would not live in it for all the land it contained.

He had been induced, by reading Cattermole's pamphlet on the subject of
Emigration, to quit a good farm, and gathering together what property he
possessed, to embark for Canada. Encouraged by the advice of a friend in
this country, he purchased a lot of wild land in the western district;
"but sir," said he, addressing my husband with much vehemence, "I found
I had been vilely deceived. Such land, such a country--I would not live
in it for all I could see. Why, there is not a drop of wholesome water
to be got, or a potato that is fit to eat. I lived for two months in a
miserable shed they call a shanty, eaten up alive with mosquitoes. I
could get nothing to eat but salted pork, and, in short, the discomforts
are unbearable. And then all my farming knowledge was quite useless--
people know nothing about farming in this country. Why, it would have
broken my heart to work among the stumps, and never see such a thing as
a well-ploughed field. And then," he added, in a softer tone, "I thought
of my poor wife and the little one. I might, for the sake of bettering
my condition, have roughed out a year or so myself, but, poor thing, I
could not have had the heart to have brought her out from the comforts
of England to such a place, not so good as one of our cow-houses or
stables, and so I shall just go home; and if I don't tell all my
neighbours what sort of a country this is they are all crazing to throw
up their farms and come to, never trust a word of mine again."

It was to no purpose that some persons present argued with him on the
folly of returning until he had tried what could be done: he only told
them they were fools if they staid an hour in a country like this; and
ended by execrating those persons who deceived the people at home by
their false statements, who sum up in a few pages all the advantages,
without filling a volume with the disadvantages, as they might well do.