Then as now, the early fall was not the least pleasant portion of the Canadian year. Everyone is familiar with the striking beauty of our woods after the frost begins, and the endless variety of shade and colour that mingles with such pleasing effect in every landscape. And in those days, as well as now, the farmers' attention was directed to preparation for the coming winter. His market staples then consisted of wheat or flour, pork and potash. The other products of his farm, such as coarse grain, were used by himself. Butter and eggs were almost valueless, save on his own table. The skins of his sheep, calves and beef cattle which were slaughtered for his own use, were sent to the tanners, who dressed them on shares, the remainder being brought home to be made up into boots, harness and mittens. Wood, which afterwards came into demand for steam purposes, was worthless. Sawn lumber was not wanted, except for home use, and the shingles that covered the buildings were split and made by the farmer himself. If the men had logging-bees, and other bees to help them on with their work, the women, by way of compensation, had bees of a more social and agreeable type. Among these were quilting bees, when the women and girls of the neighbourhood assembled in the afternoon, and turned out those skilfully and often artistically made rugs, so comfortable to lie under during the cold winter nights. There was often a great deal of sport at the close of one of these social industrial gatherings. When the men came in from the field to supper, some luckless wight was sure to be caught, and tossed up and down in the quilt amid the laughter and shouts of the company. But of all the bees, the apple-bee was the chief. In these old and young joined. The boys around the neighbourhood, with their home-made apple-machines, of all shapes and designs, would come pouring in with their girls early in the evening. The large kitchen, with its sanded floor, the split bottomed chairs ranged round the room, the large tubs of apples, and in the centre the clean scrubbed pine table filled with wooden trays and tallow-candles in tin candlesticks, made an attractive picture which had for its setting the mother and girls, all smiles and good nature, receiving and pleasing the company. Now the work begins amidst laughter and mirth; the boys toss the peeled apples away from their machines in rapid numbers, and the girls catch them, and with their knives quarter and core them, while others string them with needles on long threads, and tie them so that they can be hung up to dry. As soon as the work is done the room is cleared for supper, after which the old folks retire, and the second and most pleasing part of the performance begins. These after-scenes were always entered into with a spirit of fun and honest abandonment truly refreshing. Where dancing was not objected to, a rustic fiddler would be spirited in by some of the youngsters as the sport began. The dance was not that