Nairne was a good farmer and his letters contain many references to farming operations.  At Murray Bay, he says, plowing goes on for seven months in the year, from the middle of April to the middle of November.  But the Canadians do not plough well; they do not understand how to preserve the crops when cut; and, on the whole, are backward in agriculture.  He himself preserved for a domain more land than he could ever get cleared, for this clearing was heavy work.  Some of the soil at Murray Bay is very good.  Gilchrist writes indeed to say that he has been talking in Scotland about Nairne’s land.  “On my mentioning that you had lime, without digging for it, it was acknowledged that you possessed all the advantages possible and that anything might be done with ground such as yours which is dry; and I verily believe would you thoroughly lime your land you may keep it in crops as long as you please and have prodigious returns.”  Good farming, he says, Nairne may have and he should preserve good fishing; then Murray Bay will be perfect.  “If I have the pleasure of seeing your sisters, I’ll represent Mal Bay as the counterpart of Paradise before the fall.”  He adds some local characterizations.  “Catish will do for Eve, La Grange for Adam, and Dufour for the Devil.”

Nairne was married in 1766 to Christiana Emery.  Of her history I know nothing, except that she was born in Edinburgh and married in Canada.  Soon after marriage Nairne paid a long visit to Scotland and there in 1767 the freedom of the borough of Sterling was conferred upon him.  Mrs. Nairne must have been considerably younger than her husband, for though he lived to ripe old age, she survived him by twenty-six years, dying at Murray Bay in 1828.  Whether she brought any dowry I do not know; Nairne certainly had had in mind the improvement of his position by marrying.  Nine children were born to them but three died in childhood of an epidemic fever that broke out at Murray Bay in 1773 while Nairne was in Scotland.  A fourth child, Anne, died of consumption.  Five children lived to grow up—­three daughters and two sons.

Canada seemed so remote that it was not easy for Nairne to keep in touch with his kin.  The scattering of families, one of the penalties Imperial Britain, with a world wide domain, imposes upon her sons, had taken Nairne’s brother Robert to India.  At a time only ten years later than Clive’s great victory of Plassey, Britain’s grasp on the country was, as yet, by no means certain and India was amazingly remote; five years usually elapsed between the sending of a letter to India from Canada and the receipt of a reply!  On January 5th, 1770, Robert Nairne writes from Marlborough, India, acknowledging a letter from his brother John, only recently received, dated April 21, 1767.  The brothers discuss family news and family plans, their old father’s health, the desirability of settling down at home in Scotland, the life each is living, remote from that home.