principal daily toil, and it is a somewhat different
thing as practised here, to what the English woodman has to do. A
bushman's work is severe and energetic, altogether in contrast with the
lazy stop-and-rest methods of too many labourers at home. It is a fierce
but steady and continuous onslaught upon the woods. Everything must fall
before the axe, and everything does fall. Once I was watching the
prostration of a Worcestershire oak. It was a tree that might have had
some twelve feet of girth. Three men and a boy were employed at it,
armed with ropes and pulleys, wedges, saws, and all sorts of implements,
besides axes; and it was two days and a half before they got the tree to
earth. If a single bushman could not have knocked that tree over before
dinner-time, he would not have been worth wages in this country; I am
sure of that.

Of course, it is an understood thing that England cannot turn out an
axe. If you want an axe that is really good for anything, you must go to
America for it. Here, in the bush, all our tools come from the land of
the Stars and Stripes. Why it should be so ask English cutlers. English
tools and cutlery of all sorts cannot find a sale here; for bitter
experience has taught us what inferior and unreliable goods they are.
American things never fail us. We do not buy them because they are
cheaper, but because they are better. They are exactly what we want, and
of sterling quality.

Now, Sheffield can turn out the best hardware in the world, no one can
deny that. Then, why do we not get some of it out here? Some settlers,
who have furnished themselves in Sheffield itself, can show tools of
finer make than the American ones. But all the cutlery that we see
anything of in the stores, if it be English, is thoroughly worthless.
Why will English traders continue to suppose that any rubbish is good
enough for the colonies? We are afraid to buy English implements and
tools out here; and every experienced colonist prefers to trust America.
Our patriotism is humiliated, but we cannot afford to be cheated.
Surely, trade interests must suffer in the long run, by the pertinacity
with which English traders send inferior goods to the colonies.

In felling bush, or "falling" it, as we say here, advantage is taken of
the lay of the land. To make the burn which is to follow a good one, the
stuff must all lie in the same direction. The tops of the felled trees
should point downhill as much as possible. The trees