equisite to ensure success.--
Investment of Capital.--Useful Articles to be brought out.--
Qualifications and Occupations of a Settler's Family.--Deficiency of
Patience and Energy in some Females.--Management of the Dairy.--Cheese.
--Indian Corn, and its Cultivation.--Potatoes.--Rates of Wages.

August 9, 1833

WITH respect to the various questions, my dear friend, to which you
request my particular attention, I can only promise that I will do my
best to answer them as explicitly as possible, though at the same time I
must remind you, that brevity in epistolary correspondence is not one of
my excellencies. If I become too diffuse in describing mere matters of
fact, you must bear with mine infirmity, and attribute it to my womanly
propensity of over-much talking; so, for your comfort, if your eyes be
wearied, your ears will at least escape.

I shall take your queries in due rotation; first, then, you ask, "Who
are the persons best adapted for bush-settlers?"

To which I reply without hesitation--the poor hard-working, sober
labourers, who have industrious habits, a large family to provide for,
and a laudable horror of the workhouse and parish-overseers: this will
bear them through the hardships and privations of a first settlement in
the backwoods; and in due time they will realize an honest independence,
and be above want, though not work. Artisans of all crafts are better
paid in village-towns, or long-cleared districts, than as mere bush-
settlers.

"Who are the next best suited for emigration?"

Men of a moderate income or good capital may make money in Canada. If
they have judgment, and can afford to purchase on a large scale, they
will double or treble their capital by judicious purchases and sales.
But it would be easier for me to point out who are not fit for
emigration than who are.

The poor gentleman of delicate and refined habits, who cannot afford to
employ all the labour requisite to carry on the business of clearing on
a tolerable large scale, and is unwilling or incapable of working
himself, is not fitted for Canada, especially if his habits are
expensive. Even the man of small income, unless he can condescend to
take in hand the axe or the chopper, will find, even with prudent and
economical habits, much difficulty in keeping free from debt for the
first two or even three years. Many such have succeeded, but the
struggle has been severe.

But there is another class of persons most unsuited to t