Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West: The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I)Strickland, Samuel
History
Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West: The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I)
Strickland, Samuel
Ontario -- Description and travel
[1] This article is very extensively made in nearly all the new
settlements, and may be considered one of the staples of the country.
The process is very simple; but great care must be taken in collecting
the ashes clear of sand or dirt of any description. If your ashes are
well saved and from good timber, ten acres should produce at least
five barrels of potash, each barrel containing five hundred weight.
Several things should be considered before the emigrant attempts the
manufacture of this article. Firstly, his land should be well timbered
with oak, elm, maple, and bass-wood. Secondly, it must have a stream
of water, near which he may erect his works. And, lastly, it ought to
be within reach of a market and a remunerating price, which, to pay
the manufacturer, should not be less than twenty-five shillings,
Halifax currency, per cwt.
The best situation to erect an ashery upon, is the side of a bank,
beside a running stream; and if there should be fall enough in the
creek to bring a supply of water over head into the leaches, a
great deal of labour will be saved. An ash-house, six or eight
leach-tubs, a pot-ash kettle, and three or four coolers are all the
requisites necessary. Most persons use a small portion of common
salt and lime in the manufacture of pot-ash. After the lye is run
off it is boiled down into black salts, which are melted into
pot-ash, cooled off, and packed into air-tight barrels ready for
market.
As soon as the settler has cleared up fifteen or twenty acres, his
first care should be to erect a frame or log-barn; I should strongly
recommend the former, if boards can be obtained in the neighbourhood,
as it is undoubtedly the best and cheapest in the long run. If I were
commencing life again in the woods, I would not build anything of logs
except a shanty or a pig-sty; for experience has plainly told me that
log buildings are the dirtiest, most inconvenient, and the dearest when
everything is taken into consideration.
As soon as the settler is ready to build, let him put up a good frame,
roughcast, or stone-house, if he can possibly raise the means, as
stone, timber, and lime, cost nothing but the labour of collecting and
carrying the materials. When I say that they “cost nothing,” I mean
that no cash is required for these articles, as they can be prepared by
the exertion of the family.
With the addition of from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds in
money to the raw material, a good substantial and comfortable dwelling
can be completed. Two or three years should be spent in preparing and
collecting materials, so that your timber may be perfectly seasoned
before you commence building.
Apple and plum orchards should be planted as soon as possible, and well
fenced from the cattle and sheep. The best kind of grafted fruit-trees,
from three to seven years old, can be obtained for a shilling a tree;
ungrafted, at four shillings the dozen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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