An Account of Prince Edward Island in 1806 By John Stewart
Cultivation and Rural Affairs

Map of PEI in 1806. Click on map for larger version (270k)

Agriculture and raising cattle, are the general pursuits of the inhabitants of this Island, before the commencement of the last war a few were engaged in the fishery; at the first settlement of the colony, there was unfortunately too great a propensity to engage in the cod fishery, to the neglect of cultivation and improvements. At that time all the necessaries of life consumed by those engaged in the fishery, were necessarily imported from other countries, at an expence the profits could not bear, and accordingly most of the adventurers in that line failed. In the first seven years after the commencement of the settlement, ten times as much money was thrown away on fishing projects, as was expended on the cultivation and improvement of the lands; the American war during its continuance, completely stopped these schemes, and so far at least was of some benefit to the Island, as after the people were accustomed to agriculture, few of them had any desire to abandon it for the fishery: before any country can supply itself with the necessaries of life, to hold out incentives to its inhabitants, that must in their nature operate against the cultivation and improvement of the country, must surely be the highest folly.

Wheat, barley, oats, rye, and pease, are cultivated, and produce good crops, the wheat is however mostly summer wheat, but winter grain is also raised, and by many preferred to the summer wheat, and will probably become more general: both kinds are heavy, weighing from sixty to sixty-four pounds per bushel; the produce is various, depending much on the industry, skill, and management of the farmer, I will not say, that we get as many bushels per acre as in England, but I firmly believe, that were the cultivation equal the average produce per acre, would not fall much short of that. Barley and oats both yield fine crops, and are readily bought up on the Continent, at from sixpence to a shilling per bushel more than their own produce, I will venture to assert, that no person acquainted with this Island will contradict me when I say, that it is the first country in North America for both: I have seen the best oats sent from Mark Lane for seed, compared with the produce of what had been sown two years on the Island, which upon being weighed turned out to be full as heavy as the English oats: people who have seen American oats upon the Continent, can say how contemptible in comparison to this they are generally met with, nor do I think either barley or oats under proper care and management liable to depreciate by time, though no doubt here, as every where else, a judicious change of seed will be found beneficial.

Rye produces good crops, and is a very weighty grain, particularly the winter rye; it is a very sure crop, and hardly ever subject to any accident.

Pease thrive very well though they are not so much cultivated as might be expected: beans, except the kinds for the table, are not cultivated, though it is known they do very well.

Hops grow remarkably well, and as far as I can judge, do not seem liable to fail so frequently as in England, though as yet they are only cultivated by a few who are beginning to brew malt liquor for domestic use.

Potatoes are raised in great abundance, and in no other country better, I have had, three hundred bushels an acre with cultivation, very short of what is generally given them in England, they grow very well in the forest lands, when first cleared, and though not so large a crop, they are in such situations, more delicate, and much finer flavoured than any I ever saw elsewhere. Land that has been manured for a crop of potatoes, is next year sown with spring wheat, sometimes red clover is sown with the wheat, which will keep the ground two or three years; though no grass seed is sown, if any thing like common justice has been done to the land, it will throw up an abundant crop of natural white clover of itself the year after the wheat, an advantage that makes people less solicitous about red clover, which, though more productive, is not so much esteemed for hay.

Turnips are universally raised as winter food for cattle and sheep, though not to such an extent as might be expected; the seed is sown from the twentieth of July to the tenth of August, and by the latter end of October, they are a fine crop though never hoed; this circumstance alone will shew how little the agriculture of the Island is calculated to do justice to the soil: as the manure made in the winter (under our present defective system of management) is expended in the spring, the practice is to cow-pen and fold sheep upon the lands intended for turnips; the effects of even a slight dressing of this kind are very great, tolerably done it communicates a fertility, that is very evident for several years, under what in England would justly be thought the most abominable management, as three crops of grain, each with a single ploughing, are often taken without rest. The turnips are taken up in November, and are housed or laid in heaps in the fields, and covered over with such a quantity of earth, as to exclude the frosts of winter, and afterwards removed into the house as they are wanted, taking a mild day for that purpose. The Swedish turnips are found to answer very well, even when sowed as late as the common turnip, and in situations where they are covered all winter with snow, stand out that season with very little loss, and, under a more perfect system of management, I have no doubt will be found to afford a most valuable supply of food for sheep ill the spring, when it is of most consequence.

Many people raise some Indian corn or maize, which generally grows very well; it is of the short or Canadian kind, and though not so productive perhaps as in the United States, it is of a much richer nature than the southern corn, which is flinty and harsh in comparison; it is certainly a valuable grain, and the cultivation of it for domestic use, may be very proper, but it can never come into competition with wheat, for which the climate and soil of the Island are much better suited in every respect.

All kinds of garden vegetables that are common in England, grow here with very slight cultivation, but from the length of the winter, are of course later in their season: asparagus from the middle of May to the middle of June according to the age of the beds, green pease are not in plenty until the middle of July, cabbages and savoys about the middle of August, and new potatoes about the same time.

English gooseberries, black, red, and white currants, grow remarkably well, are large and well flavoured, and the bushes produce in greater abundance than I ever saw any where else.

Apples, cherries, and plumbs also grow well, it is probable that the winter is too severe for the finer kinds of stone fruit, but as yet no trials have been made, on which a judgment can be formed, A great many old apple trees left by the French, are still alive and bearing, and though it might be seen by them, what the climate was capable of producing, it was long after the commencement of the settlement, before any attention was paid to this branch of husbandry: it is chiefly to our late worthy Lieutenant-Governor General Fanning, that we are indebted for spreading, by his example, a taste for fruit trees, which, though not so general as could be wished, is increasing, and enough has been done to shew, that perfect reliance can be placed upon our climate, for producing abundance of valuable fruit, when I state that some of our fruit, the natural produce of ungrafted trees is superior to the produce of any trees we have yet imported; fruit gardners will be able to judge what may be expected from our climate, under a well directed system of management. *

*Mr. Beers of Cherry Valley, is said to have already five hundred bearing trees.

Horses, black cattle, sheep, and swine, are in great abundance considering our long winters, which render the procuring so much dry food necessary: the horses are in general small, but strong, active, and hardy, and being seldom subject to any complaints, live to a great age; it is a common thing to take them off the grass, and ride them thirty or forty miles, during which they have to swim three or four times perhaps, across broad creeks or arms of the sea, and after performing such a journey with great spirit without being once fed on the way they are turned out to grass at the end of it, and probably perform such another journey the next day equally well, and without appearing to be hurt by such hard usage: before the commencement of the late war, they were commonly sold for eight and ten guineas a head, but during His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent's residence at Halifax in Nova Scotia, he purchased several of them, and was pleased to approve so much of them, that they are now in request in that country, which has raised the price of them to twelve and sixteen guineas: but unless some other market is found out, they must soon fall again as the increase is much greater than the demand for them. In some parts of the island they are allowed to run out all winter, when they are not used, and maintain themselves by scraping away the snow with their hoofs till they come to the grass, on which they live, and keep in tolerable order till spring.

Many of the farmers have large stocks of cattle, and, indeed, it is too common to see them keeping more than they can winter well, it must be acknowledged, however, that the want of an adequate market is often the occasion of this apparent bad management; oxen are used in agriculture and for drawing timber out of the woods more than horses, and when the mode of working them in harness is introduced, they will be found still more beneficial; though the cattle are ill general small in comparison with English cattle, oxen have been known to rise to one thousand weight, seven and eight hundred weight, independent of the hide and tallow is common enough. Our cattle will no doubt improve in size, when the farmers are more generally enabled to keep their stock in proper inclosures as owing to the necessity their are now under of letting them run at large, the heifers commonly produce calves at two years old, a circumstance which must evidently hurt the size of the cattle. The quantity of butter and cheese made in the Island bears but a small proportion to the number of cattle, from this practice of permitting them to run in the woods, by which means, it often happens that a great part of the milk is lost, as they cannot always be found to be regularly milked, this is an evil which time will gradually overcome, by enabling the settlers to get enough of cleared lands within their fences, to maintain their cattle, without being under the necessity of allowing them to roam at large, as is too much the case at present. The butter is in general very good, but there is very little good cheese made in the Island, not from any natural defect in the climate or soil, but truly because there are very few in the Island, that know how to make a cheese properly, the greatest part of the inhabitants having originally come from countries where the art of making cheese is not understood.

The mutton and lamb are allowed to be very well flavoured, the sheep very commonly produce two lambs and are never subject to the rot nor to any other disorder; they are in general small seldom rising above sixteen pounds a quarter, yet there are people who by care and a superior mode of management raise them to a much larger size. I have seen the four quarters and kidney fat of a weather not quite two years old, weigh one hundred and seventeen pounds, and the four quarters and tallow of a lamb six months old weigh sixty-seven pounds, and these were the common breed of the Island: that so many of them are small will not surprise any body when it is known that the ewe lambs are allowed to run with the flock, and that they generally become mothers by the time they are a year old: The wool is soft and fine but short, the fleeces weigh from three to six pounds; stockings made of our native wool are universally preferred to any imported, and the coarse cloths the produce of our domestic manufacture in point of warmth and durability, exceed any thing of the same appearance I ever saw, though they are not properly dressed or even dyed of a good colour. The proper management of sheep has hitherto been little understood, the general practice has been to house them in the winter which not only hurts the quality of the wool, but renders the animal delicate and less healthy: feeding them in sheltered places out of doors has been lately introduced and is found to answer much better: Though nothing like the large flocks of sheep kept in England will be found here, the number of sheep on the Island is very considerable, I believe greater in proportion than will be found in any other part of America, many farmers have ten times the number that Mr. Parkinson states General Washington's flock at, upon his celebrated farm at Mount Vernon

Swine are in great plenty on the Island and thrive well, particularly the Chinese breed which has been lately introduced; they run at large in summer feeding on grass and fern roots, in the autumn they go into the woods where they feed on the beech mast, which in some years is so plentiful as to make them completely fat without any other aid, but pork thus fed is not reckoned good, being soft and oily; the beech mast is however of great use in bringing forward the store pigs that are to be kept over the winter, as it makes them grow very fast and they are easily wintered after a good run in the woods. Pigs are seldom kept more than two winters and many kill them at a year and a half old, and where the winters are so long, it is perhaps the most profitable practice: when put up to fatten they are first fed with boiled potatoes and finished with broken barley, oats, and pease: for many years past pork has been sold at, from three-pence to four-pence per lb. being about the general price of beef and mutton.

Domestic Poultry of all kinds is raised in great plenty and perfection, and sold at a reasonable rate.

Cutting down the woods and putting the land into cultivation is differently performed, some cut down all the wood, pile and burn it, others prefer grubbing up the smaller trees and bushes, and kill all the large trees by girdling them in the beginning of the summer, which prevents their vegetating the following year, this last is the easiest method but as far as my experience goes I prefer the first, as the labour of removing the branches and trunks of the dead trees as they fall is more tedious and expensive in the end than getting rid of all the timber at once. A good axe man will cut down an acre in eight days, pile all the brush, and cut the trunks into ten feet lengths: these must afterwards be rolled together and such of them as are not taken away for other purposes burnt; when the timber is heavy this part of the business will be but slowly performed by one man alone. The months of June and July is the best time for clearing land in this way as the leaves are full grown and the Stumps of trees cut at this season decay soon and are not so apt to throw out suckers as those cut at other periods: the leaves will not drop from the timber cut down now but remain on all winter, and greatly assist in burning the timber the following year, which is generally done in May: if there has been a considerable proportion of evergreens mixed with the other timber their tops and branches will now be in such a state as to insure the burning of the whole, the larger the piles the better chance there is for getting what is called a good burn; where there has been few or no evergreens mixed with the timber about to be burned, greater attention will be required in heaping the piles of brush close and rolling the logs together. If the weather has been dry for some time before this operation, care must be taken to prevent the fires running into the forest among the growing wood which it will often do at this time of year, and kill the timber for many miles; many people will be apt to suppose that this may be an advantage and aid in clearing the country, but that is by no means the case, as in general it only scorches the trees or burns them so little that by far the greatest part of them is left standing, and become so hard as to make it more difficult and laborious to cut them down than if they were still growing and if the land is good and not brought into cultivation soon, a growth of young timber will spring up in a few years among the dead trees that will soon render such land more difficult to clear, than that whereon the original growth is still intire: the first year after fire has run over a piece of land and killed the timber, if it is not cultivated, a very large annual weed called fire weed, springs up spontaneously; this plant has a large succulent stalk, and long jagged leaves, it grows the height of four, five, and six feet according to the strength of the soil, it bears a white stinking flower and disappears after the second year which is very lucky, as it is a great exhauster and injures land much. Besides increasing the difficulties of clearing and bringing the land into cultivation, these fires often destroy a great deal of valuable timber which, if left growing, would soon come into demand for exportation, and the want of which even for domestic purposes may become a serious loss, for though the trees will stand many years after they are killed, all except the pines soon become unfit for use, upon the whole I am persuaded that no man who understands the proper management of wood lands will ever wish to see the timber on them killed by fire until he has a prospect, of being able to bring them into cultivation.

After the operation of burning a piece of new land is completed, expert cultivators manage to plough among the stumps, this is done with a short one-handled plough, with the share and coulter strongly locked together, and drawn by a pair of stout oxen; they dont pretend to make a straight furrow, the object is to stir as much of the surface as possible, they are often stopped by the roots, some of which the plough will break, others they are obliged to cut with an axe, which must always be at hand on these occasions; an expert workman will contrive, in this way, to turn up more ground than could be believed by those unacquainted with the business; in some lands this method of ploughing at first is impracticable, from the roots of the trees running so much along the surface: such land must be stirred with hoes, first sowing the seed on the burnt surface; in other places after what is called a good burn, the surface will sometimes become so soft and mellow, that the seed may be covered by means of triangular harrows with wooden tines, taking care to stir such places as the harrow does not touch with hand rakes. If potatoes are to be planted in new land, round holes are made in the surface ten or twelve inches in diameter, and three inches deep, the holes should be two feet apart, three or four sets are planted in each hole, and the surface mould returned upon them, they require being twice well hoed in the course of the season, and will produce a fine crop, and leave the land in good order for a crop of wheat the ensuing year.

People unacquainted with clearing woodlands, are apt to be frightened with the apparent difficulty, and an idea has been propagated, that Europeans who are mostly unused to the axe in their native country, seldom make good axe-men, and no doubt but some continue long aukward, and so they would at any other employment to which they were not early accustomed; but so far from that being, generally the case, that I have seen many young men from Scotland on this Island, who would lay wagers before the end of the first winter with the most expert axe-men in their neighbourhood, and before they were two years on the Island, would earn as much money at clearing woodland, as any American in the country. It is this terror of encountering with the supposed difficulties of clearing woodland that induces so many people from Great Britain and Ireland, to prefer the American States to our own colonies in America, expecting from the more advanced state of improvement and settlement in the former that they will be able to get into lands already cleared and cultivated: but for such lands they will pay very high, and will often find them worn out, and not worth the occupying; so perfectly is this understood among them, that it is generally accounted more profitable for a young farmer settling in life to go upon new, than to remain upon old cultivated lands, and this change they are frequently enabled to make to great advantage, by the avidity of Europeans for old cultivated in preference to forest lands; Volney in his view of the states which has been already quoted, puts this traffic in a very clear light.

Very little use is made of any manure except stable and cow dung, penning cattle and folding sheep: on the north side of the Island most of the inhabitants are so situated as to have a great abundance of sea ware in their power, which is driven ashore in great bodies all along the coast in the autumn, and considerable use is made of it with great advantage; but not a 20th part of what comes on shore is ever used, indeed the settlements along the coast are too far apart for that. Dung is seldom suffered to remain in a heap over the summer to ferment and destroy the seeds of weeds, but is taken every spring from the cow-houses and stables, and either spread on the ground and ploughed in, or put into the drills for potatoes, the consequence of such wretched management is an abundance of couch grass in a few years, which few have the resolution to attempt getting rid of in any other way than letting the land out to pasture, which in five or six years will destroy this powerful obstacle to cultivation. Compost heaps are seldom formed, though many districts abound in valuable materials for that purpose. Besides the immence beds of shell fish that many of our harbours contain presenting a most valuable manure to the adjoining lands, the flats in all our rivers are composed of a deep black stinking mud, consisting of decayed animal and vegetable substances, which have been accumulating for ages, the quantity of it is inexhaustible and easily obtained, and though very little use has yet been made of it, enough is known to ascertain that it makes a valuable manure.

Flax and hemp, particularly the former thrive well, and every farmer raises a patch of it yearly, which is manufactured into linen for domestic use; hemp is also raised in small quantities, the inhabitants in general cloath themselves in their ordinary and working cloaths most families making between woollen and linen from two to three hundred yards of cloth a year.

It is much to be regretted, that so few of the inhabitants come from countries where agriculture is understood, an intelligent cultivator will at every step have occasion to remark how much more might have been done by the same number of people had they been acquainted with husbandry as it is practiced in England; when I state that not one farmer in twenty, ever thinks of raising or purchasing grass seed of any kind, my readers will be able to conceive how little our soil is indebted to our system of management; at present I firmly believe that the simple alternation of every farmer in the Island seeding properly such land as he lets out for grass, would have the effect in a very few years of doubling the quantity of agricultural produce of every kind. Indeed the conduct of our rural affairs in most respects is extremely defective, there are few cultivators among us who theorize, and still fewer who read; yet agriculture is, and must long continue to be the chief pursuit of the inhabitants of this Island, if they attend to their true interest: every tree which is cut down in the forest opens to the sun a new spot of earth, which, with cultivation, will produce food for man and beast: as the country becomes more and more clear, pasture for cattle will increase, and the manure of our stocks will enable us to enrich our lands, and extend our cultivation. It is impossible to conceive what quantities may be produced of beef, pork, mutton, butter, poultry, wheat, barley, oats, and pease, articles which, from our maritime situation and the wants of our neighbours, will always find a ready and profitable market.

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