Another old man, but lately deceased, was a continual source of amusement to the settlers. He died as he had lived, an enigma from the first to the very last. As nearly as I can learn he was born in Quebec Province, in the year 1782, and removed to this Province with his parents some time about the beginning of this century. Upon the death of his father he inherited some of the choicest lands in Ontario and for many years of his life passed for a rich man. A character he was in the neighborhood, and so recognized by all who knew or had ever heard of him, far or near. Perhaps the prime causes of his noted peculiarities were in his continually avowed interest in cows and matrimony. In those days the struggling settler was glad enough to get a cow in any honest way he could, and our friend was the man to accommodate all those in his locality in need of one. His system was to let the farmers take a cow from him for three years, and at the end of that time the farmer must return to Uncle Ned (for so he was called) the identical cow lent and another--the other to be generally a calf from the cow lent, grown to be a young cow itself. During this time the farmer had free use of the cow, and all the other increase there might be from her. The arrangement seemed to be quite advantageous to the farmer as well as to Uncle Ned. It enabled the former to get his first nucleus of a stock without cost to himself of anything more than the feed of the cow; and it equally paid Uncle Ned, for on his capital outlay of, say, $20 (for a cow), in three years he had it doubled, or about 33⅓ per cent. per annum, barring accidents of course. He seems never to have farmed his lands, but thought of nothing else, and talked of nothing else at any and all times, but cows--save and always excepting matrimony. Yet though he lived to be seventy-five years of age, he never attained the consummation of his connubial ambitions. But not to leave the cows too quickly, it is as well to say that Uncle Ned used generally to take in those days what were called “notes” for the cows. They were termed notes, but since the short document went on to enumerate that the signer should return two cows at the end of three years, etc., it would almost appear that such “notes” were short contracts. However, be that as it may, sometimes our friend had as many as one hundred cows out at a time, and consequently one hundred notes on hand for them. The curiosity in this particular was, that although Uncle Ned could not read or write a letter, he could and would at any time pick out from the one hundred notes any one asked for.