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Correspondance of an Emigrant
Letter, February 18th 1870


Dear Uncle,
I am going to write a letter to you to see if it will bring one in return. I have never received a letter from you. This letter leaves us all well and I hope this will find you all enjoying the same blessing. While I am writing it is snowing and blowing very hard and the boys cannot go to school. They have two miles to go to school. We have about ten inch of snow. I do not think you would know them if you saw them, so I will give you a description of them. James is the oldest, he is 13 years of age. He has been 5 years in school also. He is a stout boy. William is second, he is in school also. John is the third he is in school also. Peter is the fourth, he goes to school in the summer time. Elizabeth is fifth, looks after the baby. Robert is sixth, he is near two years of age. I see a good deal in the old country newspapers against weavers coming out to Canada but I think a weaver can do very well if he is steady and has his health. He must turn his hand to anything. Going into the bush a weaver is as good as a farmer for they have all to learn to chop and log. I consider a smart weaver is superior to the most of the farmers. This last two years the crops have been very poor and this year the prices are very low. Wheat is about three shillings sterling per sixty pounds, that is seven shillings sterling per hundred for flour, oatmeal is the same price, peas is two shillings steling 60 pound, poatatoes in the fall were one shilling per 60 pound, barley is one and nine pence sterling per 48 pound, tallow is seven cents per pound. My wife makes all the candles and soap and she spins all our wool and dyes it ready for the weaver. She makes the staw hats for the boys. When a man gets his farm cleared up he can get along very well. There is not to do in the winter but in the summer we are on the jump the whole time. I have one span of horse, that is two horse. We work two at once in the waggon or sledge. I have a young colt besides. I have three cows and four young beasts and some sheep. This is a good countr for a poor man. There our cousin James Brown, he has not yet been able to do any work for more than two years yet I do not think that they want for anything for ther neighbours and friends are very good to them. James Brown has got two of family. I was over at my father's yesterday. He is not very well. Him and my brother Robert were going to the mill with a grist when the sleigh upset and threw them down a bank and broke two of three of my father#s ribs. He has got a very hard shake. Janet and I join in love to you all,
John Good

Dear Uncle, I have often heard my father talk of you and aunt and the rest of the family. I have a lot of cousins in Paisley whom I have never seen yet I would like to see them but yet if I cannot see them they might write to me.
Your affectionate grand-nephew,
William Good

Dear Uncle and Cousins,
I would like to see that great town Paisley where my father was born and which he talks so much about and I may never see it but I would like you to give a description of it. No more at present but remains
Your affectionate grand-cousin,
James Good

My direction is -
John Good,
Motherwell P.O.
Fullarton,
Ontario.


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