“Nay,” said Fergus, “not too few. There are near a dozen birches on the farm above; and one may see a good many alders in the hollows near where we used to live.”
Angus laughed heartily at Fergus’s idea of a sufficiency of wood, and explained to him the proportion of trees to an acre in a Canadian forest.
“What can they do with them?” Ronald asked.
“Get rid of them as fast as they can; but it costs vast labour.—Forbes, who was not driven there by poverty, and carried money, was saved the trouble of clearing. He took a fine fertile piece of ground on the understanding that he would have to pay the highest rent of anybody in the neighbourhood. Canmore was the next to settle; and he liking the axe little better than Forbes, paid a sum for having his land cleared; but as his land was not so good as Forbes’s, he did not pay real rent for some time.”
“Did Forbes begin paying real rent?”
“No; for there was land equally good elsewhere, which he knew he could have for the cost of clearing and enclosing.”
“Then he paid the interest of capital laid out, as we do for this cottage and fence, and as Canmore did when he took possession of his land?”
“Just so. He first began to pay rent when Canmore raised corn enough to live upon. Forbes raised five quarters over and above what his neighbour could procure from his land; and then the agent came upon Forbes for rent, and he was willing to pay the surplus for the use of the best land. Then Keith arrived, with his axe in his hand, and two stout sons by his side, and no other wealth whatever; so they paid nothing. They cleared the land themselves, and built their own log-hut, and just managed to raise food enough to support them in the humblest way; and thus they were living when I arrived in their neighbourhood.”
“But why do landowners give away land in this manner?”
“They only lent it to Keith till he should have brought it into a condition to pay rent, till which time nobody would have given anything for it; and for this loan they paid themselves by taking rent of Canmore. He raised three quarters more than Keith, and was willing to pay them as rent to keep the land he held.”