to the road; and accordingly these springless vehicles, poised on their broad bands of leather, rear and plunge very safely over and into the numerous mud-holes of the unfinished roads; while the light vehicles in private use, with their high fore-wheels (well enough for horses that never shy or attempt to turn short round), bound over them without doing any very great violence to the ribs and back of the occupant.

I had heard, before I entered Canada, many comparisons to its disadvantage in regard to enterprise and activity in various matters, and not least in regard to roads; and I had seen statements to that effect in various newspapers of the United States. It was therefore with some degree of surprise that I found myself travelling occasionally at the rate of eight and ten miles an hour on roads superior to any I had met with in Pennsylvania or Ohio. I endeavoured to ascertain what number of miles of macadamised and of plank roads had been made in the province, but no sources of information that I have been able to refer to give any general summary of them. In an able publication now

coming out and nearly completed, "Canada, Past, Present, and Future," by Mr. W. H. Smith (Toronto, 1851, 2 vols. 8vo.), I find detached accounts of the sums spent on roads in different counties of the upper province, under the head of "Public Works," and which, therefore, exclude the various smaller lines of communication made by private companies and by the townships; and a great stimulus has been given to the operations of the latter in those matters by the Municipal Act of 1849, to be adverted to more especially in a future page. On the roads, however, that have been made by the public, I gather, on enumerating them, that there had been spent, up to December, 1849, in the

Western District, on 4 roads, exclusive of

This does not comprise the whole of the upper province, the work from which I extract the statement being yet incomplete; nor is the number of miles given; but it shows no very great lack of public enterprise in that particular, for a population which in 1824 was only 151,000, and which had risen in 1849 to 720,000.

Between those periods there had also been expended by the upper province—

besides the sums spent on the St. Lawrence Canals and the Chambly Canal by both provinces.

Roads had also been made by private companies, but the cost of obtaining a special Act of the Legislature for each prevented their being very numerous. In 1849 a general Act passed, with very simple provisions, enabling any five persons to form themselves into a joint stock company for making roads. The readiness with which the land-owners and farmers of Upper Canada have availed themselves of these powers, is made evident by a "Return of the several Companies" under the Act of 1849, "autho

rizing Joint Stock Companies to construct Roads and other works; the amount of Capital subscribed in each, whether for roads or other works, and the extent of the road contemplated by each Company," presented to the Provincial Parliament July 18, 1851. No tabular summary is appended to the Report, but I have put the whole together, and found that thirty-seven companies have registered themselves to make that number of roads, and have a subscribed capital of 228,1467. There can be very little doubt, therefore, as to Upper Canada being pretty well supplied with roads before many years have elapsed, whatever may be her present deficiencies. The last part of the return asked for, as to the number of miles to be made, was not complied with.

Climate. Many erroneous impressions prevail as to the climate of Canada, and especially of that of the Upper Province. Extreme heat in summer, extreme cold in winter, deep snows, late springs, frosts injurious to vegetation, have been the characteristics usually attributed to the whole country. Accurate scientific observations,

and improving agricultural skill, are rapidly dissipating these opinions. A very interesting little Tract has lately been published, which places these matters in a right light:-"A Comparative View of the Climate of Western Canada, considered in relation to its Influence upon Agriculture," by Mr. Henry Youle Hind, Lecturer on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at the College of Toronto, &c. &c. (Toronto; Brewer, M'Phail, & Co., 1851). In this Tract Mr. Hind shows very convincingly the "decided superiority" of Western Canada "for agricultural purposes, over the State of New York, the northern part of Ohio and Illinois, the States of Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, the Far West, and the whole of New England-in a word, over the wheat-growing States generally;" and that the emigrant" in preferring any part of the United States" for farming purposes "is actually selecting for himself a climate of greater winter cold and summer heat, and not only more unhealthy, but also far more hazardous to the agriculturist than that which obtains in the Canadian peninsula." (p. 1.)