he has found time to plant a few fruit trees, and has now a flourishing young orchard, and a garden wherein are herbs of “fragrant smell and spicy taste,” to give a warm relish to the night’s repast.  For the cultivation of a garden the natives, unless the more opulent of them, seem to care little; and outside the dwelling of a blue nose there is little to be seen, unless it be a cucumber bed among the chips, or a patch of Indian corn.  Again, the Scotch settlers may be known by the taste shown in selecting a garden spot—­a gentle declivity, sloping to a silvery stream, by which stand a few household trees that he has permitted to remain—­beneath them a seat is placed, and in some cherished spot, watched over with the tenderest care, is an exotic sprig of heath or broom.  About the Hibernian’s dwelling may be a mixture of all these differing tastes, while perhaps a little of the national ingenuity may be displayed in a broken window, repaired with an old hat, or an approximation towards friendliness between the domestic animals and the inmates.  With the interior of these dwellings one is agreeably surprised, they (that is, generally speaking), appear so clean and comfortable.  Outside the logs are merely hewed flat, and the interstices filled up with moss and clay, the roof and ends being patched up with boards and bark, or anything to keep out the cold.  They certainly look rough enough, but within they are ceiled above and around with smooth shining boards; there are no walls daubed with white-wash, nor floors strewn with vile gritty sand, which last certainly requires all the sanctity of custom to render it endurable, but the walls and floors are as bright and clean as the scrubbing-brush and plenty of soap can make them.  This great accessary to cleanliness, soap, is made at home in large quantities, the ashes of the wood burnt in the fire-place making the “ley,” to which is added the coarser fat and grease of the animals used for home consumption.  It costs nothing but the trouble of making, and the art is little.  As regards cleanliness, the natives have something almost Jewish in their personal observances of it as well as of their food.  The blood of no animal is ever used, but flows to the earth from whence it sprung, and the poorest of them perform their ablutions before eating with oriental exactness; these habits are soon imparted to the emigrants, many of whom, when they first come out, all softly be it said, are by no means so nice.

The large bright fires of the log house prevent all possible ideas of damp; they certainly are most delightful—­those magnificent winter fires of New Brunswick—­so brilliant, so cheerful, and so warm—­the charred coals, like a mass of burning rubies, giving out their heat beneath, while between the huge “back-log” and “fore-stick,” the bright flames dance merrily up the wide chimney.  I have often heard people fancy a wood fire as always snapping and sparkling in your face, or green and smoky, chilling