Wheat, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, Indian corn, potatoes, turnips, mangel-wurtzel, tomatoes, and other roots and grains grow in abundance and perfection in Nova Scotia. Apples, pears, plums, cherries, and a multitude of smaller garden-fruits attain the utmost perfection. In some sections of the country peaches and grapes ripen in the open air. HEALTH AND LONGEVITY.-The climate of Nova Scotia is highly favorable both to health and length of days. Men and women frequently attain to the age of eighty years with the full possession of their mental faculties, and in excellent bodily health. It is not unusual to find men enjoying good health at ninety; and not a few reach one hundred years, while some pass over that extreme boundary. Let the proportion of deaths to population in Nova Scotia be compared with that in Great Britain and the State of Rhode Island : 64 Nova Scotia, 1 in 70.71, or less than 1 per cent. 66 The climate of Nova Scotia is not noted for the genera tion of any disease peculiar to itself. Diphtheria has, of late years, been its most terrible scourge. CHAPTER III. NATURAL RESOURCES. THE natural resources of Nova Scotia are not to be surpassed by those of any country of equal extent on the face of the earth. Our sketch of them here will be comprehensive, though necessarily very brief. BOTANICAL.-We only enumerate the plants and trees that enter more especially into the industry and commerce of the province. The most important of these are: the white and red pine; the hemlock; the black, red, and white spruce; the fir, and the hackmatack or juniper, of the order conifero. The trees enumerated are commonly called soft wood. They are brought into market in the form of boards, plank, shingles, scantling, &c. The hackmatack is very valuable as ship-timber. Among the most useful hardwood trees are the black sugar-maple, the white sugar-maple, the white soft maple, the red maple, the striped maple, the mountain maple; the white ash, the black ash; the white beech, the red beech; the white oak, the black oak; the yellow, the black, the white, the canoe, and the poplar-leaved birch; and the hazel. The rock-maple ranks high for the superior quality of its timber. The variety known as bird'seye maple is much used in the manufacture of furniture. The black birch is also much used in the manufacture of furniture, and when highly polished is preferred by many to mahogany, to which, in that state, it bears a very strong resemblance. Birches are also used in ship-building. Among the ornamental trees of Nova Scotia the principal are the sumach, the wild pear, the mountain ash, the wild hawthorn, the wild red cherry, the willow, the aspen, the poplar, the white-leaved poplar, the acacia. Distinguished among medicinal plants are the black cherry-tree and the sarsaparilla. Among the wild plants of Nova Scotia, distinguished for the beauty of their flowers, are the May-flower, the white pond-lily, the wild rose, the Indian cup, Solomon's seal, the tree cranberry, the pigeon-berry, the Indian hemp, the wild pea, the starflower, the violet. The strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, whortleberry, cranberry, gooseberry, are the principal fruit-bearing plants. AGRICULTURAL.-For a country of such limited area, Nova Scotia possesses great diversity of soil, and the capability of raising, with profit, a great variety of products. Young, in his "Letters of Agricola," published some forty-four years ago, classified the principal soils of Nova Scotia as follows: 1. Marsh.-A compound of fine particles of sand, limestone, clay, calcareous earth,—of shells and putrescent remains of vegetables and animals, which lived and decayed upon it. 2. Fresh-water Intervale.-The finest of Nova Scotia loams. 3. Upland Loams.-Of the same material, but the parts are bulkier, and not so well mixed. 4. Sandy or Gravelly Uplands.-Unproductive to any remunerative degree, in their natural state; but capable of great improvement by the addition of clay. 5. Clay in the Unsubdued State.-The most barren of all soils, but capable of being rendered eminently fertile, by the mixing of a quantity of sand with it, sufficient to open its pores, and then spreading over it a small quantity of lime. Dr. Dawson, Principal of McGill College, classifies the soils of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton under the following heads: 1. The soils of the Metamorphic district of the Atlantic coast. 2. The soils of the Metamorphic districts of the inland hills. 3. The soils of the Carboniferous and New Red Sandstone districts. 4. The Marine and River Alluvia, Marsh, and Intervale soil. 5. Bog soils. First.-The Metamorphic District of the Atlantic Coast. If you run a straight line from the north of Clare, in Digby, to the head of Chedabucto Bay, nearly all to the south of that line will belong to this district. It is an uneven but not very elevated country. It is composed of slate, granite, and quartzose rocks. It abounds with lakes, streams, and rocky ridges; and contains the greater part of the barren lands of the province. Of cultivable soil, there are two kinds,-the granitic and slaty. The gra nitic is usually coarse and sandy, and often covered with black vegetable mould. In most cases it produces good crops. This kind of soil is abundant in the county of Shelburne; between Chester and Halifax; at Musquodoboit Harbor; between Indian Harbor and Cape Canseau; and in the southern part of Kings and Annapolis, which are on the northern margin of this district. These soils are generally deficient in lime, gypsum, and phosphates, while often well supplied with alkaline matter. It is a happy arrangement that this kind of soil occurs near the sea, where the very elements of fertility which it lacks can be supplied from sea-weed and fish offal, which are both abundant and accessible in the districts which have most need of them. The slaty variety of this district consists usually of clays-more or less stiff, sometimes light and shingly. When not too much encumbered with fragments of rocks, or too shallow, they are generally cultivable, and sometimes of very fair quality. They are capable of great improvement by draining, sanding, liming, and receiving an occasional covering of sea manure or compost. Soils of this description occur abundantly in Clare, Yarmouth, North Queens, Lunenburg, Halifax, and southern Guysborough ;-some of which is under excellent cultivation, and, for some kinds of crops, will take rank with any upland in the province. When properly cultivated, this land yields excellent pasturage, and might be made a source of wealth, by rearing flocks and herds. There are 140,000 acres of cultivable ungranted land in this section of the province. Second. We have the soils of the Inland Hills,-the Silurian and Devonian districts. Under this head may be comprised the Cobequid range of hills, extending from Cape Chiegnecto to the east of Earltown, on the borders of Pictou; the hills on the south side of the Valley of Cornwallis (locally called "the South Mountain"); all the hilly country extending from the sources of the Stewiacke through Pictou, Sydney, and Northern Guysborough, with the greater part of the hills of Cape Breton. With some inconsiderable exceptions, the soils of these districts may be characterized as good. They are often deep, and easily worked, and always fertile. In their original state, they are covered with a fine growth of hard-wood timber; and when well cultivated, yield excellent crops of hay, oats, barley, wheat, potatoes, turnips, and other root and green crops. In the more fertile parts of these hilly ranges, as in South Horton, New Annan, Earltown, the Pictou Hills, Lochaber, and northern Cape Breton, there are fine flourishing agricultural settlements. A considerable part of the soil included in the granitic district approaches in quality the soils of these districts, as in Clare, North Yarmouth, Queens, Rawdon, and Douglas in Hants, for example. The quantity of ungranted (crown) lands in these districts may be stated, in round numbers, at about 400,000 acres. Third. We come to the soils of the Carboniferous and New Red Sandstone districts. These occupy the low country of Annapolis, Kings, Hants, Colchester, Cumberland, Pictou, Guysborough, Sydney, and the several counties of Cape Breton. In some cases it rises on the flanks of the hills. Dr. Dawson has four varieties under this head.-1. The loamy and marly soils of the carboniferous system, which occur usually in the vicinity of large deposits of limestone and gypsum, and of which the soils of Mabou, Whycocomah, Long Point, Middle River, Baddeck, Boularderie, Red Islands, Irish Cove, and other sections of Cape Breton; Antigonish, South River, Merigomish, parts of East and West Rivers of Pictou, River John, Cape John. Tatamagouche, Gulf Shore of Wallace, Wentworth, and Pugwash; much, also, of South Colches |
