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116

RISE OF THE TIDE AT THE BEND.

boatmen and shipmasters who are unacquainted with the river is sometimes a source of danger. Dr Gesner states that it is three hours' flood at the mouth of the river before the tide reaches the Bend, that it flows in and ebbs off in six hours, and, though the rise of the tide in feet is not so great as at places near its mouth, yet that the level of high water at the Bend is in reality several feet higher than that of high water at the head of Shepody Bay.*

Thus, at Dorchester Island, in the open bay, and at the Bend, the height of high water above the level of low water at the former place is as follows:

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The level of the river at high water is therefore 9 feet higher than it is at the mouth of the river. Above the level of high water on the Atlantic coast, it is probably several feet higher still. Could the outfalls of the river be improved, therefore, as has been the case in our north of England river Wear, a much more perfect drainage of the river-side intervale land might be effected, and the level of high water so much reduced as to render securely dry many tracts now liable to periodical overflow.

It is to the former prevalence of such phenomena as this, and not to a real elevation of the land, that some of the discoveries of animal remains embedded in alluvial soils, now considerably above the existing level of adjoining waters, is to be ascribed.

At high water, the river at the Bend is broad, deep, and beautiful. Vessels of 100 tons can then come up to the town, which is thus enabled to carry on a direct trade with Boston in the United States. In the summer months a steamer also plies between the town and the * Dr GESNER'S New Brunswick, p. 90.

CHANGE IN THE SCENERY AND SOIL.

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city of St John. At low water the river narrows exceedingly, and deep, muddy, and sandy flats appear. Along the immediate banks of the stream there is much fine land, and the mud, which is copiously deposited between high and low water marks, is very rich, and is extensively employed for manuring purposes.

29th August.-We drove twelve miles up the Petitcodiac River this morning to breakfast. From the Bend to St John, a distance of ninety-four miles, the country is more or less settled all the way. Much of the land is of inferior quality, light, sandy, and gravelly; but there is much good land also, and the country generally along the road is more undulating, abounds more in the picturesque, and has more the air of a civilised old settled region than almost any other tract of equal extent in the province. This superiority arises, in great measure, from a change in the prevailing geological formation. Before reaching the Bend, we pass from the grey coal measure sandstones on to red marls, red sandstones, and red conglomerates, with subordinate beds of limestone and gypsum, which extend to within a few miles of St John. The round hills of our English Monmouthshire appear in this region in Mount Pisgah, Piccadilly Mountain, and other striking elevations which are still unnamed. Soils like some of those in South Wales, "which eat up all the manure, and drink up all the water," are formed in many spots from the drift of these red rocks, while in not a few places red soils like those of the Lothians are produced, over which extend rich and fertile farms. Over all this red district the land is absorbent of moisture, easy to till, and early ready for the seed in spring, or for the sickle in autumn. The subordinate beds of lime and gypsum also contribute to improve the soils which rest upon this formation; while the salt with which it is impregnated, as shown by its salt springs, is probably not without its influence on the general vegetation. Along this line of

118

MR NIXON'S EXPERIENCE.

country, wheat used to be grown in large quantity, for the supply of other parts of the province; but the ravages of the wheat-fly, for the last five years, have made it necessary to substitute oats and buckwheat in its place, even for local consumption.

Our landlord, Mr Nixon, with whom we breakfasted, had a comfortable house, a nice family, and certainly the very cleanest and tidiest kitchen I have seen in New Brunswick. He came from home, and settled here in the wilderness, eighteen years ago. For his farm of 275 acres, he paid £50. A hundred acres of it are now cleared, twenty-five of them being still in stump. Over and above the price they paid for the land, he and his two brothers had only £60 to begin with; but at the end of ten years the farm and stock were valued at £1000, and he bought his brothers out. The land and buildings are now, in the depressed state of things, worth about £800. He considers New Brunswick a good poor man's country-an expression which briefly includes all the main recommendations of North America generally to the inhabitants of Europe. "Those who are comfortable at home," as another settler said to me, "had better stay there."

The land on this farm is somewhat light and sandy; but it is greatly enriched by a covering of the river mud. Of this, one hundred loads are applied to the acre-being dug up dry during the frosts of winter, when other work is scarce, and spread over the surface either of the tillage or grass land-and its good effects last for twenty years. From his upland, by this treatment, he cuts two and a-half tons of hay an acre, obtains 300 or 400 bushels of potatoes, and as much as 1200 bushels of turnips.

It is a subject of almost universal remark throughout the province that, as a general rule, British-born settlers succeed better than the provincial-born or natives. They are steadier, more persevering, and more industrious. And I could not help remarking myself, that, in New

GREATER ENERGY OF NEW SETTLERS.

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Brunswick as a whole, the regularly settled inhabitants did not appear to work so hard as the same classes do at home. From that fact, however, I did not feel myself justified, as some did, in concluding that the native-born are naturally or absolutely indolent; my conclusion was rather that a living was easier got in the province than in the home islands, and that, therefore, they did not require to work so hard to obtain it as we do at home.

At the same time, the absence of the strong spur of necessity does tempt poor human nature to indolence in America as it does in Europe. It is remarked among the free Blacks in the middle states of the Union, that those who have bought their own freedom are far more energetic and industrious men than the coloured people who have inherited their freedom. In Boston, it is observed that the sons of rich men rarely succeed as merchants; and no doubt there must be some truth in the statement, that the sons and grandsons of British settlers do not display the same energy as their emigrant fathers.

Whether such differences are greater or more observable in America than they are in Europe is at least open to question, though it is a point of much interest in connection with the impossibility, alleged by some, of the Anglo-Saxon race ever becoming permanently fixed and acclimatised in the New World.

The excessive heat of the season was here injuring the buckwheat, blighting what was not set, and ripening too fast that which had begun to fill. To this evil, buckwheat is subject occasionally all over Northern America. In the State of New York, I obtained a sample of a variety, the excellence of which was said to consist in its not being subject to blight from the midsummer sun.

Leaving Nixon's after breakfast, we were about to enter the forest again at the distance of about a mile, when we were brought up by a burned bridge, the embers of which were still smoking. The fire had communicated

120

A BURNED BRIDGE.

to it from the burning woods, and consumed it probably during the night. But we were not long detained. Doffing our coats, and obeying the directions of our companion, Mr Brown, we rigged up beams, along which we guided the carriage across the brook; and then, yoking the horses anew, were under weigh after little more than an hour's agreeable amusement. Twelve miles farther brought us to Steeves's, through narrow clearings on each side of the road, comfortable-looking farms and farm-houses, and occasional good land.

While our horses were resting, I engaged a light wag

gon, and drove three miles off the main road to the banks of the North River, to inspect an outcrop of limestone at a short distance from which gypsum was said to occur; while, within about a mile, salt springs also were known. We found some good farms along this part of the North River, and good land derived from the mixed calcareous and sandstone debris. The limestone was hard, destitute of apparent fossils, and, as subsequent analyses showed, very pure, and admirably fitted for agricultural purposes. It had been quarried for building, but the application of lime to the land was in this district scarcely known.

The bed of limestone was in contact with, and apparently overlying a coarse red sandstone, which effervesced strongly with acids, and which I afterwards found to contain as much as seventeen and a-half per cent of carbonate of lime, and half a per cent of gypsum. The presence of so large a portion of lime in a sandstone, in the states of carbonate and sulphate, must add very much to the capabilities of any soil that is formed from it.

At Steeves's, where we had stopped to rest our horses, the Petitcodiac ceased to be navigable for canoes, and an Indian portage commenced of twelve or thirteen miles to the navigable waters of the Salmon River, which flows south-westward, and, joining the Kenebecasis, ultimately falls into the River St John. Thirteen miles brought us

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