“Of all settlers the medical profession seems to have least encouragement; they are worse off than even ministers; for in this country the population is so scattered, and the roads so impracticable, that they slave and toil beyond all endurance for a scanty pittance, and finding so small a remuneration, they are obliged to merge their professional engagements into those of the largely cultivated farm. Should they speculate on more extensive practice and larger returns in some of the towns there, so many have anticipated them, that they half starve before they can get into practice, and, after paying dear for their rashness, are compelled to return to the country, and to rough it like others in employments for which their previous habits have but little qualified them. Another evil is that all the three branches are here united, there not being a sufficient call to admit of a division; and then, again, we are all so healthy, excepting, indeed, the whiskey drinkers, who die by inches, but who have no peculiar _penchant_ for bitter drugs; so that had it not been for the cholera, which so extensively visited us, I fear the medical gentlemen must have had no great cause to congratulate themselves on their speculations. The best description of settlers are young persons with or without families, married or single, who can command about £1000 in cash, and have about £80 or £100 per annum, on which they can regularly calculate. These can purchase a fair quantity of land in cultivated districts, where there is good society and English comforts; can build their house ample, commodious, and well-looking; and can realize from their farm what will enable them to live as gentlemen. I know two or three families of this description, in this neighbourhood, who have freely exhibited their finances before me, and they are just what I have noticed above. And if these do well, much more those whose income is larger. Such are the settlers we most need, for improvements follow so fast in their train. Capital and taste are in their case combined, and their respective neighbourhoods start into notice and comfort.”