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THE FOUNDING the rivers were bound with ice, Capron rode again to the Forks, and after further bargaining, agreed to pay $IO,OOO for Holme's land, buildings, and plaster-rights. As a result of this agreement, on Mavy 6, 1829,' Capron and his family climbed into their "pleasure wagon", and followed by a heavy wagon driven by Philip Beemer and containing their household goods, began their migration to the Forks. The wagons pitched and jolted, and often sank deep in quagmires. Capron and Beemer occasionally had to use their axes to clear a path. Mosquitoes and blackflies swarmed from the bogs. Finally, late on the second afternoon, the wagons rattled across the Nith Bridge into what is now Paris. When they reached their log cabin, probably where Holme had lived, Capron wrote in his account book: Grand River Farm, May 7, 1829: Arrived on the premises with my family on Thursday afternoon. Having established his family in its new home, Capron began energetically to develop his estate. First, he extended the boundaries of the eighty-acre clearing that Holme's men had already cut from the oak-dotted plain. In a letter to his brother Horace, dated Janu- ary 30, 183o, he reveals the progress he had made by that date, and his plans for the immediate future: I sowed all the land formerly ploughed to grain, in all nearly 50 acres; have ploughed the spring pasture of 22 acres and 8 acres by the barn; and commenced breaking plans for say 10 acres. This I mean to continue in the spring-a field 200 rods long and 70 wide, say 80 acres - all of which, I trust, with your help, will be sowed to wheat next fall. Clearing the land on most of the Capron estate was much easier than in many other parts of Upper Canada. An acre contained only. about 250 oak trees, and these could easily be killed by girdling the trunk. In a letter he wrote in later years, Capron described his method: I have cleared several hundred acres of oak land on the banks of the Grand River in Canada. I find by practical experience that the best time to girdle timber is at the full moon in Autumn. The timber dies so suddenly that it is not good for firewood after the first year-from dry rot; and common-sized trees will fall by the wind in the second or third year and none ever sprouts. I have had no experience with elm, beech, or other hardwood bushes; but I will wager a straw hat that any bushes cut at that time will die without benefit of clergy and will not sprout again. I had an excellent man that lived with me several years and girdled most of the timber for me. He used to say that he could see a tree begin to wilt when he was walking up to it with an ax. However that may be, it is plain to see that they begin to wilt within 24 hours. After the trees had died, Capron and his men would turn over the sod with a plough drawn by six oxen; and where roots and stones obstructed the plough, Capron would hire day-laborers to break up 15