Quebec, and the difficulty,
delay, and additional outlay of the inland journey put it completely
out of the power of the needy agriculturist or artizan to emigrate; the
very classes, however, who, from their having been brought up from
their infancy to hard labour, and used to all sorts of privations, were
the best fitted to cope with the dangers and hardships attending the
settlement of a new country. The impossibility of the working hand
raising funds for emigration, confined the colonists to a set of men
less calculated to contend with difficulties--namely, half-pay officers
and gentlemen of better family than income, who were almost invariably
the pioneers of every new settlement.

Many high-spirited gentlemen were, doubtless, tempted by the grants of
land bestowed upon them by the Government, which made actual settlement
one of the conditions of the grant. It followed, as a matter of course,
that the majority of these persons were physically disqualified for
such an undertaking, a fact which many deserted farms in the rear
townships of the county in which I reside painfully indicate.

Eighteen or twenty years ago a number of gentlemen located themselves
in the township of Harvey. The spot chosen by them was one of great
natural beauty; but it possessed no other advantages, except an
abundance of game, which was no small inducement to them. They spent
several thousand pounds in building fancy log-houses and making large
clearings which they had neither the ability nor industry to cultivate.
But, even if they had possessed sufficient perseverance, their great
distance from a market, bad roads, want of knowledge in cropping after
they had cleared the land, lack of bridges, and poor soil, would have
been a great drawback to the chance of effecting a prosperous
settlement. In a few years not a settler remained of this little
colony. Some stayed till their means were thoroughly exhausted; others,
more wise, purchased ready-cleared farms in the settlements or followed
some profession more congenial to their taste, or more suited to their
abilities.

The only persons fit to undertake the hardships of a bush-life, are
those who have obtained a certain degree of experience in their own
country upon the paternal estate or farm. Men who have large families
to provide for, and who have been successful in wood-clearing, are
generally willing to sell their improvements, and purchase wild land
for their families, whose united i