Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of OntarioScadding, Henry
History
Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario
Scadding, Henry
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
At the season of the year when the roads through the woods were
impracticable, Tyler's famous canoe was employed by the Messrs.
Helliwell for conveying into town, from a point high up the stream, the
beer manufactured at their Breweries on the Don. We are informed by Mr.
William Helliwell, of the Highland Creek, that twenty-two barrels at a
time could be placed in it, in two rows of eleven each, laid lengthwise
side by side, still leaving room for Tyler and an assistant to navigate
the boat.
The large piece of meadow land on the east side of the river, above
Tyler's abode, enclosed by a curve which the stream makes towards the
west, has a certain interest attached to it from the fact that therein
was reproduced, for the first time in these parts, that peculiarly
pleasant English scene, a hop-garden. Under the care of Mr. James Case,
familiar with the hop in Sussex, this graceful and useful plant was here
for several seasons to be seen passing through the successive stages of
its scientific cultivation; in early spring sprouting from the surface
of the rich black vegetable mould; then trained gradually over, and at
length clothing richly the poles or groups of poles set at regular
distances throughout the enclosure; overtopping these supports; by and
by loading them heavily with a plentiful crop of swaying clusters; and
then finally, when in a sufficiently mature state, prostrated, props and
all, upon the ground, and stripped of their fragrant burden, the real
object of all the pains taken.--From this field many valuable pockets of
hops were gathered; and the quality of the plant was pronounced to be
good. Mr. Case afterwards engaged extensively in the same occupation in
the neighbourhood of Newmarket.
About the dry, sandy table-land that overlooked the river on each side
in this neighbourhood, the burrows of the fox, often with little
families within, were plentifully to be met with. The marmot too,
popularly known as the woodchuck, was to be seen on sunny days sitting
up upon its haunches at holes in the hill-side. We could at this moment
point out the ancient home of a particular animal of this species, whose
ways we used to note with some curiosity.--Here were to be found racoons
also; but these, like the numerous squirrels, black, red, flying and
striped, were visible only towards the decline of summer, when the maize
and the nuts began to ripen. At that period also, bears, he-bears and
she-bears, accompanied by their cubs, were not unfamiliar objects,
wherever the blackberry and raspberry grew. In the forest, moreover,
hereabout, a rustle in the underbrush, and something white seen dancing
up and down in the distance like the plume of a mounted knight, might at
any moment indicate that a group of deer had caught sight of one of the
dreaded human race, and, with tails uplifted, had bounded incontinently
away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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