Page:Father Henson's story of his own life.djvu/229

Rh currants, gooseberries, strawberries, etc., and they are doing well, and in a few years we doubt not will be quite profitable. It is a mistaken idea that many have, that fruit trees and vines cannot be cultivated to advantage on account of the severity of the climate; I have raised as delicious sweet potatoes on my farm as I ever saw in Kentucky, and as good a crop of tobacco and hemp. We have at the present time a large number of settlements, and connected with these are schools at which our children are being taught the ordinary branches of an English education. We are a peaceable people, living at peace among ourselves and with our white neighbors, and I believe the day is not far distant when we shall take a very respectable rank among the subjects of her majesty, the excellent and most gracious Queen of England and the Canadas. Even now, the condition and prospects of a majority of the fugitive slaves in Canada is vastly superior to that of most of the free people of color in the Northern States; and if thousands who are hanging