it as their representative, and the _Canadian Agriculturist_
ceased publication in December 1863.

The half-century of British immigration, 1816 to 1867, had wrought a
wonderful change. From a little over a hundred thousand the population
had grown to a million and a half; towns and cities had sprung into
existence; commercial enterprises had taken shape; the construction of
railways had been undertaken; trade had developed along new lines; the
standards of living had materially changed; and great questions,
national and international, had stirred the people and aroused at times
the bitterest political strife. The changed standards of living can best
be illustrated by an extract from an address delivered in 1849 by
Sheriff Ruttan. Referring to the earlier period, he said:

Our food was coarse but wholesome. With the exception of
three or four pounds of green tea a year for a family,
which cost us three bushels of wheat per pound, we raised
everything we ate. We manufactured our own clothes and
purchased nothing except now and then a black silk
handkerchief or some trifling article of foreign
manufacture of the kind. We lived simply, yet
comfortably--envied no one, for no one was better off than
his neighbour. Until within the last thirty years, one
hundred bushels of wheat, at 2s. 6d. per bushel, was quite
sufficient to give in exchange for all the articles of
foreign manufacture consumed by a large family.... The
old-fashioned home-made cloth has given way to the fine
broadcloth coat; the linsey-woolsey dresses of females have
disappeared and English and French silks been substituted;
the nice clean-scoured floors of the farmers' houses have
been covered by Brussels carpets; the spinning wheel and
loom have been superseded by the piano; and in short, a
complete revolution in all our domestic habits and manners
has taken place--the consequences of which are the
accumulation of an enormous debt upon our shoulders and its
natural concomitant, political strife.

Students of Canadian history will at once recall the story of the
Rebellion of 1837, the struggle for constitutional government, the
investigation by Lord Durham, the repeal of the preferential wheat
duties in England, the agitation for Canadian independence, and other
great questions that so seriously disturbed the peace of the Ca