[* Shingles are made either of pine or cedar.  I prefer the white pine, because it is less liable to gutter with the rain, and makes an evener roof.  Every settler in the bush should know how to make shingles, and how to choose a tree fit for that purpose, or much labour may be thrown uselessly away.  I do not know anything more annoying than, after cutting down a tree, perhaps more than four feet in diameter, and sawing a block eighteen inches long out of the centre, to find that it will not split fair, or (if it does) that the wood eats, which means, that the grain, though straight in the length of the shingle, makes short deep curves, which render it bad to split, and cause holes to appear in the shingle when you come to shave them.  The grain of most trees naturally inclines towards the sun, or the same way round the tree as the sun’s course.  Consequently, a tree may be perfectly straight in the grain, where you chop it down, yet, ten or twelve feet up, it may wind so much as to be totally useless.  To obviate this difficulty, attend to the following hints.:—­First, select a good-sized tree, the larger the better, perfectly clear of outside knots for fifty or sixty feet.  The head should be luxuriant, and the large limbs drooping downwards.  Peel off with your axe a stripe of bark as high as you can reach.  If, on examination, the grain is the least inclined towards the sun, reject it.  If, on the contrary, it curves slightly in the opposite direction, or against the sun, you may proceed to try it by cutting out a piece a foot long, and three or four inches deep.  Place your axe in the centre, and split it open.  Continue to do so till you have reduced the piece to the thickness of two shingles, which again divide neatly in the middle.  If the timber is good and fit for your purpose, the pieces will fly apart with a sudden snap, and will be perfectly clear in the grain on both sides, while, if the timber be not good, the grain of the one piece will eat into the other, or run off without splitting clear the whole length of the block.  The blocks should be cut eighteen inches long, and split into quarters, and the sap-wood dressed off.  It is then ready for the frow—­as the instrument used for splitting shingles is called.  A good splitter will keep two men shaving and packing.  The proper thickness is four to the inch:  the packing-frame should be forty inches long, and contain fifty courses of shingles, which make a thousand.  The price varies from five shillings to seven and sixpence, according to quality.  The upper bar of the packing-frame should be wedged down very tightly across the centre of the bunch, which will keep them from warping with the sun.]

I was anxious to complete the outside walls, roof, and chimneys before the winter set in, so that I might be able to work at the finishing part inside, under cover, and with the benefit of a fire.