[Footnote 184: Canada has not the fine natural pastures of Ireland, England, Holland, and other countries enjoying a cool, moist, and equable climate. Artificial grasses, now a most valuable branch of British husbandry, are peculiarly important in Canada, where so large a quantity of hay should be stored for winter use. They are also most useful in preparing the soil for grain crops, but have the disadvantage of requiring to stand the severe winter, so trying to all except annual plants. Clover, which is supposed to yield three times the produce of natural grass, grows luxuriantly; but in the second year its roots are often found to have been destroyed by frost. For this reason, it is necessary to have recourse to the species named Timothy, which is extremely hardy, and will set at defiance even a Canadian winter.--Talbot, vol. i., p. 301, Gould, p. 67.] [Footnote 185: "In the western parts of Lower Canada, and throughout Upper Canada, where it is customary for travelers to carry their own bedding with them, these skins are very generally made use of for the purpose of sleeping upon. For upward of two months we scarcely ever had any other bed than one of the skins spread on the floor and a blanket to each person. The skins are dressed by the Indians with the hair on, and they are rendered by a peculiar process as pliable as cloth. When the buffalo is killed in the beginning of the winter, at which time he is fenced against the cold, the hair resembles very much that of a black bear; it is then long, straight, and of a blackish color; but when the animal is killed in the summer, the hair is short and curly, and of a light brown color, owing to its being scorched by the rays of the sun."--Weld, p. 313.] [Footnote 186: Charlevoix says, "que la peau, quoique tres forte, devient souple et moelleuse comme le meilleur chamois. Les sauvages en font des boucliers, qui sont tres legers, et que les bals de fusil ne percent pas aisement."--Tom. v., p. 193.] [Footnote 187: The height of the domesticated reindeer is about three feet; of the wild ones, four. It lives to the age of sixteen years. The reindeer is a native of the northern regions only. In America it does not extend further south than Canada. The Indians often kill numbers for the sake of their tongue only; at other times they separate the flesh from the bones, and preserve it by drying it in the smoke. The fat they sell to the English, who use it for frying instead of butter. The skins, also, are an article of extensive commerce with the English.--Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, art. Cervus Tarandus. Charlevoix says that the Canadian _caribou_ differs in nothing from the _Renne_ of Buffon except in the color of its skin, which is brown or reddish.--Tom. v., p. 191. La Hontan calls the _caribou_ a species of wild ass; and Charlevoix says that its form resembles that of the ass, but that it at least equals the stag in agility.]