us, _native to the
soil_, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new
house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and
frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of
them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme
brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the
iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if
not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.

Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of
new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and
sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in
the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear,
drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as
its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot
be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.

Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against;
the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has
obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is
another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow
colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of
the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it
settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.

The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at
night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the
young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark,
the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are
very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada.
What a singular dispensation!--for it alike suffered in Europe, and no
doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely;
but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was
ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.

By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in
the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in
Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It
is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding
poultry.

But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June,
and found the we