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Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) by Samuel Strickland
page 131 of 232 (56%)
things should be considered before the emigrant attempts the
manufacture of this article. Firstly, his land should be well timbered
with oak, elm, maple, and bass-wood. Secondly, it must have a stream of
water, near which he may erect his works. And, lastly, it ought to be
within reach of a market and a remunerating price, which, to pay the
manufacturer, should not be less than twenty-five shillings, Halifax
currency, per cwt.

The best situation to erect an ashery upon, is the side of a bank,
beside a running stream; and if there should be fall enough in the
creek to bring a supply of water over head into the leaches, a great
deal of labour will be saved. An ash-house, six or eight leach-tubs, a
pot-ash kettle, and three or four coolers are all the requisites
necessary. Most persons use a small portion of common salt and lime in
the manufacture of pot-ash. After the lye is run off it is boiled down
into black salts, which are melted into pot-ash, cooled off, and packed
into air-tight barrels ready for market.]

As soon as the settler has cleared up fifteen or twenty acres, his
first care should be to erect a frame or log-barn; I should strongly
recommend the former, if boards can be obtained in the neighbourhood,
as it is undoubtedly the best and cheapest in the long run. If I were
commencing life again in the woods, I would not build anything of logs
except a shanty or a pig-sty; for experience has plainly told me that
log buildings are the dirtiest, most inconvenient, and the dearest when
everything is taken into consideration.

As soon as the settler is ready to build, let him put up a good frame,
roughcast, or stone-house, if he can possibly raise the means, as
stone, timber, and lime, cost nothing but the labour of collecting and
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