WINDSOR TO WOLFVILLE.

21

tion of the richest land in the province, however, I had been recommended to proceed westward to Annapolis, about eighty miles by land, and thence by a steamer which plies regularly to the city of St John.

Starting again with the stage, we ascended the Avon till it became sufficiently narrow to be bridged over, and then crossed to Falmouth by one of those covered wooden bridges of which I afterwards saw so many in North America. They form long dark wooden tunnels, stronger, perhaps, and more durable for their darkness, but most effectual in preventing either the beauties or defects of the river scenery from reaching the eye of the passenger.

Whoever has sailed up the Avon to our English Bristol when the tide was low, would, this afternoon, have agreed in the propriety of the name which has been given to this river of Windsor. The tide was low, and, as in the English Avon, lofty and steep mud banks confined the waters, and showed at once how high the tide must rise, and how fertilising its muddy water must be.

From this point the land had an improved appearance, and the first good crop I had seen during my whole day's ride began to cheer my eyes. As we drove along, I gradually shook off the feeling of despondency, with which I had looked upon the parched upland country through which I had come to Windsor. I was now proceeding over a more elevated and less valuable portion of that rich alluvial land, for which the shores of the Bay of Minas, and its tributary creeks, and of the head-waters of the Bay of Fundy in general, have been long famous. Advancing twelve or fifteen miles further to Horton and Wolfville, I found myself on the edge of the richest dyke-land in the province. I quitted the stage at Wolfville, for the purpose of taking a drive over a portion of the most productive land before the evening set in.

22

ALLUVIAL LANDS OF MINAS BAY.

Having obtained a light carriage, and an intelligent guide, I drove over some dozen miles of what is certainly a naturally fertile, and was then a comparatively smiling, district. But even at this low level, and so near the waters of the broad bay, the drought had seared and yellowed the usually luxuriant herbage; and had I not come from a far more arid region, it would have conveyed to my mind the impression that the agricultural capabilities of the township of Cornwallis had been much over-estimated.

These dyked alluvial lands of the Bay of Fundy are to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick what the carses of Gowrie and Falkirk are to Scotland, and the warped lands of Lincolnshire to Eastern England. The thick waters of our Humber and Trent give a fair idea of those of the Bay of Minas, and of the other broad creeks which communicate with the Bay of Fundy; only the American waters are scarcely so dark in colour, and the mud they deposit is of a redder hue. The frequent villages, and the numerous scattered habitations, which are visible from the higher ground of Cornwallis, are abundant proof of the productiveness of the soil of this more favoured part of Nova Scotia. It is not all, however, of equal quality.

Three kinds of land are distinguished in this and the adjoining province. First, dyke-land—the rich alluvial deposit of these waters, so called from its having been laid dry by a succession of dykes, which for the last two centuries have been gradually advancing beyond each other towards the bay. This land sells at present at from £15 to £40 sterling per acre; and some of it has been tilled for 150 years without any manure-a treatment, however, of which it is now beginning seriously to complain. It averages 300 bushels (9 tons,) and sometimes produces 600 bushels (18 tons,) of potatoes to the acre. Second, Intervale-the generally light alluvial soil, which in variable width fringes the banks of the

VALLEY OF ANNAPOLIS.

23

rivers above the head of the tide-waters. This also varies in quality, but with farm-buildings is rarely valued so high as £20 an acre. Third, Upland elevated above both rivers and tides, and which owes nothing to either. Over a large portion of the province, the upland is said to be comparatively fertile, and free from stones. The most improved of this kind of land, however, with farm-buildings attached, rarely sells so high as £10 an acre. The wild or wilderness land is granted by Government at about 3s. 6d. an acre.

The Baptists, as I have already observed, are a powerful body in these provinces. At Wolfville, they have a college or academy, attended by a large number of students. It is a handsome building, situated on a rising ground, which overlooks the rich flats beneath, the Minas basin beyond, and carries the eye over to the Cobequid Mountains on the other side of the sea. Before reaching Windsor, we passed, at a short distance on our left, a Church of England college, also finely situated, but said not to be so well frequented, or in so flourishing a condition, as its friends would desire.

By starting early in the morning, I was enabled to advance as far as Kentville before the departure of the stage, and to proceed along the valley to Annapolis, a distance of nearly seventy miles. The road, in general good, though in some places sandy, runs along the foot of what are called the South Mountains, from their skirting this long valley on the south. It rises very gently and very slightly till it reaches an immense bog-called in these provinces a Carriboo bog or Carriboo plain— which is the water-shed from which flow both the Cornwallis river and that of Annapolis, in opposite directions; thence it descends as gently to the town of Annapolis.

Along the lower part of each river there is much good land, but towards the middle of the day's journey, especially about Aylesford and after passing the bog, it

24

AYLESFORD SAND-PLAIN.

becomes sandy; and there is here, occupying a large breadth of the valley, an extent of many miles of light and comparatively worthless land. On this poor soil I saw, for the first time, the sweet fern, Comptonia aspleni folia, which I became well acquainted with in my after journeys in New Brunswick. It rejoices in light, sandy, almost useless soils, of which I know scarcely any more sure practical indicator.

The "Old Judge" thus describes what he calls the great Aylesford sand-plain :-

"The great Aylesford sand-plain folks call it, in a ginral way, the Devil's Goose Pasture. It is thirteen miles long and seven miles wide; it ain't jest drifting sand, but it's all but that, it's so barren. It's oneaven, or wavy, like the swell of the sea in a calm, and is covered with short, thin, dry, coarse grass, and dotted here and there with a half-starved birch and a stunted mis-shapen spruce. Two or three hollow places hold water all through the summer, and the whole plain is criss-crossed with cart or horse tracks in all directions. It is jest about as silent, and lonesome, and desolate a place as you would wish to see. Each side of this desert are some most royal farms-some of the best, perhaps, in the province-containing the rich lowlands under the mountain; but the plain is given up to the geese, who are so wretched poor that the foxes won't eat them, they hurt their teeth so bad. All that country thereabouts, as I have heard tell when I was a boy, was oncest owned by the lord, the king, and the devil. The glebe-lands belonged to to the first, the ungranted wilderness-lands to the second, and the sand-plain fell to the share of the last, (and people do say the old gentlenian was rather done in the division, but that is neither here nor there,) and so it is called to this day the Devil's Goose Pasture."*

* The Old Judge, vol. ii. p. 5.

HOME IN THE PROVINCES.

25

It is a pleasant thing in the British provinces to hear the people talk of England and Scotland and Ireland— of the Old Country generally-as home; and it is pleasant to meet so many persons who, though long settled, and having families of province-born children, were themselves born at home, and like to ask of places they knew in their youth from one who has lately seen them, and to tell how they have struggled and fared since they came to the New World. Those persons are greatly deceived who think that less labour, and less patience and perseverance, are necessary to success in the New World than in our part at least of the Old. The chief difference is, that there is room enough in the broad lands of America for the full employment of all, and that the diligent man of moderate desires is sure of a competency.

Along this road I met the first examples of these old settlers, and I was especially interested by the narrative of an old Aberdonian, at whose house we stopped to refresh our horses. He had remained fixed where he first settled, and the determination he brought with him from his native country had at length made him master of almost everything desirable around him.

As we descended towards Annapolis, the land and country improved, and the last fifteen miles were beautiful in scenery, and showed extensive fertile flats in the bottom of the valley. Bridgetown, ten or twelve miles above Annapolis, struck me forcibly as neat, clean, well built, and apparently prosperous. It depends almost solely upon the agriculture of the neighbourhood.

The structure of the narrow valley along which I came to-day, and at either end of which, but especially at the eastern end, so much fertile land is to be seen, is very simple, but very interesting. Two ridges of elevated land, called respectively the North and South Mountains, run nearly parallel to each other from Windsor to beyond Annapolis and Digby, a distance of upwards of a hundred