Life in the Clearings versus the Bush

by Susanna Moodie

Some time ago subscriptions were set on foot to collect money to rebuild this monument; but the rock on which it stands is, after all, a more enduring monument to the memory of the hero than any perishable structure raised to commemorate the desperate struggle that terminated on this spot. As long as the heights of Queenstone remain, and the river pours its swift current to mingle with the Ontario, the name of General Brock will be associated with the scene. The noblest tablet on which the deeds of a great man can be engraved, is on the heart of his grateful country.

Were a new monument erected on this spot to-morrow, it is more than probable that it would share the fate of its predecessor, and some patriotic American would consider it an act of duty to the great Republic to dash it out of creation.

From Queenstone we took a carriage on to Niagara, a distance of about eight miles, over good roads, and through a pleasant, smiling tract of country. This part of the province might justly be termed the garden of Canada, and partakes more of the soft and rich character of English scenery.

The ground rises and falls in gentle slopes; the fine meadows, entirely free from the odious black stumps, are adorned with groups of noble chestnut and black walnut trees; and the peach and apple orchards in full bearing, clustering around the neat homesteads, give to them an appearance of wealth and comfort, which cannot exist for many years to come in more remote districts.

The air on these high table-lands is very pure and elastic; and I could not help wishing for some good fairy to remove my little cottage into one of the fair enclosures we passed continually by the roadside, and place it beneath the shade of some of the beautiful trees that adorned every field.

Here, for the first time in Canada, I observed hedges of the Canadian thorn--a great improvement on the old snake fence of rough split timber which prevails all through the colony. What a difference it would make in the aspect of the country if these green hedgerows were in general use! It would take from the savage barrenness given to it by these crooked wooden lines, that cross and recross the country in all directions: no object can be less picturesque or more unpleasing to the eye. A new clearing reminds one of a large turnip field, divided by hurdles into different compartments for the feeding of sheep and cattle. Often, for miles on a stretch, there is scarcely a tree or bush to relieve the blank monotony of these ugly, uncouth partitions of land, beyond charred stumps and rank weeds, and the uniform belt of forest at the back of the new fields.

The Canadian cuts down, but rarely plants trees, which circumstance accounts for the blank look of desolation that pervades all new settlements. A few young maples and rock elms, planted along the roadsides, would, at a very small expense of labour, in a very few years remedy this ugly feature in the Canadian landscape, and afford a grateful shade to the weary traveller from the scorching heat of the summer sun.

In old countries, where landed property often remains for ages in the same family, the present occupant plants and improves for future generations, hoping that his son's sons may enjoy the fruit of his labours. But in a new country like this, where property is constantly changing owners, no one seems to think it worth their while to take any trouble to add to the beauty of a place for the benefit of strangers.

Most of our second growth of trees have been planted by the beautiful hand of nature, who, in laying out her cunning work, generally does it in the most advantageous manner; and chance or accident has suffered the trees to remain on the spot from whence they sprung.

Trees that grow in open spaces after the forest has been cleared away, are as graceful and umbrageous as those planted in parks at home. The forest trees seldom possess any great beauty of outline; they run all to top, and throw out few lateral branches. There is not a tree in the woods that could afford the least shelter during a smart shower of rain. They are so closely packed together in these dense forests, that a very small amount of foliage, for the size and length of the trunk, is to be found on any individual tree. One wood is the exact picture of another; the uniformity dreary in the extreme. There are no green vistas to be seen; no grassy glades beneath the bosky oaks, on which the deer browse, and the gigantic shadows sleep in the sunbeams. A stern array of rugged trunks, a tangled maze of scrubby underbrush, carpetted winter and summer with a thick layer of withered buff leaves, form the general features of a Canadian forest.