always fond of it when a boy. I had made
some useful observations, as well as tormenting our workmen on repairs
at home, with the usual amount of mischief, and I now reaped the
benefit of my juvenile experience. I was able to make the doors, and do
nearly all the insidework of my house myself. Indeed, it is really
essential for the well-doing of the emigrant, that he, or some members
of his family, should have some knowledge of carpentry--in fact, be a
jack-of-all-trades; and, in that excellent profession, educated
persons, healthy in mind and body, excel the most.

There is a very true saying, that necessity is the mother of invention,
and in no country is it better exemplified than in Canada. The emigrant
has there, especially when distant from a town or settlement, to make a
hundred shifts, substituting wood for iron, in the construction of
various articles, such as hinges for barn-door gates, stable and barn-
shovels, and a variety of other contrivances whereby both money and
time are saved.

I have often heard young men say, they "could not" do this or do that.
"Did you ever try?" is a fair question to such people. I believe that
many persons, with average capacities, can effect much more than they
give themselves credit for. I had no more been bred a carpenter than a
civil engineer, in which last capacity I was holding office
satisfactorily. My education had consisted of Latin, Greek, and French,
and the mathematics. My time had been spent in my own country; riding,
shooting, boating, filled up with a little amateur gardening.

Want of energy is not the fault of the Americans; they will dash at
_everything_, and generally succeed. I had known them contract to do
difficult jobs that required the skill of the engineer or regular
architect, and accomplish them cleverly too, although they had never
attempted anything of the kind before; and they generally completed
their task to the satisfaction of the parties furnishing the contract.
"I cannot do it" is a phrase not to be found in the Yankee vocabulary,
I guess.

It is astonishing how a few years' residence in Canada or the United
States brightens the intellects of the labouring classes. The reason is
quite obvious. The agricultural population of England are born and die
in their own parishes, seldom or never looking out into a world of
which they know nothing. Thus, they become too local in their ideas,
are awake to nought but the one business they have been bro