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 carrying the materials.  When I say that they “cost nothing,” I mean that no cash is required for these articles, as they can be prepared by the exertion of the family.

With the addition of from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds in money to the raw material, a good substantial and comfortable dwelling can be completed.  Two or three years should be spent in preparing and collecting materials, so that your timber may be perfectly seasoned before you commence building.

Apple and plum orchards should be planted as soon as possible, and well fenced from the cattle and sheep.  The best kind of grafted fruit-trees, from three to seven years old, can be obtained for a shilling a tree; ungrafted, at four shillings the dozen.

The apple-tree flourishes extremely well in this country, and grows to a large size.  I gathered last year, out of my orchard, several Ribstone Pippins, each of which weighed more than twelve ounces, and were of a very fine flavour.  The native plums are not very good in their raw state, but they make an excellent preserve, and good wine.

Some of the particulars mentioned in this chapter have been glanced at in an earlier portion of the work; but I make no apology for the repetition.  My object is, to offer instruction to the inexperienced settler, and to impress these important matters more firmly upon his mind and memory, that he may have his experience at a cheaper rate than if he purchased it at the expense of wasted time, labour, and capital.

CHAPTER XIV.

MY FIRST SHOT AT A BUCK. —­ HUNTING AND SHOOTING PARTIES. —­ DESTRUCTIVENESS OF WOLVES. —­ LOSS OF MY FLOCKS. —­ COWARDICE OF THE WOLF. —­ THE LADY AND HER PET. —­ COLONEL CRAWFORD’S ADVENTURE. —­ INGENIOUS TRICK OF AN AMERICAN TRAPPER. —­ A DISAGREEABLE ADVENTURE. —­ HOW TO POISON WOLVES. —­ A STERN CHASE.