Canada and the States

by Sir E. W. Watkin

"Returning to Montreal, I spent Thursday in visiting various institutions of that city, and drove out with Mr.—— to see the country residence of a friend of his, which is hidden in a sweet little glen, from whence, however, glimpses of the St. Lawrence river are obtained. This gentleman lives here in summer, and employs his leisure in the cultivation of the fruits and flowers, which a fine soil and a forcing climate produce in perfection. He complains of the destruction of the large trees in his vicinage, regretting that those who own the neighbouring woods should be impelled to bring down, first, the oldest and finest timber, and should be unable to preserve even so much of it as might illustrate hereafter the magnificent proportions of the native forest wood. This is truly one of the sad features of advancing civilization. The fine old forests, like the native Indians, lose their noblest chieftains, and, degenerating to a few dwarfed and scattered specimens, at last disappear and are forgotten.

"Mr.—— told us much of the happy and comfortable lives of the farmers and settlers hereabouts. All have land; food in abundance, including sugar from their own maple-bush; cattle; horses; light spring waggons, which serve as family coaches when not required for the week-day's work; good homely furniture and clothing: in short, an abundance of all the essentials of existence, and even wealth—but they possess little money. In many cases, and now that agricultural improvement has become a necessity, this want of money is found to be a great evil. The ordinary sized farms, of 100 acres of good land, all in cultivation, are worth from 500_l_., to 1,000_l_.; and very often an expenditure of 200_l_. or 300_l_. in improvements would double their value. The legal rate of interest here is 6 per cent.; and as high a rate as 7 or 8 per cent could be got for small loans on mortgages for these purposes were the money to be had. The banks, however, do not, as a rule, lend money on mortgage, and the monied men of the country have usually lands of their own requiring the same sort of development. Foreign capital is therefore looked to; and doubtless it will ultimately be procured in abundance, the security being undeniable, and the rate of interest so high.

"Mr.—— does not consider the long winter any impediment to farming, but rather the contrary, as the sudden burst of spring, and the rapid growths of summer, make up for it; while in a country like this, where roads are so scanty, many of the farmers' operations are performed more easily during the snow and hard frosts which prevail.

"Leaving Montreal, by a short railroad of nine miles in length, constructed to avoid the rapids of a bend of the St. Lawrence, I came to Lachine. Here are the head-quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the house of Sir George Simpson, the Governor; and hence, annually, towards the end of April, proceed the 'maitre-canots,' or large canoes, of the company, manned by its officers and hardy 'voyageurs,' up the waters of the Ottawa to Lake Nipissing, and down the Riviere des Francais into Lake Huron.

"At Lachine I took the 'Champion,' a fine new steamer, built and equipped at Montreal, and worked up the St. Lawrence, along Lake Ontario, to Toronto, a journey of 450 miles, and occupying about forty hours in the performance.

"The navigation of the St. Lawrence is impeded by several large 'rapids,' formed by the action of the suddenly descending current upon sunken rocks deep below the surface of the water. On the upward voyage these are impassable for merchandize vessels; and, though the large steamers struggle through many of them, there are others which no force can cope with. To remedy these impediments, several fine canals, equal to any similar works in the world, have been constructed. The first of these, the Beauharnois Canal, connects, by a cut eleven miles long, the broad embayment called 'Lake St. Louis,' above Montreal, with the similar reach called 'Lake St. Francis;' and in the narrow passage between these unruffled waters are the principal rapids—the 'Coteau du Lac,' the 'Cedars,' and the 'Cascades.' The passage through this 'sixteen miles' declivity of boiling waters' is exciting. The large steamers rush down with the rapidity of the wind, through waves lashed into foam—sweeping close past the rocks and islets in the stream, and only kept in safety in their course by the united exertions of six or seven 'voyageurs,' and a pilot, at the wheel.

"The upper shores of the St. Lawrence are populous and well cultivated. In stopping to take in our supply of wood, which we had to do several times during the day and night, usually at quiet secluded nooks along shore, or on some little island, I had many opportunities of seeing the comfort of the people, and the progress of the country. The houses, usually of wood, painted white, or of some showy colour, and having verandas covered with climbers, looked both commodious and gay. It might be mistake, but I fancied that improvement was more perceptible when, passing the point where line 45 degrees 'strikes' the river, we came into the American territory. I was particularly struck with one farm near Warrington, over which I had half-an-hour's walk, upon the best fields of which were still protruding the heavy stumps of the forest trees, cut down ten or twenty years ago. The owner told us he had 160 acres, which he bought, partly cleared, seventeen years ago, for ten dollars an acre. He had, a year ago, refused twenty dollars an acre for it, intending to make it worth fifty; and during his occupation he had brought up a large family in comfort and independence upon it, and saved money. The crop of oats he was now clearing was a poor one, he said,—only forty-five bushels per acre.

"Arrived at Ogdensburgh, on the American side of the river, I spent some time, while waiting the arrival of the train bearing Boston and other eastern passengers, in going through the extensive and commodious depot of the Northern Railway. The works are not quite completed. They will cover an area of some forty acres, and comprise warehouses for the stowage of corn and other produce, a fine passenger shed, and large engine-houses and sheds for cars. The quantity of corn and flour stored here in the fall is very large. Last year it was 80,000 barrels. Unfortunately, however, for the railways, the rate for conveyance of these staples is brought down by the competition of the steamers to a very low point; the charge from Toronto to Montreal being but one shilling per barrel of 218 lbs., or a farthing per ton per mile.

"Opposite Ogdensburgh is the village of Prescott, remarkable as the scene of a deadly conflict during the rebellion, the traces of which it still exhibits, in dismantled houses, and a windmill in ruins.

"On the evening of this day we entered a part of the river, called, from the unceasing abundance of islets which gem its surface, the 'Lake of the Thousand Isles.' These islets, above fifteen hundred in number, vary in size from tiny things, little bigger than an upturned boat, to areas of many hundred acres. They are a succession of rocky excrescences, mostly covered with wood, which grows, or overhangs, down to the water's edge. Some of them are cultivated, but the mass are just as nature left them, when—their broken and jutting strata having settled into bearings far down below the stream, on the morrow of some vast convulsion and upheaving of nature—the forest era was at last established. How long a time elapsed before the action of the weather had produced, from the hard face of the stone itself, soil enough for the lichen and the moss, or for these, in their turns, to become the receptacle of the seeds of forest trees, blown from some distant region—is a problem. In threading these islands, sometimes our vessel passed through tortuous passages apparently blocked up at the end, and within a few yards of land, but by a sudden turn emerged into fine large basins, and so wound and twined its way along. As the sun declined, every island made a full, clear reflection in the glassy surface of the water; and the boughs and branches, the flowers by the water's edge, the very marks upon the rocks, were repeated upside down, as if in a perfect mirror. The whole scene bore an air of such complete seclusion, that our noisy passage through it appeared like a rude intrusion into some fairy realm, before time uninvaded by mortal visits. The birds were disturbed from amongst the trees, and the wild ducks and other water-fowl skimmed away, scared at the splashing of our paddles and the panting of our engine.