Eighteen or twenty years ago a number of gentlemen located themselves in the township of Harvey.  The spot chosen by them was one of great natural beauty; but it possessed no other advantages, except an abundance of game, which was no small inducement to them.  They spent several thousand pounds in building fancy log-houses and making large clearings which they had neither the ability nor industry to cultivate.  But, even if they had possessed sufficient perseverance, their great distance from a market, bad roads, want of knowledge in cropping after they had cleared the land, lack of bridges, and poor soil, would have been a great drawback to the chance of effecting a prosperous settlement.  In a few years not a settler remained of this little colony.  Some stayed till their means were thoroughly exhausted; others, more wise, purchased ready-cleared farms in the settlements or followed some profession more congenial to their taste, or more suited to their abilities.

The only persons fit to undertake the hardships of a bush-life, are those who have obtained a certain degree of experience in their own country upon the paternal estate or farm.  Men who have large families to provide for, and who have been successful in wood-clearing, are generally willing to sell their improvements, and purchase wild land for their families, whose united industry soon places them in a better farm than they owned before.  They are thus rendered greater capitalists, with increased means of providing for their children, who soon take up their standing in society as its favoured class.  Indeed, I would strongly advise gentlemen of small capital to purchase ready-cleared farms, which can be obtained in most parts of the country, with almost every convenience, for half what the clearing of bush-land would cost, especially by an inexperienced settler.  In fact, since grants of land are no longer given to the emigrant, there is less inducement to go so far back into the woods.

Since 1826, a steady influx of the working classes from Great Britain and Ireland has taken place.  This has tended much to the prosperity of the country, by cheapening labour, and the settlement of vast tracts of wild land.

Several experiments have been made by Government in sending out pauper emigration:  that from the south of Ireland, under the superintendance of the late Hon. Peter Robinson in 1824, was the most extensive, and came more immediately under my own observation.  I have understood that some most obnoxious and dangerous characters were shipped off in this expedition—­no doubt to the great comfort of landlords, agents, and tithe-proctors.

The Government behaved very liberally to these settlers.  A grant of a hundred acres of good land was given to each head of a family, and to every son above twenty-one years of age.