“Our shanty,[3] and all that it contained, was utterly consumed. I, however, succeeded in finding in the cellar beneath its ruins, as much provisions uninjured as served to carry me through to the settlements, which I ultimately reached, though not without great difficulty.” [3] A shanty is a building made with logs, higher in the front than the back, making a fall to the roof, which is generally covered with troughs made of pine or bass-wood logs; the logs are first split fair in the middle, and hollowed out with the axe and adze. A row of these troughs is then laid from the front or upper wall-plate, sloping down to the back plate, the hollowed side uppermost. The covering-troughs is then placed with the hollow reversed, either edge resting in the centre of the under trough. A door in the front and one window complete the building. Such is commonly the first dwelling of the settler. The lumber-shanty differs both in shape and size, being much larger, and the roof sloping both ways, with a raised hearth in the centre of the floor, with an aperture directly above for the escape of the smoke. It has no window. One door at the end, and two tier of bed berths, one above the other, complete the _tout ensemble_. These shanties are generally constructed to accommodate from two to three gangs of lumber men, with shed-room for twelve or fourteen span of oxen or horses span being the Canadian term for pair. CHAPTER III INEXPERIENCE OF MY FRIEND.—BAD STATE OF HIS LAND.—FALL WHEAT.—FENCING.—GRASSES.—INVITATION TO A “BEE.”—UNITED LABOUR.—CANADIAN SPORTS.—DEGENERACY OF BEES. Colonel B—— was an old and valued friend of my family, who had held a lucrative situation under Government for many years. His retirement from public life, on some disgust, had eventually led to his settlement in Canada. Now, his literary tastes and sedentary habits had ill-fitted him for the rough customs of the colony. Besides having scarcely seen a grain of corn in its progressive state from the blade to its earing and harvest, he knew nothing of agricultural operations. Of stock he was equally ignorant, and of the comparative goodness or badness of soil he was, of course, no judge. Such a man, in the choice of a farm, was sure to be shaved by the shrewd Yankee proprietor, and my poor friend was shaved accordingly. I found my friend’s farm had been much neglected. His out-door labourers were all from the south of Ireland, and had never before followed farming operations. In consequence of their inexperience, half the clearing was quite overrun with raspberries and Canadian thistles. (The latter weed is far more troublesome to eradicate than any other I know. It is the same as the common corn-thistle, or _Serratula arvensis_, so well known to English agriculturists).