The bull-frogs are very different from the green frogs. Instead of being angry with their comical notes, I can hardly refrain from laughing when a great fellow pops up his broad brown head from the margin of the water, and says, "Williroo, williroo, williroo," to which another bull-frog, from a distant part of the swamp, replies, in hoarser accents, "Get out, get out, get out;" and presently a sudden chorus is heard of old and young, as if each party was desirous of out-croaking the other.
In my next I shall give you an account of our logging-bee, which will take place the latter end of this month. I feel some anxiety respecting the burning of the log-heaps on the fallow round the house, as it appears to me rather a hazardous matter.
I shall write again very shortly. Farewell, dearest of friends.
LETTER XI
Emigrants suitable for Canada.—Qualities requisite to ensure success.—
Investment of Capital.—Useful Articles to be brought out.—
Qualifications and Occupations of a Settler's Family.—Deficiency of
Patience and Energy in some Females.—Management of the Dairy.—Cheese.
—Indian Corn, and its Cultivation.—Potatoes.—Rates of Wages.
August 9, 1833
WITH respect to the various questions, my dear friend, to which you request my particular attention, I can only promise that I will do my best to answer them as explicitly as possible, though at the same time I must remind you, that brevity in epistolary correspondence is not one of my excellencies. If I become too diffuse in describing mere matters of fact, you must bear with mine infirmity, and attribute it to my womanly propensity of over-much talking; so, for your comfort, if your eyes be wearied, your ears will at least escape.
I shall take your queries in due rotation; first, then, you ask, "Who are the persons best adapted for bush-settlers?"
To which I reply without hesitation—the poor hard-working, sober labourers, who have industrious habits, a large family to provide for, and a laudable horror of the workhouse and parish-overseers: this will bear them through the hardships and privations of a first settlement in the backwoods; and in due time they will realize an honest independence, and be above want, though not work. Artisans of all crafts are better paid in village-towns, or long-cleared districts, than as mere bush- settlers.
"Who are the next best suited for emigration?"