barley, rye and Oats several sorts of Pease and beans many sorts of roots particularly Carots parsnips and potatoes but the latter not in plenty from the French not affecting them - Many of the farms have an orchard tho not so commonly as in the old English colonies to the southward - Apples pears and plumbs succed well but peaches they get with difficulty nor are they of a good flavour Mulberries will not grow here - Walnut trees carried from France die evey year to the root but shoot out again in the spring
Their husbandry is very bad their system is taking a Crop and what they call a fallow - this is they take a crop of wheat and after it leave the land at rest for a year not plowing it but that the weeds may
grow
(seq. 17)
13
grow and be eaten off by the Cattle. This method can arise from nothing but the plenty of land for surely common sense might tell them that a field answering the purpose of a meadow by the quantity of weed on it must be a strange preparation for Corn - If they left it for ten or twelve years till the grasses came so thick as to choak the weeds it might when plowed up become at once good Corn land as we find in many places is the case in England In general they let the lands rest only one year but some who have more land than the rest leave it sometimes for two three or four years before they sow it again, White Clover by that time comes in great plenty
No crop gets more than one ploughing which is in April after the front breaks then all their sorts of corn are sown wheat as well as the rest consequently they have only a spring Wheat. However a few farmers have of late years got into the way of sowing the same
grain
(seq. 18)
14
grain in Autumn they do not thereby get an earlier harvest but the grain is weightier and Better and the crop more abundant. As soon as the weather breaks all the ploughs in Canada are at work to get in the Corn waiting very rarely and but on small spaces of land for carrying on the manure and on one plowing which is performed with horses or Oxen indiscriminately they sow all sorts of grain and pulse. Their crops are as good as moderate ones in England from four to six or seven sepleer per arpent are commonly gained of wheat that is about two or two English quarters and a half per acre. Oats yeild very large crops they sow them for their horses and other Cattle ~ Barley is a poor crop with them and pease a very uncertain one but sometimes they get a fine profit off them.
Every farm has annually a small peice flax but it is only for the use of his family they have
none
(seq. 19)
15
none that is good whether owing to this management of it or the Climate I know not - They have also a peice of Tobacco in every farm - all smoke here
They have in all parts of Canada very fine meadows of natural grass Poa Augustifolia of a very fine sort with great plenty of white Clover not low marshy spots but high upland meadows the soil dry sound loam. These are great advantages to the farmers. they yeild fine crops of good hay which are mown in August.
The Country Inhabitants of Canada are all little farmers very few of them having large farms at least if we give that term only to the land they usually keep in any Culture. Villages are rarely met with and the few there are consist only of here and there a Mechanick or a Schoolmaster. They are a cheartull hospitable people and have behaved themselves with
much
(seq. 20)
16
much good sense and politeness to the English that have settled amongst them since the Conquest
At Quebec and Montreal they are remarkably gay and social which indeed is the case in a good measure in most countries that are so cold as to confine the Inhabitants to their houses for a long winter -
Without a social disposition such a winter would be insupportable.
They are further a very happy people yet their Enjoyments are by no means numerous and the whole country lies under two Evils which almost intirely prevent increase The want of communication with the rest of the world in winter and the want of money for circulation - this affects the whole colony equal and make this share of Chearfulness an absolute necessary of life
Was it not for the river St. Lawrence the
whole