The Indian hemp[181] is seen in abundance upon the Canadian
soil, particularly in light and sandy places; the bark is so strong that
the natives use it for bow-strings; the pod bears a substance that
rivals down in softness and elasticity; the culture is easy; the root,
penetrating deep into the earth, survives the frosts of winter, and
shoots out fresh stalks every spring. When five or six years old it
attains the greatest perfection. It may be added that in these favored
provinces all European plants, fruits, vegetables, grain,[182] legumes,
and every other production of the earth required for the subsistence or
luxury of man, yield their increase even more abundantly than in the old
continents.

The animals originally belonging to America appear to be of an inferior
race--neither so robust, fierce, or numerous as those of the other
continents: some are peculiar to the New World; but there is reason to
suppose that several species have become utterly extinct, and the spread
of cultivation, and increase of the human race rapidly extirpate many of
those that still remain. America gives birth to no creature of equal
bulk to the elephant and rhinoceros, or of equal strength and ferocity
to the lion and tiger. The particular qualities in the climate, stinting
the growth and enfeebling the spirit of the native animals, have also
proved injurious to such as have been transported to the Canadas by
their present European inhabitants. The soil, as well as temperature, of
the country seems to be rather unfavorable to the development of
strength and perfection in the animal creation.[183] The general quality
of the natural grasses covering those boundless pastures is not good or
sufficiently nutritious.[184]

The native animals of Canada are the buffalo, bison, and musk bull,
belonging to the ox kind. The buffalo is still found in herds of
immense numbers upon the prairies of the remote western country, where
they have wandered from the hated neighborhood of civilized man: the
skin[185] is invaluable to the Canadians as a protection from the keen
wintery air, and is abundantly supplied to them by the hunters of the
Hudson's Bay Company.[186] This animal is about the size of an ox, with
the head disproportionably large; he is of a lighter color, less
ferocious aspect, and inferior strength to those of the Old World. Both
the bison and musk ox are varieties of the domestic cow, with a covering
of shaggy hair; they possess conside