July 12—Have had a plentiful rain that has saved the crops, for oats are filling. I answered my sister's letter at once, with directions how to come. Have spent any time I could spare in trying to find a lot for them. Gordon walked in this morning with a letter mailed from Greenock, stating they were to take ship that week. As they may be here next week must decide quickly on a home for them.
July 15—Allan and myself have been on the trudge for three days, looking for a lot. Finally decided on one with a clearance of nearly ten acres and a shanty with an outbuilding. It is far north on Yonge-street, but all nearer Toronto were held at prices they could not afford. The owner leaves on account of sickness and sold the lot with its betterments and growing crop for $600.
July 22—Left home on Monday to wait in Toronto for arrival of my brother-in-law and family. They came on the 19th, sound and hearty. As I had directed them, they took a ship for New York and thence by the Hudson and Erie canal to Oswego, where they got the steamer for Toronto. Thus they avoided the hardships of the St Lawrence route and saved a fortnight in time. Looking at the map, I can see New York is Toronto's nearest ocean port. The teams got started early in the afternoon, but the road was rough and the horses had to walk all the way. It was growing dark when we reached the shanty, from whose one window gleamed a light, and at the door were Ailie, Alice, and Robbie, who had spent two days cleaning and making the place as decent as possible. A table of boards, with benches at its side, was spread with supper. A joyous hour was cut short by the teamsters crying out horses were fed and they were ready to return. They dropped us at the end of our lane.
July 26—Finished cutting the oats on the swamp while green and stacked them. There is a fair catch of grass.
Aug. 4—All the grain is ripe; cutting is slow on account of the stumps. Today there were four of us busy with the hook. Oats are not as plump as in Scotland; they fill too quickly.
CHAPTER IX.
THE AFTER YEARS
Further extracts from the master's diary would not help the story I am telling you, for it becomes such a record as many farmers keep,—when they sowed and reaped, what they sold and bought. Having completed the account of his first year's experience in the bush for his friend in Scotland, he ceased noting down his daily happenings, which for him no longer had the interest of novelty. The forest had been sufficiently subdued to enable him to gain a living from the land, and his life partook more and more of the routine of Canadian farmers. He was, however, much more successful than the majority of them, due to his energy and skill. His first decided start was due to the existence of that swamp whose discovery filled him with dismay. The forage he got off it enabled him to start keeping stock long before he otherwise could have done. In the fall of 1826 he bought a cow and a couple of two-year old heifers, and the following spring there was enough milk to enable the mistress to make a few cheese. These gave the farm a reputation which established a steady demand at a paying price. More cows were got, no grain was sold, everything was fed, and the master, with the help of the mistress, led in dairying. In Ayrshire she had the name of making the best cheese in the parish and her skill stood the family in good stead in Canada. That second summer the entire swamp was brought into cultivation, and it proved to be the best land on the farm for grass. When other pastures were dried up, cattle had a bite on the swamp, for so it continued to be called long after it had lost all the features of a swamp. The clearing of the forest went on steadily, so that each fall saw a larger yield of grain and roots. In the fifth year the master was rejoiced to find many of the stumps could be dragged out by oxen, and a field secured on which he could use the long-handled plow as in Scotland. An unlooked for result of the draining of the swamp and the sweeping away of the forest in every direction was the gradual drying up of the pond. A more striking instance was told me by a settler who was led to choose a lot near lake Simcoe on account of a brook prattling across it and which reminded him of Scotland. In twenty years the brook was gone, the plow turning furrows on its bed. The one great drawback to the progress of the three families was the lack of a road to Yonge-street. In winter there was little difficulty for then snow made a highway, but the rest of the year no wheeled vehicle could go over it. At one of the sessions of the legislature, when the estimates for roads and bridges was up, the owner of the 1200 acre block of land that was the cause of our trouble, made a pathetic appeal for a grant to give an outlet to three of the thriftiest and most deserving families he had any acquaintance with, and his appeal resulted in a hundred dollars being voted. Two years later, on being questioned by the master about the grant, the honorable gentleman (for he had Hon. before his name) told him he had drawn the money but there was no condition as to the time he should start the work. In 1830 there set in an unprecedented influx of immigrants, who wanted land. The honorable gentleman saw his opportunity and sold every acre of the 1200. Those who bought had to cut out the road, and making it passable for travel was hard work for years, on account of the size of the stumps and of many parts having to be corduroyed.
With the coming of these new neighbors, a school became necessary and in it services were held on Sunday. The master sought the help of a Presbyterian minister in Toronto. He came once; on finding how rude everything was, he declined to return. A North of Ireland family was no more successful with an Anglican minister. He had newly come out from a cathedral city in the south of England and was shocked to find the log school had not a robing-room. The end was that a Methodist circuit-rider took in our settlement in his rounds, which resulted in a majority of those who attended his services uniting with the Methodist church. The ministers who came from the Old Country in those early days were singularly unfit for new settlements. The Anglican on landing assumed he was the only duly accredited clergyman, and was offended at his claim being slighted, while his feelings were jarred by the lack of conditions he considered essential to the proper conducting of worship. The Presbyterian ministers were more amenable to the changes, yet their ideals were of the parishes they had known in Scotland—a church, a manse, a glebe, tiends, and a titled patron. The effects of State established churches in the Old Land were thus felt in the backwoods, which was shown more markedly in the strife to reproduce State churches in Canada. I look back with distress to the bitter controversy which went on from year to year over the possession of the revenue from the clergy reserves. The cause of strife was not altogether the money, but the proof of superiority the possession of the fund would give. With many it was as much pride as covetousness. When we recall the energy that characterized the agitation over the clergy reserves, I think of what the same effort would have accomplished had it been directed to evangelize the province.