ploughing in clover, roots, etc. This he has commenced to do lest he might exhaust his lands, not particularly because he had to do so, but simply through fear of the future. The day may come, when our lands have been cultivated as long as they have been in England, that we shall have to buy outside manures and pay ten dollars per acre for them, as the British farmer has to do; but since we do not, the lot of our farmers is ten dollars per acre better than that of the English farmer. The most independent person in Canada to-day is the person who can do most things within himself. If a man were to emigrate to Canada who knew nothing but the art of cutting diamonds, his chances of success among us would be slim indeed. For general versatility the Ontario farmer is the equal of any people in any country. He can cultivate his lands, do an odd job of carpentry, build a log-house with his axe, and some can even shoe a horse or relay a plough coulter at their rude forges at their homes. Not long since I had occasion to call on a farmer and found him repairing the family clock, which obstinately refused to run in obedience to its pendulum. It was an ordinary brass affair, and not being a practical watchmaker, the farmer had taken the works out of their case and was vigorously boiling them in a pot of water on the stove. Rude as such clock repairing was, he succeeded in freeing it from superfluous hardened oil and grease, and got it in running order once more. The Ontario farmer’s success is not anomalous when we come to consider him physically, capable as he is of performing an almost unlimited quantity of manual labor, and of so many kinds. An American friend happened to be visiting me while a gathering was taking place not long ago here, and on viewing the farmers and their sons, made the significant remark, “What material for an army!” Dean Stanley, who paid us a visit a few years before his death, said that “the people who could conquer this climate could achieve anything sought.” As to conquering the climate this we have done, and to-day there is no more law-abiding, peaceful, intelligent, and industrious class in any country than among the rural sections of Ontario.