| Title: | From Thomas Radcliff, Esq., Upper Canada, to the Rev. Thomas Radcliff, Dublin. |
|---|---|
| ID | 4551 |
| Collection | Authentic Letters from Upper Canada [Rev. Thomas Radcliff] |
| File | radcliff/9 |
| Year | 1832 |
| Sender | Radcliff, Thomas |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | soldier |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Adelaide, Upper Canada |
| Destination | Dublin, Ireland |
| Recipient | Rev. Thomas Radcliff |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | son-father |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 2825 |
| Genre | settling, emigration |
| Note | |
| Transcript | Adelaide, December, 1832. My dear Father, I am ashamed that this should be my first letter to you; but having heard of us all, from others of the family, you will make due allowance, and sympathise with us in the melancholy loss with which it has pleased God to afflict us. The despondency we suffered at having our dear little girl taken off in a few hours by that fatal pestilence, and our anxiety for the safety of the other children, caused our difficulties, and privations, in settling, to be doubly felt. We are now, thank God, in perfect health, our spirits beginning to revive, and absolutely enjoying, if not a luxurious, at least a comfortable residence in our own loghouse— the timbers of which, about three months ago, displayed their leafy honors in the wild forest. It consists of a cellar, three rooms, and a small store-room, in the principal story, and two bed-rooms in the roof, or Ruff, as the Canadians term it. The edifice is thirty feet by twenty-five, from out to out. For the five rooms, we have three flues, and two stoves, and mean to be very snug and warm. When perfectly finished, the whole expenditure will be about £30 Hallifax currency, or £25 British. I have discovered limestone, which my Connaughtman, (an excellent servant,) has contrived to burn in sufficient quantity for building the stack of chimneys, and plaistering the interior of the house, all which he has been handy enough to accomplish; and it may answer very well for some little time, till I can build a frame-house, of greater dimensions, which I mean to do. But I am most anxious that you should know how this said mansion is situated. In order to this, I must give you some idea of the land My lot is beautifully undulated. A creek or small river winding nearly through its entire length, between rich flats, as they are here called, is bounded on each side, at some distance, by high banks, upon which I am leaving a belt of ornamental timber, which swells with the form of the hills, and is, in general, about one hundred yards in depth. Between those banks and the river, all trees are to be removed, except a few maples. At a short distance from the site of the town, the right bank takes a bend, as it were, across the flats, and on that my house is placed, commanding from its windows a second smaller stream, with rising ground beyond, and a handsome point of land, embellished by a considerable clump of the best trees. The quality of the timber denotes the richness of the soil. Ours consists of maple, beech, butternut, elm, white ash, hornbeam, a sprinkling of oak, and some cherry and bass wood; all indicating a prime soil, and with great correctness, as I find it to be, in surface, five inches of black vegetable mould, over a few inches of clay loam, with a substratum of strong clay— and almost all my land, of this description, is an extended level of wheat soil, without the least unevenness. The knowing ones who have seen it, say it will give wheat for ever; and speak of fifty bushels to the statute acre. This I think scarcely possible, as I saw a standing crop, which I thought much better than any about you, and which the Fingallians would say, was "the load of the earth," yet I am told it produced but forty bushels; but this is a wonderful return, upon the small acre, particularly when you consider that the stumps, after clearing, occupy nearly one fourth of the ground. To so handsome an establishment, it is necessary to have a suitable approach. I have laid one out with some taste, useless, however, to man or beast, till the snow comes— now knee deep, of glutinous mud, that would slip off your Wellingtons like a boot-jack. This is one of our miseries, and must be that of all new settlers for a short time. We are in daily expectation of this much wished-for frost and snow. These last three days have given some menace, (promise, I should say,) of its setting in. A great part of my furniture which lies at Kettle Creek, must remain there till the sleighs can work. The waggon and oxen would be swamped at present in the sloughs and mud-holes. It snows lightly at this moment; and I have every hope that I may have tables and chairs for a party of nineteen, to dine under this roof, this day fortnight, being Christmasday. Here we think nothing of the expense, the larder is so cheaply and abundantly supplied. We are much worse off, however, than we shall be next year, venison being our chief article of consumption—brought to our door at one halfpenny a pound. We have occasionally beef (not the best) with mutton and fowls; potatoes bad, and dear. I bought a young milch cow and a calf for twenty-four dollars—she gives a good supply of milk and cream— butter from 71/2d. to 9d. per lb. I was taught to think that all cattle would be well subsisted in the woods. In summer they certainly will thrive, even to good condition-—not so in winter. My teams of oxen are making the experiment; but if they did not get bran mashes, they would have a poor chance of seeing another summer. The first year is to all settlers, and to all animals under their care, the most trying and inconvenient; I mean with those who settle in the Bush. The second year brings with it its produce, its plenty, and its comforts. Till this last week, the weather has been delightful. I have been occupied in getting as many acres as I can cleared and prepared for cropping. Sixteen are already under operation, which will make a good open about the house. If I can get choppers in time, I will finish a good many more. The best management, in these new townships, is to clear as much as possible in the first few years, while you have a sure market on the spot. The task price is very moderate for such heavy work. My brother and I have set ours at £1 8s. per acre; the brushwood to be collected and piled, and the logs cut to the proper lengths. It will fall to ourselves to collect the logs, and to bum all; but this, where we have our own oxen, will pay well by the ashes, which are very profitable. While on the subject of clearing, I will mention some of the tricks to which new settlers are liable, and about which they ought to be circumspect, as no trade is exempt from a little humbug, here or elsewhere. It is easy, however, to prevent deception and disappointment, by having the contract made in writing, with a covenant that the work, when finished, shall be inspected and approved by two or three intelligent men. This agreement, with your own superintendence, will put the choppers on their guard, and will save much future trouble and altercation. I have read frequently of the cost of clearing, but have not anywhere met an accurate statement of the manner of performing the work; and having already acquired some insight, as to the necessary operations, you shall have the details, in the progress of which, those surreptitious methods to be guarded against, shall be noticed. 1st. The brushwood is cut away with a brush-hook, an instrument constructed here for the purpose, or with a light axe. 2nd. It is piled in heaps for burning. 3d. All trees, under six or eight inches diameter, are next cut down, and their tops are thrown on the heaps of brushwood—their stems are cut into such lengths as may be removed by two men, without inconvenience. 4th. The chopping of the large timber commences, and in this process different methods are practised. One (a very bad one) is to notch a number of trees, half way through, and then to fall a very large one against them; when, giving way, and tumbling one against another, they come to the ground in a mass, which it is very difficult to chop up, as some of the logs may lie four feet from the ground. To stand on those for the purpose of chopping, is not only difficult but dangerous, for should that upon which you are working happen to break, or a branch of an under tree, (being freed from the incumbent weight,) to spring up and right itself, you find yourself, in the first case, capsized among the logs, and in the latter, performing a summerset to some yards' distance. Another method (and the best) is to cut down each tree separately, by which means you can get about it without difficulty to chop it into the proper lengths, which, in large trees, should not exceed twelve feet. If longer they will require more than one yoke of oxen to draw them to the pile, where they are to be consumed. In this instance young settlers are frequently imposed on, by cunning choppers, who save much labour to themselves and give much more to their employer, and his oxen, by not adhering to the foregoing rule. This is one of the tricks. Another is piling up brushwood over logs that have not been cross cut, or at most but half cut through; a third deception is piling brushwood over the fallen tree tops, which ought to be cut up and carried to the brush heap; and a fourth is making the heaps of brushwood too numerous, and of course too small. I have been told of settlers, who had more than the wages of the first roguish choppers, to pay to other labourers, to complete the work; for in a field, badly chopped, the labour is more than doubled, when you come to reduce the entire to ashes. 5th. The process of burning comes next—for this you choose a dry and windy day, and kindling some of the brush-heaps on the windward side of the field, the fire is generally communicated to the rest, by running along the dried leaves upon the ground, or catching from heap to heap—you then, if disposed to expedition, employ four men and a yoke of oxen, in drawing together the larger trees to the most convenient places, and laying them side by side, till a platform of sufficient dimensions be thus prepared—upon this, other logs are rolled and placed, till the pile is terminated by one log at top. The intermediate spaces are then filled in by smaller poles, and the whole set This is usually done about dusk; and, at night, when many piles are in a blaze, the grandeur of the illumination can scarcely be conceived. An anxious settler will stay out all night, to see that the ignited logs of the pile are rolled together as they burn away, and that the remains of each expiring heap be removed to another, yet on fire, till all be consumed. 6th. Another method of felling timber is sometimes practised, but cannot be recommended. It is termed wind-row chopping and is performed thus —you begin by falling the trees in a straight line, and others upon them, from the opposite side, for a space of fifty feet—and this process is followed up, till the field presents to the view a number of grand ridges or windrows, as it were, of fallen timber. These are set fire to when they have dried a little, but the filthiness of the operation, and great difficulty of cutting up the half burned timber, cause this method to be seldom resorted to, a second time, by the same person. 7th. That which is here considered the best time to commence chopping, is, when the leaves are on the trees, before the sap begins to return; as the stumps of the timber then cut down, decay a year before those of the winter clearing; the timber is sooner dry, and the leaves also en crease the flame. By these means, in the Canadian phrase, you "get a good burn," upon which the excellence of your crop mainly depends. That part of the field which is not burned black, never produces so good wheat, as that which is. 8th. The succeeding work is that of fencing, easily performed, and at the whim, taste, or discretion of the proprietor. It the trees be felled in line, split timbers, of suitable scantling, pinned from tree to tree will make a good and economical enclosure—another method is, to put rough rails across each other angularly, closed at top by a running pole secured at certain intervals to posts or forked sticks driven firmly in the ground. But there are various modes to select from—for any paling about the house, I shall adopt that which you invented. 9th.—The concluding process of clearing, now remains to be noticed, viz. the collecting the ashes.—It must be done before rain comes; one shower would make them useless. They are to be safely deposited in a log-shed in the field, made perfectly water-tight. There they will remain safe till the winter, when your sleigh can transport them to the next ashery, or store, where they produce from four to six pence per bushel, paid in goods; that is to say, if the price be fourpence, fifteen bushels of ashes will be purchased by one of wheat, at 5s. But the misfortune is, that the bushel by which the wheat is sold, is the Winchester; and that by which the ashes are bought is double the size. This seems to require regulation, as the pot-ash manufacturers have art exorbitant profit, and think it well worth their while to follow and attend on new settlements, for the advantage of this particular traffic. An acre of hard wood, which is the quality of almost all our timber, will yield, as I am told, (but cannot speak from experience,) about sixty bushels of saleable ashes. This would pay more than the cost of chopping; but unfortunately for me, my land is not as heavily timbered, as in other districts, and may fall short of that produce. I think I have given you a minute detail upon the subject of clearing, on which you desired me, at parting, to be particular. You have the results of my short experience, and that of older settlers, whom I have consulted. Desire Maclin to send me out some gooseberry seed, with the other things I mentioned before I left home. Tell him I see no opening here for gardeners or nursery men; but that any industrious man can do well, though he should not have a shilling at landing. If he has sons able to labour, he gets immediate employment, for them and for himself, in the Government works, at 2s. 4d. per day, with rations;—also, 100 acres of land, with a house, at 10s. per acre, and he is allowed six years to pay the purchase money. It costs a good deal for a family to come out, but the Emigrant Society in Canada will forward any who apply to them and find their own provisions, free of expense to York; and from thence the Government will send them on in schooners, supplying them with rations; and when they arrive near the lots to be distributed, they will have their goods conveyed in waggons, free of expense, also. This is peculiarly advantageous to the poorer emigrants; and even the rich can have their luggage carried free, from York, by an order from the Government. We hope to have a good garden next season. The Canadians call potatoes, vegetables, pickles, and preserves, by the indiscriminate appellation of sace, and think themselves badly off if they have not sace in all its varieties, at every meal. In fact, there are no people who live so luxuriously as the yeomen of Upper Canada. In travelling, they pay as much for their dinners and suppers as gentlemen do; and this prevails even among the labouring classes. We called at Erindale on our route, and met every attention from your friend, Mr. M., who is an excellent man, and whom I hope to know better hereafter. But the miserable state of our children's health, and our own spirits, made it impossible for us to enjoy his society, and that of his fine family, as we otherwise would. I was, however, greatly impressed and encouraged by the forwardness of his settlement, and hope to return to it. I have filled my sheet so full, that I fear you will be indignant at the cross bar. Believe me, my dear father, THOMAS RADCLIFF. |
