I had very foolishly hired two Irish emigrants, who had not been longer
in Canada than myself, and of course knew nothing either of chopping,
logging, fencing, or, indeed, any work belonging to the country. The
consequence of this imprudence was, that the first ten acres I cleared
cost me nearly 5 pounds an acre*--at least 2 pounds more than it should
have done. Experience is often dearly bought, and in this instance the
proverb was fully verified.

[* The usual price for clearing land, and fencing it fit for sowing,
is, for hard wood, from eleven to twelve dollars per acre; for
evergreen, such as pine, hemlock, cedar, or where that kind of timber
predominates, from twelve to fourteen dollars per acre. There is no
fixed price for swamp.]

I found chopping, in the summer months, very laborious. I should have
underbrushed my fallow in the fall, before the leaves fell, and chopped
the large timber during the winter months, when I should have had the
warm weather for logging and burning, which should be completed by the
first day of September. So, for want of experience, it was all up-hill
work with me.

This was the season for musquitoes and black flies. The latter are ten
times the worse of the two. This happened to be a bad fly year, and I,
being a new comer, was nearly devoured by them. Luckily, they do not
last more than a month, and it is only before rain that they are so
very annoying. I have seen children whose necks were one mass of sores,
from the poisonous nature of their bite: sheep, calves, and foals, are
sometimes killed by them. Nor is this, indeed, an unfrequent
occurrence. It must be, however, borne in mind that, as the country is