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LEGGE AUTHOR OK "the UNPOl'L'LAR KING," ETC., ETC -r WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS %^\^^ oti: USi- o AUI missioner Rol/mson on dairy-farming — Manitoba Dairy Association— I*ul)lic creameries — (Quality of Manitol)an milk — Free Trade needful to the development of the resources of the Dominion — Objects pro|M)sed in the establishment of cxperi..iental farms— The Hrandon Ex- perimental Farm — Experiments with native tjrasses — Cultivated grasses — Fodder corns — Farmers' institutes — Stubble ploughing — Winter work on the faini — The coal beds of Manitoba — The prairie in autumn . . • '59 CHAPTER VI. Winter aspect of the prairie— Grain clevatois — Social life of the prairie — Native Canadians — A peasant millionaire — State of education — Winter amusements — "Whisky sprees " — Sport — The prairie chicken and other game birds — Moose-hunting — Fox-hunting — The Virden Agri- cultural Show — The return of spring — Seeding — Experi- ments in weed-killing — Methods of testing varieties of wheat — Introduction of the Red Fyfe wheat — Tests of cereals on the Brandon Experimental Farm — Importance of early seeding — Harvests of Great Britain and Manitoba (1890) compared — The Battle of the Grains — White Connel and Ladoga wheat — Expected results from cross fertilisation — Weeds — Not an unmixed evil — " Breaking " and " Backsetting " — Horses in Manitoba — Hay-cutting — The grass-grabber — Wheat harvest — Early frosts — Their effects may be minimised — Climatic drawbacks exaggerated — Mr. Moore on early frosts — Stacking and threshing — Ignorance and avarice of wheat buyers .... 190 CHAPTER VII. The water supply of Manitoba — Alkali spots — Testimony of farmers to the supply of water — Experiences in well-digging I lo TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE — Artesian wells in Dakota — The duty of the Government — Frivolous objections — What the settler may do for him- self — His fertility of resource exemplified — Alkali water may be sweetened — Lot of Canadian immigrants in Dakota — Exodus to Manitoba — Yield of crops in Dakota and Manitoba — Scarcity of water due to absence of forest — Government encourage tree-planting — Cultivation of fruit- trees — Beet-root sugar factories — An unwise Cabinet Minister— Mr. Foster's speech to West Indian planters — Loyalty of the Canadians — The newspaper press — Editorial amenities — Other characteristics . . . 232 CHAPTER VIIL Manitoba as a field for emigration — Injudicious exaggerations — Testimony of practical farmers — Productive capacity of Manitoba — Comparative cost of wheat-growing in Great Britain and Manitoba — W^ho should emigrate ? — Farming an art to be patiently learned — Prospects for agricultural labourers — For mechanics and clerks — Opinions of old settlers — General contentment and hopefulness — Lord Stanley on the prospects of the North-West — A case of discontent — Lord Aberdeen's testimony — The highland crofters — Dakota contrasted — Experience of a farmer from Ontario — The qualities which ensure success — Hundreds have succeeded without capital — How to get on — Advan- tage of a small capital — Estimate of capital required under differing circumstances — Result of five years' work — "We live the lives of country gentlemen " . . . 269 ILLUSTRATIONS. -***- Parkfield, near Elkhorn Map of Manitoba View of Winnipeo Farm near Brandon Lake of the Woods Breaking the Prairie A Farmhouse, Manitoba A Bachelor's Shanty Sportsman's Camp Stacking in Manitoba . Frontispiece Facing page 13 25 36 54 59 74 137 199 >. 230 f s ^ .,.\' 1 iMli-nnih Railways Constr Railways Prujed Railway Stationt Grain Eleuators] Schools, Past Officus, Trails, Elevations aboui thus, are friiiiil and apparent^ than by Qeoliu Municipal Boundariu:\ A Section of 640 Acre^ Plan of a Township Rhi numbers of Sections! Township numbers rcaa Range numbers read ^•». ••»^BB. iMiiudHBaBBaBBaBae"'»! BlllifUlvieW I I I T> I ^^IrUAHOP 1 L_l Ll l-l II I I -1 — UX— IV'W-JV-l .^-^ANi-CHUa-'MS V i?^ 6' S 10' 12' 13' 14= 15' 16' TVlAPlOF <^- — •K-#-W- — Head i&^y \0% m iu lalit^liiCi'^ P, rvjiilow \ m\\\ e_ ^^ — ^:z=^ 3 • PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY- t--55 OF THE ~?y-^J S'tf \»-<^- ~?S-^5' 'C^^^^::::§l&;{^=^, t^-?;J ^">' PROVINCIflL GOVERNMENT -a^..^ .,.(5x2- "e)^c "h— 51 XXIII ^^^3. OFFICES IN 4^ (;REAT BRITAIN I I AND ; IRELAND, I 33, JAMES STREET s|Pt. LIVERPOOL. ■^^.. ^^ ^^ ^,.^.^ ~-z=:Bi^-^^<(e ,^. ll.RAl nm: f?^^^■-^^^'^^y^^ I^Erk w. -.n-- Bals u fe l,R. I iiiBajr Sort Alexander H.B.P. R tpide ItQlt^ Siher Sh Bi'oHttin'Head W^t ^Q"* w- ^^ VA/INNIPEIG, JUNE, 1801 XX Minister of Agricultute and Immigration. Falls ■ U M J M-sa- 10 20 30 Scale 12 Miles = 1 Inch. 'tage .^ Yll iSUii.'iSUJNUAa&'-ik V, S?r^-firl I -t-"i— r-r-f=r 1 \W'.^n "^si fiffl i ia i8""fei7 916 Printed for the Manitoba Government by The Stovel Co^,\Winnipeg. 'I ) I •iUm MMMUyMHUI SUNNY MANITOBA. -•o*- chaptp:r I. There is probably no country or province in our vast Colonial Empire which has suffered more than Manitoba from extravagant and indiscriminate eulogy on the one hand, or excessive depreciation on the other. It is not — no land can be — an El Dorado where the sun never ceases to shine, or the soil to produce phenomenal crops as the result of a minimum of labour on the part of men with- out either aptitude or training for an honourable industry. " The Ohio and Illinois of Canada," as it is fondly called ; it is not a land flowing with milk and honey, in which one has only to scratch the soil to secure a laughing harvest, or which " yields several crops in one year." Still less is Manitoba a land of deiolation, the home of the blizzard, where winter reigns for eight months of 13 14 SUNNY MANITOBA : m the year, and the fair promise of harvest is peren> nially blighted by summer frosts. These are the fictions of unscrupulous men, who would either entice the unwary to enter upon fields of enterprise for which they are totally unqualified, or, by even less scrupulous rainbow-hued state- ments, persuade the British emigrant to prefer the sun-scorched and cyclone-swept Northern States of America to the magnificent climate and unde- veloped riches of our Dominion of the West. The decree of Nature, which offers the great majority of the human race the alternative of industrious labour or starvation, is not suspended in Manitoba. My purpose in the following pages is, by a plain, straightforward account of the province in which I have spent many happy months, to enable those who have not the leisure for travel — and especially the agricultural class, whether farmers or farm labourers — to form an intelligent opinion of Mani- toba as a field for emigration ; to show them that, in the words of Lord Aberdeen, " in these lands, given a fair amount of work, coupled with a certain amount of intelligence, and the results of applica- tion with it, the scope for that application is greater than in over-populated countries." From its geographical position and its peculiar characteristics, Manitoba, in the memorable words of Lord Dufferin, " may be regarded as the key- V' ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUS TIDIES. '5 stone of that mighty arch of sister provinces which spans the entire country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was here that Canada, emerging from her woods and forests, first gazed upon her roHing prairies and unexplored North-West, and learned, as by an unexpected revelation, that her historical territories of the Canadas, were but the vestibule and the antechamber of that, till then undrcamt-of Dominion, whose illimitable dimensions should confound the arithmetic of the surveyor and the verification of the explorer." Probably the majority of educated Englishmen have never realised the fact that the greater part of the continent of North America is included within the British possessions The marvellous resources and the exalted destinies of the Dominion are as little recognised as its vast extent. Figures commonly produce a very vague impression upon the mind ; but the following words of Mr. Johnson, the accomplished head of the Statistical Department at Ottawa, are very sug- gestive : " England, Wales, and Scotland together form an area of 88,000 square miles. You could cut forty such areas out of Canada. New South Wales contains 309,175 square miles, and is larger by 162 square miles than France, Continental Italy, and Sicily. Canada would make eleven countries the size of New South Wales. There are (in ex- tent) three British Indias in Canada, and still ^^mm 16 SUNNY MANITOIiA : enough left over to make a Queensland and a Vic- toria. The German Empire could be carved out of Canada and fifteen more countries of the same size." Mr. Johnson mijjht have added that the area of Canada is very nearly one half that of the entire British Empire, and that it is 488,766 square miles larger than the United States without Alaska. Philologists tell us of bio^aphies in ivords. The names of Canada and Manitoba are notable illus- trations. The Spaniards claim to have been the first discoverers of Canada. They searched, as Spaniards did all the world over, for the precious metals ; and their search being unrewarded they abandoned the country, calling it // Capo di Nada — a Cape of Nothing ; so at least runs the legend. According to another tradition, the Castilians had entered the Bay of Chaleur before Cartier, and finding no trace of mines they pronounced the two words Aca nada — " nothing here." These words, it is said, were repeated to Cartier, who understood and adoprted them as the name of the country. A more natural derivation, however, is furnished in the Iroquois word Kannat/ia, which is pronounced Kannada, and signifies a village or collection of wigwams. The derivation of the word Manitoba has been much debated ; but the patient investigation of Professor Max Mliller has now settled the vexed Its people and its industries. 17 question. Manito, which has been translated in so many ways, nricans simply Beyond — a vague expression of the Infinite. The missionaries seized upon the words Kitchi-Manito as the equivalent of Supreme Spirit, and, when the Indians them- selves were unable to explain its meaning, they very naturally applied it to the Supreme Being. Yet there is no doubt that they were mistaken. In Algonquin and Iroquois the word for Manito is Oki, having the same meaning — Beyond — the supernatural in its most general form. And further, the true form of Kitchi is Gitse, From the same root we get Gitsis — the Sun. Hence Gitse-Manito means the Spirit of the Sun. To any one familiar with the sun dance of the Iroquois and other tribes of Indians, it will be apparent that we have here preserved, fossilised as it were, in the name of Manitoba a record of the fact that the aborigines o*" that country were, if not sun-worshippers, at least, as we see them to-day, accustomed in their frenzied dances to do honour to the god of day. A very few sentences will suffice to sketch in outline the history of Manitoba, and of the hardy pioneers who opened up the country which forms part of the vast domain granted in 1670 by Charles II. to the Hudson Bay Company. It was early in the present century, about the year 1805, that Lord Selkirk, a director of the Hudson Bay Company, if '■',:;>■ -■! 18 St/NNY MANITOBA penetrated as far as the Red River. He was a kind-hearted Scotsman, a philanthropist — some- thing of a visionary, it was said ; but that was by Englishmen, who cannot vie with the Scot in a happy combination of philanthropy and shrewd- ness. It happened at the time of Lord Selkirk's visit to the beautiful and fertile valley of the Red River, that another Scottish noble, who was neither a visionary nor a philanthropist, was en- gaged in clearing his estate of objectionable human beings, who occasioned him some trouble and no sport, and stocking it with a race to whom he looked for much sport and no trouble. Surely a sublime conception — from his point of view. The noble " visionary " saw his opportunity, and with true Scottish resolution determined, in spite of obstacles which he clearly foresaw, to carry it into execution. Whilst it was a work of real philan- thropy to transfer these miserable crofters to the fair fields of the Red River, it was also one which if successfully carried out must enormously benefit the Hudson Bay Company. Years passed in anxious negotiations with the Company, in which, owing to their laissez /aire policy, the North-West Fur Company had acquired a paramount influence. The enterprise of this company was as remarkable as the supineness of their rivals. It was their policy to hold for them- »U£^iti ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 19 h the /aire uired this ;ss of hem- selves the rich trade in furs, upon which immense fortunes had been built up. Hence they not only opposed Lord Selkirk's scheme, but caused reports to be circulated that the country was unfit for human habitation. Their enterprising agents ex- plored and erected forts in remote parts for the extension of their trade ; while their chartered opponents confined themselves to their ancient territory. The Red River was the great depdt of the North-West Company for making pemmican, the principal article of food used by their half- breed canoe men ; and they foresaw that if the colony succeeded it would speedily exterminate the buffalo from which pemmican was derived. To frustrate their opposition Lord Selkirk purchased shares in the Hudson Bay Company, by means of which he transferred to himself a virtually con- trolling power, and in 181 1 he secured by purchase an extensive territory on the banks of the Red River. Upon these lands, covering an area of 116,000 square miles, he designed to plant his proposed colony. In the autumn of that year he arrived with a party of Highland peasants at York Factory, on Hudson's Bay. In the following summer they proceeded to Fort Douglas, at the junction of the Red River with the Assiniboine, and now the site of the city of Winnipeg. This little colony of hardy adventurers formed the neu- ■=>i(&^7i 20 SUNNY MANITOBA : I'' cleus of the Province of Manitoba. Accustomed as they were to the rigours of a Highland winter, and quickened by reports of perils which proved unfounded or exaggerated, the resolute band lost no time in the erection of log-houses. But peril came from an unsuspected quarter. Their title to the land was disputed by the North-West Fur Company, whose agents, with the help of the French half-breeds in their employ, were strong enough to evict the Highland'^rs by rude force from the positions in which they had entrenched them- selves. The Indians were silent spectators. The settlers were compelled to retreat to Pembina, seventy miles south, and there to spend the winter in tents. Again and again, with indomitable courage, they returned and attempted to regain possession of their settlement. For three weary years the struggle was continued ; but negotiation, threats, force, were alike futile. The North- West Company contended, apparently with justice, that the claims of Lord Selkirk were illegal, as they had taken possession of the Red River half a century before the Hudson Bay Company had ventured into it. However that might be, they continued a determined struggle for supremacy ; much blood was shed ; Indians were bribed to harass the settlers ; and it is said that when they refused, desiring to preserve their ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 21 neutrality, agents of the North-West Company disguised themselves as Indians for the purpose of perpetrating outrages. The houses of thj settlers were burned, their crops destroyed, their stores broken open and pillaged. Little wonder that despondency furrowed deep lines in the brows and paralysed the resolution of these brave men. Dissension followed, fomented by the cupidity of the agents of the North-West Company, who, after seizing Fort Douglas and brutally murdering the governor and twenty men, per- suaded some to desertion, and to the purchase of lands their only title to which was that of force. Weakened in numbers, demoralised by division, exasperation, faction, in June, 1815, the remnant of the now incohesive band resolved to return to Scotland. Under the guidance of friendly Indians they started for Lake Winnipeg, meditating a vigorous protest against the neglect of the Hudson Bay Company, which had left them to cont »nd single-handed with that corpora- tion's unscrupulous competitors. Their grievance was admitted ; and with an assurance of the company's special protection, and of the presence of Lord Selkirk himself with a fresh band of emigrants in the following spring, they were induced to return. Nor were they deceived. Lord Selkirk had been occupying himself at 22 SUNNY MANITOBA : home in opposing the growing demand for reform which, had it been conceded, would have rendered it exceedingly difficult for him to have persuaded either English or Scotch men to have emigrated. On the very eve of his return, in 1816, he writes that he "trembles at the idea of constitutional changes," which are " not the way to any practical public benefit." In the autumn of that year, however, he arrived at Quebec, with the promised contingent of crofters, brought together by his glowing description of country and climate ; the promise of political rights, liberty of conscience, freedom from taxes, and, above all, from tithes. The sanguine hopes and the old courage of the colonists revived. Their faith in their noble patron had never faltered, and it was more than justified. He seized Fort William, and having wintered there advanced to the Red River in the spring of 1817. The in- spiration of his presence filled the most dejected with confidence ; faction was shamed into silence ; and the most aggressive of the agents of the North- West Company looked on with sullen submission, as the heroic band rebuilt their houses and tilled their fields. But the future safety of the colony demanded that an example should be made of these ruffians. Their ringleaders were arrested, and sent to Montreal for trial. ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 23 The troubles of the colonists were not yet over. Probably their crops were put in late ; in any case they failed ; but the bufifaloes which then roamed over the open prairie in hundreds of thousands, supplied chem with abundance of food for the winter. The jealousy of the North-West Company, who claimed an exclusive right to trade in furs, crippled them in many ways ; but in the spring of 1 81 8 a favourable season again inspired them with that hope which is supposed to spring eternal in the human breast. Alas that it so often heralds despair ! That year, so far as is known for the first time, the Red River district was visited with a plague of grasshoppers. The same thing occurred in 18 19; in the following winter the long-tried settlers, seeing ruin staring them in the face, were compelled to send a party on foot a thousand miles for seed-grain. The story has been often told ; it will there- fore suflfice thus briefly to outline the vicissitudes of the hardy pioneers, who, at the beginning of this century, opened up for settlement the dis- trict now known as the Province of Manitoba. We cannot further follow their chequered career. The amalgamation of the North-West Fur and the Hudson Bay Companies ensured them peace and safety, and their affairs were further reduced to order by a treaty between the united - —• " • - 34 SUNNY MANITOBA : '■w i4 >,:- I ; companies and the Indians. In 1835 the Red River Settlement was organised under the name of the District of Assiniboia. The first govern- ment was constituted at Fort Garry, and the territory placed under the rule of a council appointed by the Hudson Bay Company. The way for emigration was thus opened ; but the Government was unable to cope with the pre- vailing lawlessness, until, rising to the occasion, they purchased for the sum of ;^300,cxx) the territory, with the extensive trading and ad- ministrative privileges, of the united companies. Having thus secured an undivided sovereignty over the North- West Territories, the Canadian Government proceeded to develop the country. This movement, which commenced just thirty years ago, has been followed up with such energy that over 80,000,000 acres of land have now been completely surveyed. On the suppression of the rebellion of 1869, Manitoba became a province, and its first par- liament met at Winnipeg in 187 1. At this time the population, including the territory afterwards awarded to Ontario, was under 12,000, of whom 10,400 were half-breeds and Indians. In form the province presents the appearance of a nearly pe feet parallelogram, measuring about 300 miles fron east to west, and 120 from north to south. :,v. ^^( y. v. 5 ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 25 y. I Its western boundary is 101° 20' west longitude ; the eastern boundary, though not clearly defined, is about 95° 10'. On the south, the International boundary line, the 49th degree of north latitude, separates it from the States of Dakota and Min- nesota, and its northern boundary is the 53rd degree of north latitude. Within these limits is comprised an area of ii6,ocx) square miles, or 74,cxx),ooo acres including the water area, which forms one-seventh of the whole. The greater part is included in the First Prairie Steppe of which we shall presently have to speak ; and its general character is that of a level plain, sloping gently to the north, and becoming swampy in the neigh- bourhood of the lakes. Originally covering an area of 123,20x5 square miles, this — as we learn from the Statistical Year-book of Canada — has been reduced since the Census of 1881 by a re- arrangement of boundaries, 7,cxx) square miles having been added to Ontario and the district of Keewatin. On this reduced area the population increased from 62,200 in 1881 to 154,400 in 1891 or more than 148 per cent. The progress of the province has been unsurpassed by that of any other new country. In 1881 th'vre were only 65 miles of railway in operation ; i nere are now more than 1,400 miles. In 1881 not a bushel of grain had been exported ; in 1891 the exports, so far as 26 SUNNY MANITOBA : can be ascertained, amounted to 14,000,000 bushels of wheat, whilst that of barley which had reached 3,000,000 bushels in 1888, was arrested by the operation of the McKinley Tariff Act. ■^hese figures are only approximate, the statistics of the Dominion Government crediting the export of wheat from the port of shipment. Hence Manitoban wheat going through Boston and New York is not even credited to Canada, nor that shipped at Montreal to Manitoba. The actual yield of crops has, however, been ascer- tained with a near approximation to accuracy by the Department of Agriculture ; and whereas in 1 88 1 Manitoba imported both cereals and potatoes from the United States, the ascertained yield for the province in 1891 was: Wheat, 23,191,599 bushels ; barley, 3,197,876 bushels ; oats, 14,762,805 bushels ; potatoes, 2,286,900 bushels. The progress indicated is very remarkable for a country, which, only twelve years ago, was so little known that a letter addressed "Winnipeg, Manitoba," went to France, Lnd, after much travelling to and fro, was endorsed "Try Cal- c?itta. It went to India, and back again to Paris, where some oflficial with a smattering of geographical knowledge added Nouvelle Amerique to the address, and so it reached its destination viA New York. ." 'A mr T ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 27 M From its position, Manitoba is obviously well adapted to become a centre for the distribution of the agricultural products of the entire North- West ; and the marvellous growth of its town populations shows that such has been its history. At the time of its incorporation, in 1874, no more central position could have been selected for the distribution of supplies than Winnipeg, at the junction of the Assiniboine with the Red River ; the former navigable for 300 miles to vessels of medium draught, whilst away to the south, far into the United States, the latter provided a great international water-way for the exchange of the products of two countries. A century ago this spot was the point of landing of the Indians and the traders of the North-West Fur Company, who there manufactured pemmican, and assorted and repacked their skins. Its commanding position ensured the selection of Winnipeg — or Fort Garry as it was then called — as the capital of the new province. It is perhaps unfortunate that the claims of Brandon to that honour were over- looked. Whilst Brandon is in the heart and centre of the extensive and fertile grain -produc- ing plains of Manitoba, Winnipeg is on the eastern margin of the great prairie country, which extends westward for i,5(X) miles. But the days of railways were not yet ; and Winnipeg, which with its two a8 SUNNY MANITOBA : navigable rivers was described as " the neck of a double funnel whose mouths gather the traffic of an empire and three oceans — the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the great lakes" — was selected. Regarded as the capital of the Canadian West rather than as that of a province, its unrivalled" position constituted it the natural emporium of trade — not in agricultural products only, but in timber, minerals, salt, fish, and all the varied natural productions of that vast area — and the choice of Winnipeg was not only inevitable, but has been justified by its history. Perhaps no better illustration of the progress of the Dominion of Canada could be given than the story of the rise of the city of Winnipeg. In 1870 it was a mere hamlet, a collection of log-houses and tepees, with a population of 2 1 5 souls, and was described by Captain Butler as " a miserable- look- ing village." It is now London in miniature, a place where — as, in common with many others, I myself experienced — one meets people from the common fatherland who seem to regard it almost as a matter of course that, after years of separation, friends should again grasp hands in the queenly city of the West. At the time of its incorporation as a city in 1874, the population was a little under 3,000, and remained nearly stationary until 1878, European emigration having been diverted to the -^,S^Wg- ^AW.' " !^ 1 /rS PEOPLE AND ITS rNDUSTRFES. 29 United States by exaggerated reports of the fertility of the country, which experience has not confirmed. The reputed new El Dorado in Dakota and Minnesota especially caused an exodus from Canada, whilst the high price of provisions in Winnipeg, owing to dependence on the United States, whence supplies were brought vid the Red River, arrested its progress until, in 1879, the railway from Winnipeg to Emerson, connecting with the railway system of the States, was opened for traflfic. The Canadian Pacific Railway was also projected, and in part surveyed. A great influx of settlers and of capital followed. Town lots were eagerly pur- chased, and rapidly rose in value. The great land-boom had commenced ; and within a year the population of the city had doubled. In 1881, the projectors of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was to connect Winnipeg with the two oceans, commenced active operations ; and the population which at the commencement of that year was 8,000, was estimated at 14,600 before its close, and reached 22,500 in 1883. The pace was too rapid ; and the land-boom was a more than doubtful benefit to Winnipeg. In 1885 the population fell from 24,000 to 22,000, and in 1886 to 20,000. But with the rapid extension of railways which, it has been said, now " strike 3o SVNNV MANITOBA : \ out from the city like branches from the parent stem of a tree," its progress has since been steady and continuous, the population now numbering 25,642, or an increase of over 300 per cent, within a period of eleven years. The city covers an area exceeding Ihree miles, and is laid out on a grand scale. There are 190 streets ; the leading thoroughfares have an imposing appearance. Main Street being 132 feet in width. Many of the shops and warehouses are palaces, whilst the public buildings will bear comparison with any in what Canadians delight to call " the old country." The increase in the wealth of Winnipeg 's strikingly shown in the assessment, which in 1874 amounted in value to $2,676,000, and in 1891 to $18,608,000, to which must be added $3,500,000 for public buildings exempted from assessment, making a total value of $22,108,000. This is about the value which property in Winnipeg acquired during the boom period of 1882 and 1883 ; but in every part of the city values are now rapidly rising, and little impetus will be required to carry up the price of. land to its former extravagant level. An illus- tration of this was furnished in October, 1 890, when a mere rumour that a new railway depot was to be erected ?.c the we^t end, brought out a wealthy syndicate vyho purchased property in one afternoon aggregating over $300,000 ; an English gentleman irs PEOPLE And its inDustrfMs. %\ buying a block in the rear of the Imperial Bank at 1 1 25 a foot. Much has been said about the unhealthiness of Winnipeg ; and there is no doubt that diphtheria and typhoid fever are sadly too prevalent. But in the month of August, 1891, when zymotic diseases were most fatal, the deaths from all causes were 167. This is not an excessive death rate, and it compares favourably with other Canadian and American cities. In Montreal, out of the total deaths for the month of 793, there were 579 of children under five years of age. In 1888 the death rate per 1,000 of the population was in Winnipeg 20*87, whilst in Quebec it was 2837, and in Montreal 31*60. infant mortality is lamentably high, though not above the average, the ratio per 1,000 deaths being 583*96 against Montreal, 631*01, whilst the ratio over sixty years of age is the smallest of any town in the Dominion, being 5 15 2, agai.ist Montreal 10965, Toronto 1 5692, Quebec 1 8948 ; other towns running up to 349*39. In round numbers, Montreal (population 202,000) may be said in. 1890 to have had ten times, and Quebec (65,000) three times the population of Winnipeg. The following table exhibits the respective mortality from the causes indicated : — / .■ ■.- 34 SUNNY MANITOBA : Deaths from— Atrophy and Disease Throat Debility. Diarrhoea. Phthisis. Diphtheria, of Heart. Affections. Montreal 1268 758 544 392 269 239 Quebec 239 215 196 34 6b 17 Winnipeg 31 87 32 54 18 13 In Winnipeg, as elsewhere, children suffered most from diphtheria, over 94 per cent, of the whole number of deaths from this disease being of children under eleven years of age. It is gratify- ing to learn from the Statistical Report just issued that the death rate in all towns making returns shows a very remarkable diminution, which obviously points to greater attention to sanitary arrangements. Diphtheria is now at the bottom of the list of " the most fatal diseases," the total number of deaths from this cause being 466, or nearly 50 per cent, less than in 1 890 ; whilst the ratio of deaths to the population was '5 per 1,000, compared with ri in 1890. Brandon — " the wheat city of the Dominion " — affords another illustration of remarkable develop- ment, which is certain to be accelerated in the near future. Situated in the centre of the richest agri- cultural country in Canada, on the banks of the beautiful Assiniboine river, it is in the very heart of the continent, equi-distant from Montreal and Vancouver, with both of which it is connected by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Great North Central Railway opens up to it the rich district of i.v " '*i!S^0^'^Jl^'^?f^w^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 33 tof Saskatchewan to the north, and connections with the Northern Pacific Railway link it with the great system of American railways to the south, whilst the recently opened line to the Souris district is destined to make it the entrepot of the traffic from the most extensive coal fields in South Canada. Twelve years ago few people, even in Canada, knew the locality of Brandon, with its population of lOO to 1 50 souls. The population is now 3,778, and in its market in the autumn of last year i,4OO,cx)0 bushels of wheat, 600,000 of oats, and other kinds of produce were gathered for export. From its salubrious situation, 50 feet above the level of the river, it will have the best system of drainage of any town in the Dominion, whilst its supply of excellent water is unsurpassed. The City Council have sanctioned a magnificent system of sewerage and water-works, and are erecting an imposing market-hall and hospital. The Government, the banks, and the leading merchants emulate one another in the splendour of the buildings now erecting. The leading thoroughfare, Rosser Avenue, running east and west, and over 30 yards wide, well paved, and lighted with electricity, presents a fine appearance ; and already y:ome of the transverse streets are running it hard. " The way in which Brandon is 3 k. . I; 34 SUNNY MANITOBA growing this summer," says a local paper, * is above and far beyond the casual conception of the inattentive passer-by. On every street can be heard the sound of the stone-hammer and chisel, the clinking of the trowel, and the busy tooth- work of the carpenter's saw. Dr. Fleming's block on Rosser Avenue would do credit to any city in the Dominion of Canada, or out of it." The value of land in the city has risen enormously, and as the Souris Railway now supplies it with cheap coal, manufacturers will not fail to recognise the eligi- bility of the town and district for enterprises which will enable Brandon to take her position as the centre of the manufacturing industry for the Canadian North- West. As an agricultural centre the future of Brandon is equally assured. It is said that in 1881 there was only one settler on the north bank of the Assini- boine. The country is now everywhere dotted with homesteads, and in one case at least, near to the city, a single farm comprises 10,000 acres. The great prairie district, of which Brandon is the centre, is the best watered and the best wooded in Manitoba, and includes 20,000,000 acres of the richest wheat-raising land in Canada, or in the world. Already six large grain elevators compete for produce, of which more was sold last year in Brandon than in any other town in Canada. IL,.J ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 35 Improved farms in the neighbourhood are to-day worth five times the price at which they were pur- chased five years ago. Good unimproved land may still be bought within three miles of the city at from six to ten dollars an acre, but they are being rapidly absorbed, and all homestead land is taken up. In illustration of the substantial results achieved in this district by practical men, almost without capital, I quote from a letter addressed some months since by a gentleman residing at Virden, Man., to the London Advertiser. "Whilst driving out from Brandon," he writes, " with one of the oldest residents of the town he related to me the history of the settlement of various families along the road and in the sur- rounding country, a few of which I will relate to show what has been done in this land of droughts and frosts, of hailstorms and rainstorms. About seven miles south-west of Brandon lives Mr. B , who took up his homestead just seven years ago with only a cow to start on. He did some break- ing the first summer, with oxen, I suppose, but where or how he got them my informant did not say, and on this breaking and the prospective crop he borrowed money to buy his seed grain (the Manitoba statutes make special provision for allowing this to be done), and so he contrived 7^i 36 SUNNY MANITOBA little by little from year to year, until to-day he owns 320 acres, worth at least $3,200, subject to a $400 mortgage. He has a very fair house and stable, two good spans of horses, large number of cattle, two binders and all other necessary farm machinery paid for, and this year he has between 100 and 200 acres of wheat. This is, of course, no boom prosperity, but it is a fair return for hard work. . . . " This is one side of the picture. On the other hand, there is possibly no province in the Dominion where so many men have made a failure at farming, and not through any fault of the country, for there certainly is not a province in the Dominion where so many men, attracted possibly by the glowing accounts in immigration literature of the earlier boom days, who knew not the first ABC about farming, started out to make a fortune along this line, and as soon as the people realise that farming is not child's play, or fool's work, but a science requiring skill and judgment, so soon will the failures cease." I shall have frequent occasion to refer to the Government Experimental Farm at Brandon, of which it will be sufficient here to say that, like the similar institutions at Ottawa, Indian Head, and elsewhere, the object of its establishment is to con- duct experiments and researches bearing upon the ,1- ■day he 2ct to a ise and Tiber of y farm between course, br hard e other in the nade a fault of trovince ttracted Igration lew not o make people r fool's Igment, to the don, of like the id, and to con- 3on the y y. y. ■'T:--wy! i \ i m mmamtK -5".-T>"v ■S?*'^' -jjrT^">f ;.-T>"v -^' /7b' PEOt'LE ANb ITS INDUSTRIES. 37 industries of the province, with a view to the development of scientific agriculture. The progress of Portage la Prairie, within a decade, has been only less phenomenal than that of Brandon. But, notwithstanding its great natural advantages, proximity to Winnipeg will prevent its becoming the rival of Brandon as a centre of dis- tribution. The smaller towns — Carberry, Virden Elkhorn — on the Canadian Pacific Railway; Emer- son and Dcloraine, near to the International bound- ary ; Minncdosa and Birtle in the north ; and many others present points of interest which would repay examination. But this is beyond the scope of a work designed to interest agriculturists and emigrants to the prairie rather than to the towns. The Census returns for the Dominion of Canada which have recently been made public have proved to many a source of surprise and disappointment. But a little examination will greatly modify even the disappointment which is due to exaggerated estimates of the growth of population formed by irresponsible individuals, and promulgated in a spirit of rivalry by the newspapers of certain towns ; whilst as regards the province of Manitoba the returns will be found to be highly gratifying. The following are the salient features of the parliamentary Census return laid before the Federal Parliament. The total population of the Dominion ■!*''T!:»«'j'"- 38 SUNNY MANITOBA I \. has increased from 4,324,810 in 1881,104,823,344 in 1891. The net increase is thus 498,534, or 1 1*52 per cent. Within the same decade Canada is said to have received 880,000 immigrants, and as the natural increase of her population by the excess of births over deaths has been assumed to be greater than in this country, the superficial observer is startled to find that the percentage of increase is about the same. Where, it is asked, are the 880,000 immigrants ? The solution offered by the Times newspaper — " the mere force of gravitation — the greater attraction of a bigger and already more p'-osperous country close at hand" — is as incon- clusive and misleading as might bo expected from that oracle. The Unite d States are neither "bigger" nor relatively " more prosperous " than Canada. That the policy of Protection has driven many Canadians and immigrants to the United States is a fact which will be dealt with hereafter; but it is only one of several forces which have been in operation throughout the decade to arrest the natural increase of the population. Probably the most important of these is the fact that an over- whelming majority of the immigrants have been young bachelors. Next is the remarkable dis- placement of the population, both from an influx into the towns, and, in a much larger degree, from a continuous current of migration from the older /rS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 39 maritime provinces to the North- Western plains. Thus, whilst in New Brunswick the increase in population has been only 002 per cent., almost reaching the vanishing poini, in Manitoba the enormous increase of 14806 per cent, has been attained. Nova Scotia has increased its population by 225 per cent, whilst Assiniboia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan have run up to 14098. If we compare the town population of the eastern and western provinces, the contrast is equally striking. Montreal has increased its population 395 per cent. ; Winnipeg 22 ri. Quebec ^hows an increase of ro per cent., whilst Calgary, from nothing, has a population of 3,876 ; and Bran- don, from less than 100 has grown to 3,778. In the Districts we find yet more marked indication of the displacement as well as the growth of the population. Of the fifteen provinces of New Brunswick, eight show a decrease in population ; in Ontario twenty-nine districts show similar results ; whilst the five districts into which Mani- toba is divided all show large increases, that of Selkirk reaching 3040 per cent. It may be objected that such details of the dis- placement and growth of population fail to account for the 880,000 immigrants. Of the exodus to the United States which occurred a few years since, I shall have more to say presently ; it will be suffi- <«np ^" ■f iwu f miw SUNNY MANITOBA : X cieht here to show that the emigration statistics are fallacious. Thousands of Europeans, who have gone to the United States vid Canada^ have been tabulated as Canadian immigrants. Again, thou- .sands of young men emigrating from this country return every second or third year to visit their friends, and are thus tabulated as immigrants three or four times over in the course of a decade. The facilities for travel are, indeed, now so great and the charges so low, as to induce many to come home annually for the Christmas week. Everyone of these will figure as ten emigrants in the decade. To the same cause may be assigned the annually increasing number who, both from Great Britain and the Continent, visit their friends, without any purpose of settling in Canada — all of whom are tabulated as immigrants. These are valid pleas in extenuation of the " shocking returns " which have excited the senti- mental lugubriosity of the Times. Meanwhile Manitoba holds the proud position of a province which within a decade has increased her population by nearly 150 per cent., whilst in the largest district of that province a rate of progress probably un- equalled in the world is recorded — being no less than 304 per cent. ! A few words must be said about the climate. After all that has been written upon this subject, ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 41 ^ theic is probably more misconception respecting the climate of Manitoba to-day, than about that of any other part of the world. When Louis XV. sought to conceal his chagrin in signing the Treaty of Paris, by which Canada was surrendered to England, with the remark, " After all, it is only a few square miles of snow," no one was deceived ; least of all King George, who said, " England never signed such a peace before, nor, I believe, any other power in Europe " ; and subsequent history has shown that he was right. The opinion of the average Englishman appears to be very much that which, with a view to prevent settlement which must prove prejudicial to their rich trade in furs, the North-West Fur Company in their palmy days persistently affirmed — that Manitoba was a hyperborean land, with long, and almost perpetual winter of Arctic severity. There is no doubt — rather there is abundant evidence — that this conception of the country has been indus- triously fostered by unscrupulous agents of Ameri- can railway companies, with the object of diverting European emigration to Dakota and Minnesota, which have been represented as possessing a better climate. " If Minnesota suffers from a rigorous winter," writes one of these sapient gentlemen, " common-sense now asks what hope can there be for Manitoba ... in which our countrymen are r !* ?■ i ? 43 SUNNY MANITOBA : urged to make new homes ? " With splendid effrontery, and contempt for the intelligence of those whom thoy would make their dupes, these scribes have asserted, " with the proper quantum of hypo- critical lamentation," that Manitoba enjoys " seven months' Arctic winter, and five months* cold weather." Others, with equal ignorance or design, have affirmed that the tropical heat of summer is as subversive of comfort, and as injurious to health, as the Arctic cold of winter ; whilst both are alike fatal to agricultural pursuits. Climate, it should be remembered, is not simply a matter of latitude or longitude. It is determined by many and varied conditions ; elevation above the sea level being no less causative than latitude ; the position and elevation of neighbouring land no less than the temperature and direction of ocean currents. Situated in the very centre of the conti- nent, equi-distant from the Atlantic and the Pacific, from the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, the ocean currents have no appreciable effect upon the climate of Manitoba. On the other hand, Hudson's Bay, which nevti' freezes, to the north, and the great lake system to the south-east with a tempera- ture 30 higher than Hudson's Bay — containing nea-ly half the fresh water on the surface of the globe and, with the smaller lakes contiguous to them, covering an area of 130,000 square miles — 'W ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTPlES. 43 seven have a moderating influence. Winnipeg \s 764 feet above the sea level, this being considerably above the average elevation of the province. If we take four centres, two having the highest, and two the lowest elevation, the effect of elevation upon climate will be apparent. Elevation Mean Temperature Latitude. above sea. Feet. Summer. Year. Minnedosa 50' 14' 1710 564 29s Oak Lake 49" 45' 1386 57 -o 30-8 Winnipeg 49" 55' 764 6o'8 329 Gimli 50- 37' 723 58-9 318 It will be observed that whilst Minnedosa and Gimli, and Oak Lake and Winnipeg, are respec- tively in almost exactly the same parallel of latitude, the towns having the lower elevation have the higher temperature, irrespective of latitude. Cal- gary, which is the point of { jatest elevation (3,389 feet) in the North-West Territories, has a mean summer temperature of only 53'4, whilst that of Quebec, at an elevation of 312 feet, is 623, and of Winnipeg (764 feet) is 6o*8. The border states of Dakota and Minnesota, having a slope to the north and to the south, have a greater elevation and a colder climate. Mr. Macoun writes : " After nine years* study of all available material, and constant observation, I can state that our peculiar climate is caused by 'the great American desert,' which commences at tlie looth meridian, exactly south of -!-:'tt '""m ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 45 with serious discomfort. Whilst the heat of summer is moderated by a breeze which I have never known to fail, the dryness of the atmosphere prevents that sense of lassitude which accompanies a much lower range of temperature in a more humid climate, such as our own. So also with the intense cold. In winter the sun shines almost invariably from its rising to its setting, the dryness of the air permits a lower range of temperature without frosts than in moist climates, and cold is less acutely felt than the readings of the thermometer would lead one to expect. In summer and winter alike, the dry, clear, sunny atmosphere produces the most exhila- rating effects. The fall of snow seldom exceeds fifteen inches, and it is fortunate for the farmer when it is so much. Twelve inches of snow is only equivalent to one inch rainfall ; the deeper the snow, therefore, the better the augury for a good seeding time and harvest. The fine, dry, powdery snow freezes as it falls, and forms an excellent track, free from ruts and other obstructions, for the conveyance of produce to its market. The winter sometimes sets in early, and the country may be " frozen up " before the middle of November. But instead of perpetual Arctic winter, of Yankee imagination, its rigour is generally broken by the beautiful " Indian summer," which often renders November the pleasantest month of the year. Up i.lI ^0^^" 46 SUNNY MANITOBA: to the very last day of that month I have found it deh'ghtful to sit out of doors, basking in the sun- shine and divested of hat and coat. In 1890 this charming return of summer in the midst of winter lasted until Christmas, though interrupted by occasional short snaps of severe cold. On the 3rd of December the thermometer fell to 250 below zero, and again on the 24th to 1 8°. But when it is coldest the sky is cloudless, the atmosphere is at perfect rest, and from personal experience I can confirm the remark of an English resident, that "the intoxicating effect of each breath of dry, frozen air, creates an exhilaration almost indescrib- able." The following is the record, at the chief meteoro- logical station in Manitoba, for the week ending December 27, 1 890 : — Height of barometer above sea level — 760 feet. Highest temperature 38° 5', December 22nd. Lowest temperature — 18' 4', December 24th. Snow 3 inches. The sunless skies and fog-laden atmosphere of New Year's Day (1891) in England, will be fresh in th' -ecollection of many. In Manitoba and the Terr :es young men and boys were playing cricl c in their shirt sleeves, and in brilliant sun- shine ! The secretary of the Medicine Hat Cricket ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 47 Club writes on New Year's night : " The game started at 12.30, finished 14 o'clock ; weather clear and fine ; played in shirt sleeves. . . . First match for season of 1891. The weather here continues fine. Thermometer average for November and December 340 above zero, higher than any other place in Canada." The winter season so far from lasting seven months, hardly exceeds half that period. It is a popular error that in Manitoba there are practically only two seasons. The four seasons are usually well defined though, as in other countries, and for similar reasons, they are more or less irregular in their arrival and duration. As a rule spring com- mences late in March and ends in May, with a mean temperature of 39°. The summer months are June, July, and August, with a mean tempera- ture of 650. The autumn months, September and October, have an average mean temperature of 43°; and winter, with its wide range of temperature, extends from November to the middle of March, the mean temperature being about 12°. But, as Professor Bryce observes, the junction of the seasons is not always very noticeable. " Spring glides superbly into summer, summer into fine autumn weather which, during the equinox, breaks up in a series of heavy gales of wind, accompanied by rain and snow. These are followed by that divine after- ••*i ■ 11 4« SUNNY MANITOBA : ! math, the Indian summer, which attains its true glory only in the North-West." It is true that winter is sometimes made hideous with blizzards. There is a widespread belief that the bli/zard, so destructive of life and property in the United States, has been domiciled in Canada, and especially in Manitoba. This is a popular delusion ; and it is little to be wondered at that Canadians, who for many years have been sending us eggs, apples, poultry, dairy products, beef, and bread stuffs, resent the ** insular ignorance " of Englishmen who, as they say, " wrap themselves in the impenetrable folds of their fog, and refuse to yield up their first impression, or to learn anything from the experience even of their eyes and stomachs." With pardonable sarcasm, the Mani- toban papers during the past winter headed their columns of English intelligence with the heavily leaded line " News from the Cold Country." Mani- toba is not the home of the blizzard, where it rarely occurs on more than three days throughout the winter. Even then it is not formidable, unless to the man who is overtaken by it on the trackless prairie, and far from the shelter of the " bluffs," which are generally within reach. The Dominion Government are now oflfering great inducements to settlers to plant their home- steads ; as they also propose eventually to plant 4 ) ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDl/STR/ES. 49 /. the extravagantly-wide road allowances which surround every square mile of land. When this is done, the blizzard — which a stage-driver once forcibly described as " one o' them 'ere mountain storms as gets up on its hind legs and howls " — will be an unknown phenomenon in Manitoba. It is true that August frosts sometimes make great havoc of the crops; and to this fact, with its concomitant exaggerations, is largely attribu- table the widespread belief that Manitoba is a land, if not of eternal sterility, at any rate of almost continuous frost. The compensations and advantages of the climate are usually overlooked. And frost itself is one of these. Penetrating to a great depth, it holds in suspense an element of moisture which the small rainfall of the country renders so necessary to its productiveness. The warm rays of the sun in April draw up this constant and assured supply of moisture for the nourishment of the germinating grain. "What would be thought," asked Erastus Wiman, " of a device that should provide, underneath the whole surface of a vast and fertile wheat-producing area, a well-spring of moisture, that should continuously exude and feed the delicate tendrils of roots that the wheat plant sends down into the earth for sustenance ? Yet this is precisely what nature has provided in the thousands of square miles of wheat 4 ■"wr^ rpi-'-'^-rrmfi 50 SUNNY MANITOBA. areas in the Canadian North-West. Ages of long winters, continuous, and often severe cold, have produced a frost-line in the earth far down below the surface, which, being thawed out during the summer months, is full of force. What seems, at first glance, a barrier to the productive powers of nature is, in this case, found to be contributing in the higK st dr : ^e o man's advantage." On the whole, tiien, it may be confidently said, as we shali >; c:ui tly see in greater detail, that the climate of Manitoba, i.' superior to that of England ; that its summers are as delightful as those of any part of Southern Europe ; and that it is one of the healthiest countries of the globe. " There," said Make Brun, " arc to be found at once the hardi- hood of character which conquers difficulties, the climate which stimulates exertion, and the natural advantages which reward exercise. Nature has marked out this country for exalted destinies." i: \ jx njmm CHAPTER II. The question most frequently addressed by Englishmen to their fellow-countrymen who have resided in Manitoba or the Territories, is — ^^^hat is the prairie like ? Is it a dull, monotonous, "re less level, in which the settler is doomed tc a U; : of painful isolation? It is easier to ans „: >. *ch questions with an emphatic negative than to con- vey to those who have not seen it in . tiiany phases and diverse physical characteristics, any true conception of that great sea of green that rolls its grassy billows all the way from Winnipeg to the foot of the Rocky Mountains ; from the International boundary to Hudson's Bay and the frozen North, I shall endeavour to answer them by a free and unconventional, and in some measure colloquial record of the impressions produced upon the minds of my fellow travellers and myself, both in our first experience of, and my own subsequent familiarity with phenomena, as in- teresting as they were novel. 5» I 5s SUNNY MANITOBA : H The prairies of British North America present great varieties of climate, soil, vegetable product, and physical conforn>ucion. They admit, however, of classification into three distinct Prairie Steppes. The first of these — I quote from the Statistical Year-book of the Department of Agriculture — is known as the Red River Valley and Lake Winnipeg Plateau. The width at the boundary line is about fifty-two miles, and the average height 800 feet above the sea ; at the boundary line the altitude is about 1,000 feet. This first plateau lies entirely within the province of Manitoba, and is estimated to contain about 7,000 square miles of the best wheat-growing land on the continent, or in the world. The second plateau, or steppe, has an average altitude of 1,600 feet, having a width of about 250 miles on the national boundary line, and an area of about 105,000 square miles. The rich, undulating, park-like country lies in this region. This section is especially favourable for settlement, and includes the Assiniboine and Qu' Appelle districts. The third plateau, or steppe, begins on the boundary line at the 104th meridian, where it has an elevation of about 2,000 feet, and extends west for 465 miles to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where it has an altitude of about 4,200 feet, making an average height above the sea of about 3,000 feet. Generally speaking, the first »■ \ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 53 two steppes are those which are most favourable for agriculture, and the third for grazing. Confining our attention chiefly to the 7,000 square miles of prairie, which form a fraction only of the province of Manitoba, we shall find its physical features, its fauna, and flora, as diversified as they are interesting. Proceeding west from Winnipeg, we cross a vast, untimbered, level, dried- up sea which, twenty years ago, may have seemed to justify the idea of the American map-maker, who represented Canadian fertility by a slight green flush along the northern boundary of the United States. At present the land near to the Canadian Pacific Railway is very largely held by syndicates. Here and there is a cultivated farm, indicative of industry and prosperity ; but generally the land lies low, and the thrifty emigrant will do well tu pass \i by. The lover of the picturesque in nature, as one of my fellow-passengers assiduously pro- claimed himself, should leave it severely alone. Once a vast lake-basin, now the home of the badger, the coyote, and the fox, who prey upon gophers and other less-objectionable rodents, it is one bleak, treeless, dead level, whose endless space and silent solitude oppress the senses. " I told you so," is perhaps the mental comment of the cynical reader, who has been accustomed to think of the prairie as uniformly presenting such features, ...i^ma t I t S4 SUNNY MANITOBA : and as, in' fact, my fellow traveller exclaimed, " Wait a bit, my friend," I replied, " and if that must be our final judgment, at least let it be a rational one, based upon a knowledge of something beyond the bare fringe of the prairie. You were asleep when, at daybreak, we entered Manitoba at Rat Portage, which, in spite of its uncouth name, is a place to be passed with regret." On the north shore of the Lake of the Woods more than half of its wondrously beautiful scenery is missed by the railway passenger. But the rays of the rising sun fell upon a scene of loveliness not easily to be forgotten. More resembling a beautiful river, winding between richly-wooded banks it seemed, than a lake, thickly studded with islands equal in number and in beauty to the famous gems of the St. Lawrence. Land and forest appeared to predominate over water which spread itself around indentures and promentories, the varied beauty of form, and colour, and outline of which are simply indescribable. The contrast between that glorious landscape, and the low flats vof Eastern Manitoba along the track of the Canadian Pacific Railway, presented a physical antithesis so de- pressing that I found myself in danger of sharing my friend's lugubrious and constantly reiterated sen- timents. Making an effort to recall vague, and as it proved mistaken impressions derived from books, I I I I '^v ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDVSTRIES. 55 I faintly protested that we had not yet reached Portage la Prairie, as the French miscalled the town or fort sixty miles west of Winnipeg, which is the true Gate of the Prairie. An elongated visage and a grave shake of the head suggested the unwis- dom of prophesying unless one knows, and I, too, relapsed into silence. Proceeding west, along the north bank of the Assiniboine, who.se deep bed renders it generally invisible, we still looked in vain for any other sign of the picturesque. There is less and ever less land under cultivation. The prospect is dreary. The land seems poor, and is certainly low, flat, and treeless. Again, vast level stretches of prairie land, wearisome to the eye, and unrelieved by wood or water. There is no mobility, no variety, in the wide landscape which lies stagnant and irresponsive to the soft embrace of the setting sun. I felt glad not to be a member of one of the many syndicates who are the reputed owners of this land, and who are likely enough to divide its possession with the gophers and the badgers for many a year to come. About Portage la Prairie more land is under cultivation ; it is, in fact, the centre of a good agricultural district, and a busy, thriving town. Miscalled, as I have said, the name, like many another, half mistily tells of a bygone dominion for which Cartier suffered and Montcalm died. i-yr^^Sfi-Tr^ ►wfjr^^r ji '. iiy ' , ' ' »* : rm ■ U t 56 SUNNY MANITOBA : Joly, of which we may have something to say hereafter, is one of these, probably taking its name from a French settler — one wonders whether akin to that Joly of D61e, publisher of Napoleon's first pamphlet, when the young Corsican sub- lieutenant walked twenty miles every morning to correct the proofs ; which done, he " partakes of an extremely frugal breakfast" with his printer. Westward ho ! We are now getting into the very heart of the prairie. I anxiously scrutinise my friend's face. " I told you so " is expressed in every line, as he languidly casts an occasional glance at the window — and at me, but compassion- ately suppresses the chilling words. Another twenty miles are covered, and the growing sense of depression finds some relief as, here and there, a clump, or " bluff," of poplars — the trembling aspen of the prairies — comes into view. The land, too, is undulating ; and if that tret; which seems to have strayed from its companions and got lost: upon the prairie is not a spruce, I think I never saw one. There is just unevenness enough in the surface of the soil to deprive of its grotesqueness the description in the guide books of the " rolling " prairie. But, thanks to the syndicates, who hold for exorbitant prices, little of it is brought under cultivation. If all that is said of its fertility be true, purchasers of these vast tracks may perhaps ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 57 '%i be found when the United States become importers of grain. Certainly nowhere else in the world is there such an extent of fertile land untenanted. The theory that this fertility is attributable to silts, deposited during ages when the present surface was under water, is probably correct. Meanwhile, my cynical friend, with an eye to the beautiful in nature, there is no law compelling you to seek a home in these wilds. I am becoming cynical myself; or rather I was before I fell a happy victim to the soporific in- fluences of the dead monotony without and my companion's pathetic melancholy within. That new plunge into desolation after the vision of a real, living spruce tree, and the pleasantly musical, though strange and seemingly suddenly arrested, and unfinished song of the ground lark, favoured drowsiness and threatened hypochondria. I did not dream of spruce, and larks, and busy home- steads, but of solitude and endless space, and of a low, cynical moan, " I told you so " coming up ever and anon over th Jead level of the prairie. Resolutely pulling myself together, as the hollow whistle or bellow of the engine broke my brief slumber, I cast a troubled glance through the window, and at once became conscious of a change. We were approaching Sidney. Ploughed fields and a few cattle once again spoke of industry and =ff ?r^ -l-'WTWT.Ji 1- i 58 SUNNY MANITOBA : thrift — and the spruce \ Nay, the whole family of spruce, from which the solitary fugitive tree had wandered, here dwelt at home. More cattle, and more ploughed fields, with here and there a bright, cheerful-looking homestead ! A pleasant contrast to the absolute sterility, and the limitless, treeless flats in presence of which I had fallen asleep. We seemed to travel with accelerated speed and en- hanced comfort, as we sped along over the now literally " rolling " prairie, well-wooded — not with the ubiquitous poplar only, but with maple, scrub- oak, and spruce, of finer growth and in larger quantity as we approached Carberry. The scenery improved as Brandon was reached, and the beauti- fully sinuous Assiniboine once more came into view. Of Brandon sufficient has already been *»id. It is in the midst of a fertile district, and the famous Brandon Hills to the south are not yet wholly denuded of the timber which was once their glory. Romantic stories are told of the success of farmers in this district, and I believe that they are generally well-founded. That of Mr. J. W. Sandison beats the record. He informed the English delegate farmers in 1890 that when he came to Manitoba he was positively without twopence ; whilst he now owns absolutely a farming plant for which he would refuse |20,000 I :^0^ / gr i>-Hft-k.fAi?kt wagffiK?t' ig TOs'»y :. /T'i' PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 59 He had 1,500 acres under wheat crop, and 300 of oats, the whole of which he threshed before the end of November, thus realising the best prices. He has also 800 acres of breaking and backsetting on land recently bought from the Canadian Pacific Railway.* But the story of his plan of farming, of his horses, cattle, farm buildings, and machinery, and of his marvellous success, would involve a digression for which we have not space. Following the course of the Assiniboine, on its south bank, after a run of thirty-two miles through a fertile stretch of comparatively level prairie, we reach Oak Lake station, eight miles north of the lake from which the little town takes its name. Water is fairly plentiful, and timber more abundant. The lake is a sheet of water covering an area of several miles, 'id famous for the many species of its water-fowl. Much of the ' For the benefit of the uninitiated it may be explained that " breaking " is the process of turning the tough, thick prairie sod, which is left to rot and to the pulverising action of the frost. This work is generally done in the spring, after seeding, when the matted roots of the prairie grass are soft and succulent, and the soil also soft. The plough used for this purpose turns over a broad sod less than three inches thick, and therefore penetrated alike by sun and frost. The soil then appears as a light, friable mould, and is easily " backset " in the fall or in the following spring. Back- setting is a second ploughing, the furrows running the same way as in breaking, and a depth of about four inches. iiTf' 60 SUNNY MANITOBA : surrounding land is low and marshy ; but it pro- duces enormous crops of hay, and the great abundance of timber, with a very fertile soil, make it one of the most desirable districts for stock- farming in Manitoba. Between Oak Lake and Routledge the country becomes hilly ; wood is plentiful, and the prairie appears, after all, to possess features of natural beauty which are not to be despised. We will look at some of these when we have completed our present bird's-eye view of the province from its eastern to the last railway station on its western border. Ten miles will take us there. Approaching the neat little town of Virden we pass many homesteads, and some large farms with good out-buildings, and characterised by a general air of prosperity, judging by the number of cattle — though sheep are not anywhere visible. The town is situated in the midst of a wide fertile plain, on the Gopher Creek and within a mile of the junction of that stream with the Assiniboine. All homestead land has long since been taken up by settlers wise to perceive — •' Where streams abound How laughs tlie land, with various plenty crowned." We are here again upon the level prairie, but in one of the richest agricultural districts of Manitoba. ■mn-ji^.n '"-ryiT^- ■ " f y.« f -^;- ) miA,.^ -.'t -wi /7V9 PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 6i There is little wood, and little to please the eye. The town makes no pretension to display, but is neat and clean, and regularly built. The streets are well paved, with wooden side-walks slightly convex at the intersection of the streets to allow moisture to run off-— a blessing to pedestrians in bad weather. The population is a little over 5cx>. Another six miles over the Hat prairie brings us to Elkhorn, the furthest station west in the pro- vince. There is nothing imposing in the appear- ance of the little, irregularly built, but pleasant prairie town. The most conspicuous building is that in which the Indian Schools, of which wc shall presently have to speak, are located. There are two places of worship — for the Episcopalians and the Methodists — a school, three general stores, and two grain elevators. The population is under 200, but the importance of the town as a centre for the distribution of agricultural products is increasing ; whilst, as a farming district, the good supply of surface water yielded by the gravelly soil is in its favour. Leaving Elkhorn in a southerly direction the pedestrian may, in a walk of twenty miles or less, make himself well acquainted with the western prairie in all its phases. His first impression will probably be the reverse of favourable. The prairie is flat ; extensive prairie fires of annual occurrence '^\^ 62 SUNNY MANITOBA ; have consumed every vestige of wood, and left a blackened track over which the new grass grows slowly. Like the level bed of an ocean— as indeed it is — a treeless, illimitable, and uncultivated ex- panse lies before him. Yet a level sameness of rich prairic-Iand presents a not unpleasing mono- tony. Only to the tourist in search of the picturesque is it wholly uninteresting. But as our traveller pushes on, an occasional homestead comes into view. Presently a deep ravine, once — as perhaps it may be again — the course of a river, is passed. The prairie again becomes undulating ; whilst a tender growth of young poplars around a " slough," or swamp, indicates the arrest of prairie fires, and a promise that as the province becomes more settled this devastating agency will be effectually checked, and the face of the country transfigured. It is transfigured alread)' to our pedestrian ; for he has left behind him that vast ocean bed where, long ages since, the waters went down or the land went up. Before him, far as he can see in that clear atmosphere, the land, broken up by numerous bluffs of poplars, and willows, which form a thick and somewhat intricate cover aroui»d every slough, assumes a park-like aspect. The west is ablaze with gold — ^^'^►*»*P» *MI- "T^ /rs PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTHrES. 63 " And the evening sun descending Sets the clouds on fire with redness, Hums the broad sky, like a prairie." As the sun approaches the horizon, clouds of green and saffron float in a sea of amber, and *• colours never classed or catalogued " mingle in the clear blue vault of heaven. The night is hardly less beautiful. In the still, clear air the stars shine with scarcely diminished brightness down to the horizon itself, whilst — , " Over it, the Star of Evening Melts and trembles through the purple. Hangs suspended in the twilight." All is stillness ; and as the shades of evening creep quickly on, and the colours blush good-night in the west, on the opposite horizon the full moon hangs in the pure ether like a balloon floating over the wide expanse of prairie. The long, low whistle of the mosquito hawk, answered, maybe, by the lonely call of an owl, alone breaks the silence. The gophers scamper to their holes, at the mouth of which they pause, stand upon their hind legs, and " put their thumb unto their nose," if they do not also " spread their fingers out." In the distance a fox may be seen creeping cautiously round a willow-circled bluff, where he may have a choice of gopher, blackbird, rabbit, and sometimes prairie-chicken for supper. Master Reynard will m /a y s IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I I^IM |2.5 ■so "^~ IIIHB IL25 i 1.4 m Photographic Sdences Corporation A k fe •S^ \ ^V :\ \ rv 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ^4 ^ ■(9MI 64 SUNNY MANITOBA choose the latter. As the darkness grows, a timid maiten may show himself on the trail, to disappear in the twinkling of an eye ; whilst the bolder badger hastens home after a well-spent evening burrowing for gophers and moles. Then all nature seems to sleep, save that the frogs, facetiously called "Canadian nightingales," keep up a lively pow-wow in the sloughs. A sense of solitude in that unrelieved loneliness may well seize upon the wanderer, but there is no place for sadness. The idea of endless space no longer depresses him. For even the prairie has lost its terrors — begotten of ignorance — and he is impatient to see it in all its varied aspects. And first, he experiences its hospitality. He may sleep, without fear of any ill effects from exposure, in the neighbouring bluff; but he will do better to call at the nearest shanty, and, what- ever the nationality of its owner, in accordance with prairie etiquette a cordial welcome, with bed and breakfast, will be offered him. Perhaps the night may be stormy. Three out of every four prairie thunder-storms occur at night, working up with little warning ; and a violent thunderstorm on the prairie is a thing to be remembered. The thunder-peals echo one another — it is one con- tinuous rattle, crash, and roar of thunder. In great zigzag lines of white, yellow, and red, the ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 65 lightning flashes every moment. So continuous is it, that the plain seems a vast sea of fire ; one might see to read by it with little interruption. The cause of this, as Professor Bryce observes, is not far to seek. " The large mass of heated air, full of vapour, is suddenly acted on by other masses, currents of different temperature, and the like, and the breadth of surface is so wide that the crash is correspondingly great. But so long as no damage is done — and the accidents by stroke of lightning do not seem more numerous than in other countries — the grandeur of the scene may be looked on without fear." The severest storms are seldom of long duration. When they occur in the day- time sun and cloud struggle for mastery, whilst rainbows chase each other across the wide arch of heaven, and are radiant with a splendour of light such as, in more humid atmosphere, never was on land or sea. When a severe storm is preceded by an evening and a sunset such as I have endeavoured to describe from frequent personal observation, the force of contrast is exhausted. I leave it to the imagination of the reader. However violent the storm, it is most likely that our traveller will awake to the melody of birds, whose joy of life in the still atmosphere and glorious sunshine is communicated to himself He is early abroad. The morning air is cool as he 66 SUNNY MANITOBA : steps out of the shanty, just in time to see the wide plain suddenly flush with vermilion-coloured light, as the rays of the rising sun, now rose-coloured, now orange, shoot upward, and are mirrored in millions of dewdrops sparkling upon every flower and blade of grass. Spell-bound for a few solemn moments, he watches in silence the changes of the calm and perfect dawn like that upon the Purga- torial Mountains, whilst — " the white and the vermilion cheeks Of beautiful Aurora, where he was, By too great age were changing into orange." Unlike the purgatorial spirits, he knows no sadness " in the sweet air made gladsome by the sun," although, " bewildered at the chariot of the light," he presently becomes conscious that his desire to see the prairie under new aspects is being realised less to his satisfaction than in that wizardry of emotion from which he is rudely roused. The mysterious and the familiar, the real and the unreal, are so strangely mingled, that it is difficult to identify the shanty of his friendly host with that which he entered last night. Then, the horizon to the west was closed in with bluffs at a distance ot less than a mile ; that to the north by a ridge of high land. Every object to the south and east had been closely scanned, and of nothing was he more *> m Its people Ai\tD its industries. 67 certain than that no stream or river watered that park-like district. Now, no ridge closes the hori- zon to ihe north. Ten miles away he sees the little town of Elkhorn, basking in the morning sunshine, and twenty miles beyond it the ^ssini- boine river, running northwards towards Beulah. Turning to the south he sees the distant Pipestone Creek, running in a north-westerly direction where no streams had been yesterday ; whilst on the west — ten miles beyond the bluffs which then limited his horizon as he saw them bathed in sunset light, blue, and violet, and opal — are houses, and an extensive forest which he is perfectly con- fident had no place in the landscape upon which, but eight hours before, he had gazed with delight. In this strange wizardry of light " with faculties confounded by excess," he finds it hard to persuade himself that he is not in dreamland. The house, or shanty, is the same in which he had hesitatingly asked for shelter. The outbuildings bespeak their identity beyond all possible doubt. Bluff and slough, garden, field, and rolling prairie are just as he had seen them yesternight. But now — has he been delirious ? — the larger prospect, town and river, creek and forest, upon which he has been gazing astonished, for full half an hour, passes away like the image from the reflecting surfacd of a kaleidoscope ! It is the mirage : one of the most »-ii|« .. »i w r " ' .!,» ' H! r ;. 70 SUNNY MANITOBA : give promise of bounteous supplies of a fruit which is only less prized than the wild strawberry, whose white blossoms and beautiful leaves encircle every bluff. The violet, in every country the welcome harbinger of spring, has disappeared, and the crocus which but lately covered the prairie has paled before the anemone and the rose. Far and wide upon the open prairie, but specially loving the shelter of the bluff, a ring of the delicate white, starry blossoms of the anemone, tinged with a dull pink on the outside, unfold themselves to the glad sunshine. The American poet of nature, who so largely drew his inspirations from the prairie and its flora, has noticed the fondness of the anemone for situations where glimpses of sunshine reach it through the shadows of the trembling aspen — *' Within the wood, Whose young and half-transparent leaves Scarce cast a shade, gay circles of anemones Danced on their stalks." In charming contrast with the white flowers of the anemone is the lovely golden -blossomed mocassin flower — or yellow lady's slipper, as the country people call it — which vies with the lily and the vetch in loveliness and luxuriance. The plant belongs to the orchis family, and has a large sac-like inflated lip, sometimes tinged with rosy ,, ,IL nil MMBi mn ^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 71 1 i pink, the two spirally twisted petals of a bright yellow colour giving it an elegant and striking appearance. The flowers are terminal, and, so far as I have observed, solitary, although it is said that strong plants occasionally produce two or three blossoms on one stem. The bluffs are also gay with wild roses, which here sometimes attain a height of five or six feet, whilst dwarf plants are scattered over the prairie in the greatest profusion, a tiny plant, not two inches high, often presenting a diamond-shaped cluster of four perfect flowers. The average height of the dwarf plant is about a foot, and their thickly clus- tering flowers brighten every wayside and lade the air with perfume from June to October. One more of the many prairie flowers which encircle the bluffs, and in return for the shelter afforded them add the greatest ornament to these flower preserves, is the wild orange lily, commonly called the tiger-lily. It is a gay and gorgeous plant, the chief floral glory of the prairie. From twelve to fifteen inches in height, the flower is terminal and solitary, though I have heard of two or three growing upon one stem. The narrow, pointed leaves of a dark green colour grow in whirls round the stem, and are not very conspicuous. The flower is a large open bell, of a rich orange scarlet within, spotted with brown or black. The outer surface of the petals is of a pale .-5 < 72 SUNNY MANirOIiA oraiij^c, or sometimes pink, the deep red pollen of the long anthers contrasting exquisitely with their filaments, and with the transparent orange scarlet of the petals. In her " Studies of Plant Life in Canada," Mrs. C. P. Traill writes : *' Many flowers increase in beauty of colour and size under cultivation in our gardens, but our glorious lily can hardly be seen to greater advantage than when growing wild on the open plains and prairies, under the bright skies of its native wilderness." The profusion of prairie flowers, and the variety which every succeeding week produces, is very striking ; some, unhappily, are rapidly disappearing as the prairie is brought under cultivation ; and it will be a public calamity if these treasures of the wilderness are permitted to become extinct. Their preservation concerns every lover of nature, and it might be well if those admirable institutions, the Experimental Farms, would devote a few acres of land to their cultivation, supplying seed to settlers who have taste enough to ornament their gardens with some of the most lovely productions of the soil. Having lingered with our traveller over the " bluffs " and " sloughs," instinct with life and beauty, let us still follow his track. He has walked, following a well-defined trail, six miles or more across the *• rolling " prairie. Right and ^^Nrw ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 73 left he has passed half a dozen homesteads, the owners of which if not distinctly prosperous, are making a Hviny out of farms which are their own property, and are every year becoming better stocked and better cultivated. The one drawback to this district is the scarcity of water, to which reference will be made hereafter. It is of water that our pedestrian is in search ; — of that river, real or imaginary, which the mirage had shown him at sunrise. He is heading due south, for a house which an hour ago appeared no more than a mile distant, but still seems as far off — so deceptive are distances in that clear, translucent atmosphere. Arriving at length at Riverside Farm, he has accepted the proffered hospitality of its owner. Whilst his hostess hastens to make such preparation for the mid- day meal as shall at once vindicate her reputation for hospitality, and her skill in meeting an emergency, a walk round the farm-yard will give an edge to his appetite which, in all probability, his host will appraise just in propor- tion as he evinces a real, and not a simulated interest in what he has to show him. The man who, with a prairie appetite, has to wait for his dinner, should therefore judiciously improve the interval. But let him beware of sycophancy ! There is nothing which the average '3 I »> "» '«M-< : t •■•. 4- M />:- ^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 75 {■ J H 1884, and after nine years* work he is now able to show his guest a comfortable and picturesque house, measuring 27 feet by 21 feet ; a stable, 24 feet by 14 feet ; machine shed, 24 feet by 14 feet ; two granaries, 20 feet by 16 feet; hog-pen, 18 feet by 14 feet ; hen-house, 10 feet by 7 feet ; black-smith's shop, 16 feet by 12 feet ; with two wells, a self- binding machine, a good roller (an indispensable but singularly neglected implement in Manitoba), a fanning mill, waggon, sleigh, ploughs, harrows, &c. In addition to pigs and poultry, he has two teams of oxen, four cows, and several head of young cattle. He has about 100 acres in crop or summer fallowed, and his farm of 320 acres is worth ;^700. Within ten minutes' distance is the Pipestone Creek, affording that constant supply of water which is essential for " mixed " farming, apart from which wheat-growing is a delusion and a snare. Here, then, is the river which our pedestrian saw at sunrise. Lying very low between its steep banks, and consequently only seen at close quarters, the Pipestone Creek waters a rich country. Its banks are in many parts well wooded, the maple, willow, oak, ash, and tama- rack being conspicuous ; whilst wild fruits, as plums, huckleberries, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and currants abound, in localities suited to their growth. Anything more pic- •rrfrmsm f^mHlff^f. I , tji 'W " !' ■ " »■' "" '! ■'< » ^y ?g : I 76 SUNNY MANITOBA : turesque than some of the reaches of this sinuous river 1 have rarely seen. The deep ravines on its north bank, with their umbrageous pathways, are a striking feature. Some of them are crested with trees which slope down to the river's brink ; others, though bare of timber, afford shelter in their respective seasons for almost every species of prairie wild flower. Very pleasant to me is the memory of summer evenings, recalling Hiawatha — *' From his couch of leaves and branches Gazing with half-open eyelids, Full of shadowy dreams and visions, On the dizzy, swimming landscape, On the gleaming of the water, On the splendour of the sunset." In such sacramental communion with nature " it is impossible not to feel," as one has expressed it, " both purified in spirit and fortified in mind," or, with our own poet of Nature, that *' One impulse from a vernal wood Will teach you more of man — Of human nature and of good. Than all the sages can." Penetrating the woods thus watered by the creek, if we miss the rich mosses of our English woods, and the ever-green and ever-beautiful ivy, I I i > I ^TS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES, 77 I- we find a luxuriant growth of creeping plants — vines and hops — which hang in graceful festoons from a height of thirty feet, length after length winding in and out, here forming loops, and there throwing out pendant, quivering arms towards some branch upon which to lean their weight. Flowerless they may be — or seem- ingly so — but few of the most gorgeous flowering plants excel in grace and beauty the pendulous leaves of these creepers, and their bell-shaped capsules, tinted auburn, in charming contrast with the mass of green foliage around, and the flower-bespangled carpet beneath them. As the sunset splendour fades into the brief twilight every songster in these woods is mute — save one. The lark — unlike his European second cousins — haunting the bluffs, whence he has poured in quaint but melodious trill, a glad serenade from the long-.shadowed leafy willows, continues at intervals to break the silence, the last living thing to praise its Maker with its song ; whilst from the creek below there comes a low, deep murmur, as of a wail for the departing glories of the summer day. Such are the impressions, indelibly stamped upon my memory, of the " dull, monotonous prairie." It must not, however, be supposed that the western prairie is a paradise where human lives may be ■*s'f^a'*-«t:.u.'^^.^.tmttmej£mmaw^ iZ:''' '.-f *'-'^W( if •* W^^^'^l^swp-Xw'V ,'^W^'"^I(W-' 'v. r 78 SUNNY MANITOBA passed in sure seclusion from all the ills that flesh is heir to. The mosquitoes are to many — particularly in the first year of residence — a source of great discomfort, which might easily be miti- gated if not overcome. Were they only a little more venomous and numerous, measures would be adopted to secure protection against their ingress to the settler's house, or at any rate against their vicious propensity to disturb his slumbers. But the mosquito net is rarely used ; and even the "smudge," by means of which they may be driven from the house, or from the cattle who are sometimes tortured by them, is seldom resorted to. More troublesome than the mosquitoes are the black flies, which in the late summer are unpleasantly numerous. The mosquito is only troublesome in the evening, and for the most part out-of-doors ; the black fly has no regard for time or place, but a very resolute determina- tion to secure a first share at meal times of everything edible. In the autumn, flying ants are a source of annoyance ; but they seldom remain many days and only fly in sultry weather. The worst of these insect pests is the deer-fly, or "bull-dog" as it is commonly called. Its bite is painful and venomous ; it is more than a bite, since with its formidable jaws it tears out a piece of flesh and carries it off* to be devoured at I w J "■-— t" ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 79 i leisure. Fortunately it seldom attacks human beings, although cattle and sheep are sometimes maddened by it. A few words remain to be said of some of the peculiar natural phenomena of the prairie. Of these perhaps the most striking is the mirage, which we have already seen, and the glorious sunsets of which also we have had a glimpse. If an artist, in the exuberance of his genius, could depict upon canvas the quick and mar- vellous transitions of effect, the strange contrasts and intermingling of colour, and the celestial transparencies of a prairie sunset, his picture of a scene — "so untrue to nature, you know" — would imperil his reputation. But, as one has said, " Nature has many truths, and it takes many a long day and not a few years' toil to catch a tenth of them." And, after all, nature transcends art, and the atmosphere through which many of her finest manifestations are given, may be suggested but cannot be produced upon canvas. It is the atmosphere, again, which lends an added glory to the Aurora borealis. In the stillness of night the illumination of the northern sky has a fascinating and awe-inspiring effect. One holds one's breath in watching, and feels that the prairie is enchanted. Long columns of light seem to rest upon its dark and silent base ■U 8o SUNNY MANITOBA : whilst their rose-tipped tongues, flickering up towards the zenith, suggest the Manito — the awful Beyond of Indian mythology. So silently, yet so rapidly, the changing colours run along these shafts that, as Captain Butler writes, " The ear listens instinctively for sound in the deep stillness." The summer-lightning out of a clear sky is a sight equally beautiful and wonderful. It is called by various names — chain-lightning, whip-lightning, and so forth ; but the difference is not very obvious. Irregular, seemingly whim- sical, but generally in curved lines the rapid flashes illuminate the whole horizon. Now it ascends from the horizon ; again lines of light traverse the sky from east to west, sometimes single, often in duplicate curves ; and yet again, in plume-like form it descends like a golden shower in three or four curved lines of exquisite beauty. These celestial pyrotechnics are not of o'-casional, but of almost nightly occurrence — whisperings from the Unseen, full of grace and beauty. But, as we have already seen, there is lightning of another kind — awful, sublime, and blinding in its intensity. Nature is full of antitheses, and in the forked-lightning we see this truth exemplified more forcibly than agree- ably. Amongst the phenomena of the prairie the ■ •A i it ))' i\ I *(' ir k i I ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 8i devastating fires must also be mentioned. Too frequently caused by carelessness or wanton mis- chief, the prairie fire, however grand a spectacle, is a sight one would gladly be spared. Every year as the country becomes more settled fire- guards — i.e., areas of ploughed land, five yards wide — are extended, and the ravages of a fire brought more under control. On a fine frosty night, when the flames are magnified by re- fraction, and for thirty miles or more sweep over the great rolling sea of grass, the sight baffles description. The flames flash and quiver on the horizon, and when they seize upon stacks, or poplar bluffs, or, it may be, upon the wooden buildings of a homestead, the deep orange colour pales into the yellow of their forked tips, running up into the rolling clouds of smoke which hang like a golden aureole above them. Vast tracks of country are every year denuded of timber which, if the constantly recurring prairie fires were arrested, would enhance the value and beauty of the land, as well as tend to modify the climate. In a high wind a fire will leap any guard which the settler may plough around his homestead ; and if adequate protection can only be afforded by an annual ploughing of the road allowance, it may reasonably be claimed from the Government. 6 ■ ■(ifmii|i«iii'j»jp],ii|iiijiijiHiii|p| 83 SUNNY MANITOBA The section of prairie which we have traversed may be regarded as fairly typical. Having noted some of its diverse physical formations, and seen it in some of its no less varying phases, it may be well, before considering it in relation to the question of agriculture, to devote a little space to its fauna and aboriginal population. The flora of Manitoba is a tempting subject ; but from what has been already said some idea may be formed of its beauty and variety. Few countries have a greater profusion of wild flowers, some of which are beinj^ cultivated in European gardens ; whilst, as has been already observed, there is too much reason to fear that as the prairie is brought under cultivation many of them are doomed to extinction. The bird life of the prairie would also be a theme for a volume, but can only be the subject of incidental reference. Nor can we here deal otherwise than very super- ficially with its fauna. In no part of our Colonial Empire is the process of settlement, and of developing the resources of a province, going on more rapidly than in Mani- toba. A change in the fauna of the country is an inevitable consequence. The railways, which are being extended in every direction, are destructive of ' the quiet in which animals wild by nature delight, and the fauna of the province is much less } ■-*.-v »»•*»»•« » ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 83 varied to-day than it was within a decade. The buffalo, which used to wander over its prairies in countless thousands, and whose calcined bones still whiten its plains, has wholly disappeared. The elk is rarely seen, and the moose-deer is only found in the extreme north, where it can no longer be said to have its home. Bears are seldom met with, save in the remoter woods, where the black bear is found. Although carnivorous, it is timid — unless wounded or hungry — ever on the alert, and perfectly harmless. In default of sheep, pigs, &c., it regales itself upon the abundant wild berries. The lynx will soon be equally rare, as these woods are being rapidly demolished. The lynx, however, is an animal of several species, and one of these, resembling, but much larger than the English cat, is still abundant. Its general colour is grey, in- clining to redness, whence its name. Felts riifus. It has long thick legs, paws very large, with long and sharp claws. Three or four may occasionally be seen together on a trail in wooded districts watching for prey. The animal is timid, though ferocious when attacked ; and as it preys upon destructive rodents its extermination would be unfortunate. It is commonly known as the cata- mount, and it is said that sometimes, impelled by hunger, it will attack a man. But, unless taken unawares, he has nothing to fear from an attack I 84 SUNNY MANITOUA: which is seldom made in the open, but from the branch of a tree, upon which, from similarity of colour, it may easily lie concealed, and from which with unerring spring it plunges its powerful claws into the eyes of its victim, be he man or beast. A story, for the truth of which I cannot vouch, was told last winter of a clever capture of one of these animals by a girl of sixteen. Riding to school on a pony one morning, she suddenly saw a large catamount crouching near her and preparing for a spring. With great presence of mind she seized the lariat hanging at her saddle-bow, and by a dexterous throw caught the savage animal in its coils. The pony galloped off, and the monster was soon dragged to death. Along the course of the streams the musk rat abounds, and the otter and beaver are found. But the latter is now almost confined to the banks of the Assiniboine in the North- West. The marten is following in his wake, and of the small furred animals only the skunk, the mink, and the weasel, or ermine, are at all plentiful. The skunk, which lives in communities, is the most valuable and the least agile of the polecat family, and may be easily run down by those who have not contracted a wholesome dread of its powerful means of defence. The weasel of the prairie is distinctly allied to, if not identical with, the ermine of Northern Europe. «' «c<(»« <- ■Mil \\ 86 SUNNY MANITOBA : the prairie. Long may he continue to do so! For he is the most dcacily foe of the mischievous gopher. Me is mischievous too in his turn, since in burrowing for the gopher and other rodents he throws up an enormous quantity of soil. If this happens to be upon the wheat field, more than a square yard of the growing grain will lie buried beneath a mound of earth, whilst as much more will be destroyed by the burrow. If it is upon the trail, as very frequently happens, it is rendered unsafe for driving, especially at night, when even the pedestrian may easily sprain his ankle by unwarily stepping into one of these holes. But the badger is the farmer's friend. His skin, of a bright grey colour, appears to be used principally in the manufacture of large driving mitts, but, owing to its thin texture, it is not valuable enough to render him an object of eager pursuit by the Indians. He is therefore little molested, and is probably as abundant to-day as when the white man first invaded his native haunts. These are not the woods, but the open prairie, where, leading a sloth- ful life, never wandering far from his burrow, he grows fat upon gophers, young or wounded birds, and flesh of any description. His legs are short and strong ; the long and powerful claws of the forefeet enabling him to burrow with marvellous rapidity. His habits are solitary, and though .'::;!■'',"/,,. av'«,«««i«.t)t.4i, ««fl mm •• /rs PEOri.E AiVl) ITS INDUSTNIES. 87 timid, he is powerful enough to be dangerous when driven to bay. He si)cnds most of his time in sleep, and in the winter remains at the bottom of his long, winding burrow in a torpid condition. Amongst many small rodents of which necessary limitations forbid descriptions, space must be found for a few words respecting one re|>eatedly mentioned, and, as the reader may ha^*' observed, with little respect. The gopher is the pest of the prairie, but only in phenomenally dry seasons is it a source of serious trouble to the farmer. Its fecundity exceeds that of the rabbit, and its dcstructiveness is hardly less. In proportion to the dryness of the season it invades fields and gardens, working serious havoc. Nor is that all. As the grain ripens its destructiveness increa.ses, being no longer confined to what it actually eats. With its powerful teeth it saws through the stem some twelve inches above the root, and from the fallen ear will eat a grain or two, and then, in wanton mischief, repeat the process through a whole day. Or it will carry off an ear, sawn from the stem, towards its hole, leave it to perish by the way, and go back for another. More than a quart of shelled grain will be stored up in a single hole for winter consumption, and as much more wasted in its transit thither. When the wheat is in shock \!^W'-^frtiy^W^ r.i^*.»>*«katf4^.».,rtK«» ■:..:■ A.r. ,-,(.■ ^^SU^ti&mmi^^r*^^^ ^■BWw 8S SUNNY MANITOBA its depredations are continued ; large quantities of shelled-out grain, and of ears nibbled from the stem, attesting the misdirected industry of this mischievous rodent. Cats and dogs and. traps, with the wild animals which make it their prey, all fail to diminish the numbers of this pest. Only a very powerful cat will attack it, and with con- summate impudence it defies the pursuit of dogs. It will run with lightning speed to the mouth of its hole ; then, standing erect upon its hind legs, will utter its miserable mew-squcak, rubbing its nose with its forepaws and looking defiance at all and sundry. There it stands until the hot breath of its pursuing foe is upon it when, in the twinkling of an eye, it dives into its hole, and, whilst the dog is snorting and burrowing frantically, it is out at the other end, twenty or thirty yards away, uttering its wretched trumpet-note of defiance, and challenging a renewal of the farce. My own ex- perience of the gopher pest was in an exceptionally dry season, for which due allowance should be made. Ordinarily, the heavy rains in June destroy them, wholesale, in the breeding season, and the succulent grasses of the prairie provide food which prevents their migration to cultivated fields. But at all times they are a nuisance, and a source of anxiety to the farmer from which he should be relieved. \ 'i i ' I v»^. , •i-^i- . -wrx-*- ■*»•««'>, p•♦,^.^T **•» i^-s-*" < ■,'*M_i^yjw»;a /■ 7' r i 'ii i ii.i ii W i Bilii ii i j i» i w <»»wiii|i|i||i -wA* vVlrvf^Wiv. :^ifWraMr -jiiiii i-iiiriii V ■. .•«r<»tti,i£^>.f ^ ...-..^. 7''f;V>^^.p¥«|»' 90 SUNNY MANITOBA. season ; great numbers of the young — which other- wise would themselves breed in July and August — would perish in their holes, and some effectual check to this scourge would result. i» if':'- m vl i J .. -., ■rt«.A';v(»MM,^^»p4MA*i««i!BiV4.>, m' : -<' * - i)m'mQi' ' M 0^ <1>— > CHAPTER III. Englishmen, whether in England or in Canada, cannot be indifferent to the aboriginal population of the country of which they have claimed the reversion. The native Indians, the representatives of a remote antiquity, lost to the knowledge of the eastern hemisphere for perhaps 4,ocx) years, are well worthy of the patient study of the ethnologist and the antiquarian. It would be out of place, however, to attempt here more than a very super- ficial description of a race, destined, probably at no distant day, either to be merged in the general community, or to become wholly extinct. Whilst both their origin and the source of their original migrations are shrouded in mystery, the patient research of ethnologists has established the fact that the Red Indians of Canada and the United States, whose number is estimated at 375,000, have sprung from two great groups, as distinct as the Anglo-Saxon from the Norman race. These groups — the Malay-Polynesian and ' '*'ktkHtai»m)>kf-t»-s^n*t^m*^)^'f4mt^^ ^ »t4e«>.'"i!j-»v*.. p^TfHi!? 92 SUNNY MANITOBA the Northern Asiatic — into which all the tribes may be resolved, are represented in Manitoba by Algonquins, the Blackfeet, and the Iroquois, with their congeners the Assiniboines, the Ojibeways, the Crees, the Sioux, and other small tribes. The wandering habits of these races tend to disinte- griicion, and the number of sub-tribes or families is enough to bafifle the most patient inquiry into their history. Incredible as it may appear, no less than one thousand different Indian languages and dialects are, or have within a century been spoken, by the Red Indians of the North American conti- nent. The tribal languages differ so radically, both in grammatical and in verbal forms, as to compel the substitution of signs for speech between members of different tribes ; whilst in stature, physique, intelligence, and religion, the differences are no less remarkable. In the early stages of British colonisation in the North-west we were in a state of perpetual conflict with the Red Indians. Under French influence they guarded the entrance west to the prairie region. Hence, probably, the name Portage la Prairie, given to a settlement the geographical position of which is other than it suggests. The Algonquins took the side of the French, whilst the more energetic and aggressive Iroquois — who re- sented the French king's prohibition of any other ^,,**r»4*,*»*.«^^. " -■".;—: T«;'"TT?P~' ^m^^- ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 93 faith than that of Rome — sided with the British. Their wild notions of liberty, however, made them unstable allies, incapable of and abhorring all restraint. But their friendship was assiduously cultivated, and under their guidance the North- West was explored. The Red Indian as we see him to-day in Mani- toba, with everything that is grotesque in apparel, his black hair falling on both sides of his brown face, does not answer to the description of " the noble savage " with which we have been familia- rised. But if the well-made and artist .^ily em- broidered white tunic and the gay plume of feathers have disappeared, so also has the bloody scalping- knife. With the old beauty of the free denizen of the prairie has also gone " the vengeful fury that made man a mere hunter." But Manitoba, though his birth-home, is only the fringe of the territory in which he still roams ; and except for purposes of barter he usually avoids the settled districts. As we shall see, he has not, until quite recently, been to any considerable extent amenable to the in- fluences of civilisation. No reflection is here in- tended upon the missionary societies whose agents have laboured throughout the Dominion, and with great devotion, to Christianise the aborigines. Their efforts have not been fruitless, though it is to be feared that the profession of Christianity is often i|P^l^P-»}^l()llHL^,,ll(^ mfim 94 SUNNY MANITOBA .- unaccompanied by any real conviction. It is the old story of the demoralising influence exercised by the scum of civilisation upon an inferior race. The landgrabber and the drunkard are, to the unsophisticated savage, types of civilisation and Christianity, which they do nothing to commend. At a recent meeting in Winnipeg, Mr. Holmes, a missionary of the Episcopalian Church in the district of Athabana, related the trials and diffi- culties of the Christian missionary. The Indians, he said, ask : " If your Bible speaks truth, why are the white men, who have been praying from their infancy, worse than the Indians ? It is they who have taught us our worst vices." There is no more pathetic story than that related of the grand old Indian patriarch Father Lacombe, whose immense influence enabled him to ignore tribal differences and to wield, as he does still, a formidable power, especially with the Blackfoot Indians. When the Riel insurrection led every Indian to look to his rifle and his scalping-knife, and when the war-cry was already sounded, he alone could sway the haughty, picturesque, grand old savage, side by side with whom he had gone through many a fierce and barbarous battle, sharing dangers and privations, until the great barbarian monarch became his fast friend, and accepted the religion of which his life was so eloquent an ex- V fi I ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 95 position. To no other person would it have been possible to extract from the great chief Crowfoot a pledge that the Indians should not rise. When the Canadian Pacific Railway was being surveyed, Father Lacombe foresaw the inevitable effects of contact with the pale faces, and told the wondering red men — his " children " as he called them — that amongst them would be many bad men, seeking to sell whisky, offering money for the ruin of the squaws. He went to the Reservation, says a writer in Harper's Weekly, and assembled the leaders before him in council. " Reaching the greatest eloquence possible for him, ... he assured them that contact with these white men would result in death, in the destruction of the Indians, and by the most horrible processes of disease and misery. He thundered and he pleaded. The Indians stopped and reflected. Then they spoke through old Crow- foot : ' We have listened. We will keep upon our Reservation. We will not see the railroad.' " But Father Lacombe doubted still. So once again he went to the Reserve, and gathering the chief and head-men, warned them of the soulless, diabolical, selfish instincts of the white men. Again the grave warriors promised to obey him. The sequel is thus related : — " The railroad labourers came with camps, and money, and liquors, and numbers, and the prairie 'i 4 11 i 96 S UNN V MANl TOBA : thundered the echoes of their sledge-hammer strokes. And one morning the old priest looked out of the window of his bare bedroom and saw curling wisps of gray smoke ascending from a score of tepees on the hill beside Calgary. Angry, amazed, he went to his doorway and opened it, and there upon the ground sat some of the head- men and the old men, with bowed heads, ashamed. Fancy the priest's wrath and his questions ! Note how wisely he chose the name of children for them, when I tell you that their spokesman at last answered with the excuse that the buffaloes were gone, and food was hard to get, and the white men brought money which the squaws could get. And what was the end } There are always tepees on the hills now beside every settlement near the Blackfoot Reservation. And one old missionary lifted his trembling forefinger toward the sky, when I was there, and said, ' Mark me : in fifteen years there will not be a full-blooded Indian alive on the Canadian prairie — not one.' " One result at least the missionaries have achieved ; they have obtained a hold upon the children of nominal Christians. These are drafted into the Industrial Schools, and instructed in the j/rinciples of the Christian religion ; whilst, until a year or two since, it was found next to impossible to persuade a heathen Indian to send his children '_8. II m. ^ laij^iJw ■' H' r ie le la le ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRfES. 97 to school. If a missionary invited him to do so, the word would instantly go round an Indian settle- ment, " Hide your children ; the white man has come to steal them." Tepees were struck, and a whole community dispersed in an hour. How vague and superficial are the ideas of Christianity entertained by many who have nomi- nally embraced it, may be gathered from an anec- dote related by Captain Butler. " Not many years since," he says, "a high dignitary of the Church was not a little horrified by the request made by some recently converted chiefs that the rite of baptism should be bestowed upon three flaming red flannel shirts, of which they had become the possessors." Mumberton, of whom much was heard in bygone days, is said to have been a devout Christian, and affords an example of the childlike simplicity — not always guileless — of the Indian. He had been duly instructed in the Lord's prayer ; at a certain petition he was wont to append a request that fish and moose- meat might also be given. Nor was he unmindful of the accessories of a happy life beyond the present, differing from the Christian ideal, since he stoutly demanded that the savage rites of sepulture should be bestowed upon his body, in order that he might be well prepared to make vigorous war upon his enemies in the next world. 7 98 SUNNY MANITOBA : f This, however, is ancient history. Both native and Canadian missionaries have waged war against such superstitions ; and an address presented last year to the Lieutenant-Governor from an Indian chief, and others interested in missionary work, indicates not only a reverence for the Bible, but an intelligent apprehension of the blessings of Christi- anity. The object of the address was to secure greater efficiency in school teaching. The Indians object that the teachers in the public schools are " small " men ; they " seem to be the smallest men you have." More reasonable was the objection to small schoolrooms. " The Indian," they urge, " needs room ; he has a big country, and you give him a very small house in it." Therefore they ask for bigger rooms and bigger men — " men that are not afraid of the great Book." And this is what they say of the great Book : — " It has changed not only ourselves, but almost everything about us. Our tents have been turned into houses and our dog-trains into horse-sleighs. Our food used to come largely from the nets and snares, but now it comes largely from the land. There has been a power to do all this, and that power is the power of the great Book. We have heard, you have heard, and perhaps our great mother, the Queen, has heard, of much power in this big country ; but it has been the power to ~ i ^ i^S^ v ^ - ^ - -3 !' ^ ^, /rs PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 99 break the laws and make more trouble and thought for the head steersman standing where you are. We would like to remind you this morning of a thing that we think is very well known, that among ?11 the people that we represent, this great Book and its teachings have been able to keep us, in all times of trouble, law-keeping Indians ; and we would like to say this morning, on behalf of our people, that we who believe in the great Father in Heaven feel as keenly as any other people the trouble and mischief that disturb our land ; and we wish we could say to every one that there is but one thing to make men live in peace together." They express a desire for the freer circulation of the Bible amongst their people, and that they may be prepared for its reception, they add : " We want to finish this by asking you to use all your power and any power the great Mother gives you to keep wicked men from bringing fire-water and other bad things among our people at treaty times." The Indian, as a rule, is not hostile to Christi- anity, but regards it as a superstition with which he has nothing whatever to do. If he has any thought of a future life, it is of that new heaven and new earth when the buffalo shall return to the prairie, over which, with his marvellously developed powers of observation, he roams from east to west, loo Sl/A'NV MANlTOliA needing no other guidance. It is with him a point of etiquette to be always well armed. His rifle is a badge of manhood, not a threat against the peace. Everywhere he respects the law, even more than the white man ; and good trcahnent is always sure to be reciprocated. Since, however, he is an in- veterate beggar, and never knocks at a door, his visits to retired shanties sometimes occasion alarm, though there is really no cause for disquietude. He enters unceremoniously. If the family happen to be at dinner — and his visits are generally timed with that intent — he will shake hands with each one, and silently seat him.self upon the floor. He is inoffensive as the cat which purrs around him. If food is offered, he places it in his wallet, and leaves as quietly as he entered ; if it is not, he waits patiently till the meal is over and then makes a sign indicative of hunger, or says that he has not tasted food that day, well knowing that his host will be glad to be rid of him on the easy terms of satisfying his .eal or simulated hunger. Some of tliese Indians excel in embroidery in beads or silk. I have seen their men walking through the melting snow, wearing deer-skin moccasins exquisitely embroidered on the upper part. The imitative genius of the squaw is said to be so great that she can copy anything. Flowers and ferns are her favourite subjects, but they fre- '«.,*3F ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INPUSTKIES. loi quently invent their own patterns, which arc most approved by the bucks, especially amongst the Huron Indians. In its dcalinpfs with the Indians — who are far less fanatical than their brethren over the border — Great Britain has always recognised their claim to consideration as the original occupiers and owners of the country of which she has taken possession. The Dominion Government has followed the same policy, rejecting the theory, which has been too much acted upon in the United States, that the Indian has no right to the territories over which he wanders, simply because the civilised man can better develop them. There is a separate Depart- ment of State for the administration of Indian affairs ; and every possible effort has been made by the Government to civilise its 122,500 Indians — of whom 25,700 are located in Manitoba — by means of schools, missions, and instruction in agricultural pursuits. Reserves allotted to them have been jealously guarded against the avarice of landgrabbers, and last year 69,500 Indians were reported as located upon these Reserves in different parts of the country. This is certainly a most striking result of the efforts to instil the principle of industry, even though on an average they actu- ally cultivate only one acre of land per head. It is to be hoped that the day is not distant \ f Vi nPi 102 SUNNY MANITOBA : 1 when the necessity for feeding and clothing large numbers of the Indian population will cease, as nothing can be more prejudicial to the formation of habits of industry and thrift. " As soon," writes Professor Macoun, " ab Indians can be awakened to a sens'^ of individual rights in property and that lazy relations must depend upon themselves, an improvement will take place. At present food seems to be common property, and as long as it remains such little attempt will be made by the majority to get out of their periodic states of semi- starvation." Land which, with their consent, the Government has sold cannot be restored ; but other land might perhaps be allotted on equitable terms to such as are willing to identify themselves with the general population, and earn their bread honestly side by side with the white man. From the voluntary sale of lands and moneys accrued from annuities secured under treaty, an Indian fund has been created which, in June, 1890, amounted to $3,479,200. In 1890 the expenditure on the Indian population, in addition to what was provided from this fund, exceeded $1,000,000, of which nearly one-half was expended in the pur- chase of food and clothing. Of the 25,700 Indians in Manitoba, only 10,400 are nomadic ; few of these profit by the schools and farm instruction which the Dominion Government V- ^K* ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 103 is under treaty obligation to provide. These treaties with the Manitoban Indians date from 1 87 1. In the whole Dominion there are about 200 school-houses in operation, with over 6,000 pupils, of which forty-one, with about 3,200 pupils, are in Manitoba and the Territories ! The number, so far as I could learn in the absence of statistics, has been stationary for the last year or two, but will doubtless increase as the Indian recognises the fact that civilisation, and the acquisition of habits of industry, are the alternative of extinction : that idleness, when not in the chase or the war-path, is not a condition to be proud of No sane man will begrudge him "the red stone pipes for smoking" which Old Nokomo filled for Hiawatha — " With tobacco from the South-land Mixed with bark of the red willow, And with herbs and leaves of fragrance." But he must learn that to smoke and sleep all day in a wigwam of painted skins is not paradise ; that to make his squaw his slave is a crime against society, and that personal independence is a higher condition than the tribal bondage to which the tradition of unnumbered centuries has hitherto consigned him. The generation who cling to the belief that the buffalo will return to the prairies, and that two mountains are to belch forth mud to I nor 104 SUNNY MANITOBA bury the palefaces and bring back to the Indians the good old times, is passing away. Hitherto it has proved impossible to convince the average Indian of the advantage or duty of labour. His gun, his fishing-rod, the wild berries which he shares with the black bear — who perhaps best appreciates them — and the mushrooms which grow in profuse abundance, supply the needs of which he is conscious, and he relies upon the Govei-nment for sustenance when these fail. In some districts the squaws gather mushrooms and sell them in the town. Towards the end of August they are not only abundant, but attain a quite fabulous size. Professor Macoun writes : " I measured one specimen that was 33! inches in circumference, and 3f inches through the cap. The stem was over two inches in diameter, and the weight over 3 lb." They grow, he says, in " fairy rings," often more than forty feet in diameter ; " some rings were found to contain so many that taking all, good and bad, from one ring we could almost load a cart." This natural harvest is lost to the Indian through sheer indolence. The squaws will gather the mushrooms and offer them for sale, b'lt as they will not trouble to separate the good from the bad, the storekeeper will seldom purchase. The tribal system is the great barrier to in- dividual industry, and the chief hindrance to I 1 w ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 105 civilisation. Be a man ever so industrious, no fruitful corn-fields hold him to one spot ; he has no individuality ; no personal, exclusive right to the fruit of his labour. If he settles upon the Reserve, raises stock, or cultivates the soil, its produce is not his, but may be appropriated by any member of his tribe, however sunk in de- bauchery and idleness. The one hope for the rising generation of Indians is the extension of Industrial Schools, where the young of both sexes separated from the degrading influences of bar- barism, may not only receive instruction in trade and agriculture, but, in the words of the Rev. E. F. Wilson — the generous and indefatigable friend of the Indians — "be constantly in contact with civilised modes of life, of thought, action, speech, dress, and surrounded by a thousand beneficent influences." Thus only can he be led to forget his past, to desire freedom from tribal bondage, and to share the blessings of civilisation equally with the white man who taught him his place in the world's advance, and snatched him from annihilation and extinction. The Government industrial training schools are largely supplemented by the various religious denominations. The Presbyterians, the Metho- dists, and the Episcopal Church are all doing excellent work in this direction, assisted by tmm ' iO&j^&ii^L^'jf:^ I'' lo6 SUNNY MANITOBA .« Government grants. An interesting experiment has been tried at Elkhorn, of which a short account will interest the reader. Rev. E. F. Wilson had already established two schools at Sault St. Marie, the story of which has all the interest of romance. After visiting the Indians in the North-west, in 1885, he conceived a strong desire to establish a Branch Home for the children of these painted and feathered heathens who were growing up in vice and ignorance, fixing upon Elkhorn as the most desirable locality. Burdened with a heavy weight of responsibility in connection with the schools at Sault St. Marie, he determined to appeal to the people of Ontario for assistance in carrying out the project upon which his heart was set. His ap- peal met with little response. One night, however, after he had addressed a meeting at Owen Sound, a gentleman whose sympathy had been aroused said to him, " Why don't you fire off a few red-hot shot, and tell the people what it is that you want ? You will soon get the money." Mr. Wilson went home, pondering how best to act upon this singular counsel. He sat up through the night, writing an appeal for his Indians, which he issued as a leaflet, printed in red and black letters, under the title " Red Hot Shot." The sequel shall be told in his own words : — i i^ if t I .^ ^ r ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 107 "In this leaflet I described briefly the neglected condition of the Indians in the North-west and my desire to establish a Branch Home in their midst, and the last clause of the leaflet was worded something in this way : * If any person should feel drawn to give $i,ocx) towards the proposed object, I shall regard it as the leading of providence and at once take steps to erect the institution.' " There was living at that time, at Elkhorn, in Manitoba, a merchant — not a rich man, a man just ill ordinary circumstances — but he took great interest in the wild Indians living about him ; he always treated them kindly and justly and the Indians had given him the name of * Washakada,' which meant ' all that is good.* One evening this merchant said to his wife, ' I wish I could see my way to an institution being established amongst these poor Indians. I think if I could see any prospect of an institution being established I would like to give $1,000 towards it* Two or three days later one of my * Red Hot Shots ' came into that man's hands. How it came to him we do not know to the present day. Surely the Lord directed it. He took it and read it, and immediately wrote to me : 'If you can see your way to establish an institution for Indian children in this neighbourhood I am prepared to give you a thousand dollars towards it' His letter came io8 SUNNY MANITOBA : to me on Christmas eve, and it seemed like a Christmas box from the Lord. When spring ceme I went up to Elkhorn, made the acquaintance :»i this merchant and talked over my plans .vith him. We had less than $2,000 in hand, but we resolved to make a beginning. So we purchased a site in the immediate vicinity of the village of Elkhorn, erected a frame building and received some ten or twelve pupils. In the meantime I had applied to the Indian Department for a grant. The answer came the following spring. Mr. Vankoughnet, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian affairs, wrote to me privately and said, ' You will probably be a little surprised at the amount of grant which the Department is prepared to place at your disposal. The Department ap- proves your scheme and will give you $12,000 (;^2,400) for building and equipment and also an annual grant towards maintenance.' Thus, in the providence of God, we were enabled to erect substantial, well-equipped buildings at Elkhorn, the Washakada Home for girls, the Kasota Home for boys, and in the middle, between them, a Central Building, in which the pupils all meet for their meals and for school. At present we have thirty-seven pupils at our Elkhorn Homes." Occupying a conspicuous position in the little 1 -Ml /7'5 PEOPLE AND iTs INDUSTRIES. 109 town, these buildings are its greatest ornament, I visited the Home on a bright, warm day towards the end of November. It was mid-day, and about a dozen children, clean and dressed in a simple uniform of navy blue, trimmed with red, with bright brass buttons, were at play in an open space around the schools. Though shy, and apparently unwilling, rather than unable to speak English, they were mirthfii' and happy. Entering the central building, I was courteously received by the Superintendent, whose offices, with separate dining-rooms for the staff and for the children, occupy the ground floor, whilst in the rear of the building is a capital laundry. Proceeding to the schoolroom upstairs, I found other children amusing themselves with their slates, casting up long rows of figures — with what accuracy I am unable to say — and quite evidently finding school- work no weariness to the flesh. The schoolroom, considering the maximum number for which it is designed, is spacious and airy. Adjoining it is a smaller room for the senior class. Both are plainly and suitably furnished. The remaining space is occupied with the Superintendent's apart- ments, and a room intended for use as a hospital. The Kasota Home for boys is a separate building, the most easterly of the three. Here are the as- sistants' rooms, the boys' apartments, and a guest- ■.\ ^ IV •". 'fi A % ^'JS n ■•# ■I -m M gi g« m ». t j»*--.^H.f,rfiQfci i h'to"»i.«*i A mt^i^i^0gm'ijitMtfJi9^^k no SUNNY AfANITOBA : chamber. The dormitories are a model of neatness. Each boy over ."ifteen years of age has a separate bed ; larger beds, accommodating two sleepers, are provided for the smaller boys. The linen sheets were scrupulously clean, and are changed every week. Each boy has a cupboard where clothes, boots, &c., are required to be kept in perfect order and cleanli- ness. The building to the west is the Washakada, and contains the apartments of the matron, the girls* dormitories, sewing, and store-rooms. The Indians are more willing to send their boys than their girls to these schools ; since the latter are still regarded as property to be bartered in marriage for so many ponies, and not needing education. The children come from distances of 200 miles, east and west — Blackfeet, Sioux, Crees, and other tribes — and the fact that the language of one tribe is unintelligible to the children of another favours their acquisition of English, which thus, in the playground as well as in the school- room, becomes the common medium of intercourse. The girls are taught house-work and sewing ; whilst the boys learn carpentering, shoemaking, and other trades. A conspicuous need in these Homes is greater facilities for practical instruction in agricultural pursuits ; and the Indian Depart- ment, which contributes one hundred dollars per annum towards the maintenance of each pupil. if / ^r i ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. ill could render the institution no greater service than by supplementing its past munificence with a grant of land for this purpose. Many of the boys who now fail to return after visiting their homes in the holiday season — although travelling expenses are paid — would be retained, permanently rescued from barbarism, and trained up to a life both useful and congenial to an inherited love of free outdoor activity. It is gratifying to learn from the recent official Statistical Record that the interest taken by Indians in the education of their children is steadily on the increase ; and that the persevering endeavours of the Government to persuade the Indian population to abandon their restless and wandering habits and stay on their Reserves, are at length bearing fruit. The increase in the number of pupils in the Indian Schools is most conspicuous in Manitoba ; and although it has remained nearly stationary for the last three years, it has risen in the decade from 971 to 3,268. The effect of their increased education is reported as " evidenced in many ways, notably by improvements in the way of dressing, much greater attention to personal cleanliness, and improved buildings, all of which signs are very important, as they indicate a gradual but effectual change of thought and habit." It is also shown in growing habits of industry, and a disposition to profit by I 'A -^^Sf! It: SUNNV MANlTOnA the generous endeavours of the Government to instil into their minds the first principles of farming. This, again, is most apparent in Manitoba where, although the Indians have only 12,000 acres of land cultivated, the neivly-brokcn land is 1,485 acres against 4,000 acres for all Canada. But however encouraging may be these indica- tions of a favourable solution of the perplexing problem with which the Canadian Government has to deal, its inherent difficulties remain. If all, or even a considerable majority of the Indian children could be induced to pass two or three years in the Industrial Schools the forecast would be encouraging enough ; but the natural instincts of the Red Indian cannot be eradicated by only a few months' contact with civilised modes of life, and the beneficent influences of Christianity. The tribal system must be abandoned before any per- manent result can be obtained by the efforts now being made to bring the adult Indian within the pale of civilisation, or to attach him to the soil as a cultivator. His wandering habits, and the in- security of property entailed by the tribal system remain, as they have been in the past, the great hindrance to progress. A curious instance of the Indian's ingrained natural instincts was related to me on perfectly reliable authority. A young Indian of good abilities, ■• Jf*" f "T" /TS PEOPLE AND ITS INDl/STPtES. tij whose father was a nominal Christian, was sent to McGill College, Montreal, that he might receive an education appropriate to his chosen vocation of a minister of the gospel. He worked assiduously, carried off many prizes, and distinguished himself as a student in the theological hall. Eventually he entered the ministry, became popular as a preacher, and for twelve months everything promised well. One Sunday evening, however, he electrified the church officers by announcing, without a word of explanation, that the church would be closed for six months. With resolute taciturnity he listened to remonstrance, then hurried to his home. Here he doffed his clerical broad cloth, and at three o'clock the following morning was seen running through the town, clothed in an Indian blanket, with painted face, and a plume of feathers on his bare head. A party of the tribe of which he was a member had arrived on the Sunday morning ; and the sight of their tepees, their instruments of war, of fishing and the chase, had stirred the native blood in him, and he yielded to the over- mastering temptation to cast in his lot with them. It was a scandal no doubt, and censorious reproach is such an eminently Christian virtue ! I wish I could tell the sequel to the story — whether this reprobate returned and resumed his ministry at the end of the six months ; but that period had not 8 \ Ii4 SUNNY MANlTOliA : elapsed when I left Manitoba. I prefer to assume the probability of mixed motives in the young Indian minister's eccentricity. Oh, but, says the arm-chair pietist, he yielded to temptation ! True ; and just so far as that is true, it is riyht that the man who, in his own sphere, has never so yielded, should cast a stone at him. Meanwhile, it might be well for his own soul's health for him tu recall the words of the lamented Laureate — " The sin that practice burns into the blood, And not the one dark hour which brings remorse, Will brand us after, of whose fold we be." After all, it is probable that this impetuous young man, with a yearning which we cannot measure for the free life of his ancestors and of his own boy- hood, saw, even in its gratification, an opportunity of moving his comrades to embrace the blessings of civilisation and Christianity. He knew them well ; knew that when game and fish are abundant the Indian prospers, his best qualities are displayed, and he is amenable to wise and kindly guidance ; whilst in the winter all such traits are commonly dormant ; sunk in idleness and profligacy he leaves his squaw to keep off the wolf by snaring small game, as rabbits, and even foxes and gophers ; or, accompanying her to the Agency, he will lie and beg, and carry off three days' rations which he will gluttonously consume before night-fall. ^m^tttmiSmiSmL ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 115 Possibly the exchange of the pulpit for the wig- wam, reprehensible though it was, was not wholly selfish, not entirely due to the caprice of the latent lawlessness of inherited instincts, not wasted energy ; but all of these in combination — or in conflict — with a noble yearning for the true well- being of his kinsmen according to the flesh. The rapid settlement of Manitoba has had the efiect of drawing north and west many of the half-breed pioneers of civilisation, who formerly fished in its rivers, and hunted the buffalo and the moose on its wide prairies. They arc sometimes called Metis, from the Spanish word mestizo^ indicciting Indian-mixed blood. Generally of French and Indian parentage ; the mixture of Scotch blood is sometimes indicated by familiar names. The French betrayed no such repugnance to intercourse with the native Indians — or even to marriage v/ith the Indian women — as the average Briton has done. They seem especially to have cultivated the friendship of the Crees, whose women were superior to those of other tribes, alike in mental and moral qualities. Not a few of these however — or, in Canadian phrase, " quite a few" — have married their daughters to gentlemen in good business and even official positions. But whilst the Indian blood of the Metis is so diluted as frequenLl)' to leave little trace, either in complexion, speech \ '■ «I.M«>» 1«.. ?..■*-«•. - w^ ■d^ ii6 SUNNy MANITOBA : or character, intercourse with the whites is com- paratively rare. The law of reversion to type, with which Mr. Darwin has familiarised us, is naturally operative here, producing an approxima- tion towards the Indian type of their progenitors. The affiliation of races is thus checked, and in a few generations the half-breeds of Manitoba and the North- West are likely to become wholly merged in the native races, to the great advantage of the latter. The semi-nomadic life of the past has already ceased to characterise them. Industrious, intelligent, and many of them fairly well educated, a very large majority live upon their Reserves, untrammelled by tribal rights which deprive the Indian of all security in his property. When Manitoba was taken over by the Dominion Government, every half-breed received an allotment of 240 acres of land. No less than 1,400,000 acres of the very best land in the central part of the pro- vince were set apart to extinguish the half-breeds' claims of various kinds. The less thrifty or more nomadic among them sold their allotments, often for a merely nominal consideration, and the great bulk of their reserves have thus come into the possession of European settlers. The Rev. E. F. Wils^ :i writes : " The character of the Metis is a guileless nature, easily swayed ; a clear but not strong moral sense ; good purpose, but weak will ■^*' MW HiBHIlmi HI iLuuuiUJiHHess mmmm ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 117 Fickle and impulsive, they are free from greed and egotism, and are incapable of deliberate, calculating fraud. They are kind-hearted, genial and sympa- thetic, and abound in hospitality, sharing cheerfully all they have with friends or strangers alike ; but whenever destitute, they ask from their neighbours as freely as they give themselves. They resent an inj?iry quickly, but are as quick in pardon, and they do not treasure up animosity. With a quick innate- ness of perception, they can reach any objective point, through forests or over virgin prairies, noticing on the way, minutely, all the details of the landscape, which remain indelibly printed on their memory. Their cottages along the Red River are mostly without lock and key, and are under the sole safe- jQfuard of mutual honesty. Like the Indian, they are fond of * fire-water,' when procurable ; and fond of pleasure, the great drawback to steady industry. Submissive to their spiritual teachers, they become better Christians than the white frontiersme . Their innate love of roving freedom indisposes them greatly to the restraint and confinement of school education ; and wherever schools have been opened among them, the attendance is irregular and never of long duration." They have no language worthy of the name, yex are great linguists. Most of them understand Eng- lish, whilst every half-breed can speak French. ti *«--*>;iN^^'-»-^*-^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 119 speaking sect, professing adherence to the Lutheran faith, and domiciled in Western Russia, had suffered persecution from a government which, semper idem, recently announced to the Finns that the will of the Czar is the only laiv. By their creed forbidden to serve in war, and from conscientious conviction separated from, and equally in social matters as in religion incapable of assimilation with, their neigh- bours, they were, by the autocratic will of the Czar, exiled from their old homes about the Baltic, and compelled to settle near the sea of Azoff, where the law of military service pursued them. They enjoyed in Russia the reputation which they have earned in Manitoba, of peaceful, industrious, and thrifty subjects. The Canadian Government as- signed them extensive reserves twenty miles south of Winnipeg ; one settlement, of eight townships, on the east of the Red River, known as the Rat- River settlement ; and another on the west side of the river, of seventeen townships, reaching down to the International boundary line, where some of them by their industry have acquired considerable wealth. Of this interesting community Lord Dufferin said : " Although I have witnessed many sights to cause me pleasure during my various pro- gresses through the Dominion, seldom have I beheld any spectacle more pregnant with prophecy, more fraught with promise of a successful future, than T m r"i.i "ri rriii-fiTai --KEgKtBSKMMMMMHHBHNi ^a«B?i I20 SUNNY MANITOBA w the Mennonite Settlement. When I visited these interesting people they had only been two years in the province, and yet in a long ride I took across many miles of prairie which but yesterday was absolutely bare, desolate, and untenanted, the home of the wolf and the eagle, I passed village after village, homestead after homestead, furnished with all the conveniences and incidents of European comfort and a scientific agriculture ; while on either side the road corn fields already ripe for harvest, and pastures populous with heads of cattle stretched away to the horizon." Unhappily for themselves a considerable number of these thriving settlers were induced, after the bad harvest of 1889, to emigrate to Oregon. One- fourth of these have recently returned to Manitoba, wiser if sadder than when they allowed them- selves to be beguiled by the blandishments of American railway agents ; and it is reported that " the balance will come back as soon as they can find means to return." To the Icelandic immigrants the Government assigned several townships on the west of Lake Winnipeg, and their numbers are annually aug- mented. Possessed of a sturdy independence they make good farmers, but are less clannish than the Mennonites. A year or two since many of these thrifty colonists migrated to Mussel, where they hOM NiMiMii ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 121 now form a prosperous community. They have shown great astuteness in practising mixed farming, each settler, it is said, having on an average twenty head of cattle and a team of horses. An illustra- tion of their fortitude and frugality was recently furnished by one of their number who, having lost both legs and one arm, made his own stumps, until by steady industry he had .saved enough money to buy artificial limb.s. With the aid of the.se he has taken up a homestead, cultivated fifteen acres, and has thirty sheep and ten head of cattle. Intelligent and anxious to learn, rather than educated, many of the Icelanders prefer the town to the prairie, and take a keen interest in Canadian politics. Much progress has been made since Lord Dufferin's visit, fourteen years ago. Considering the secluded posi- tion of their nation for one thousand years, their geographical isolation, and the unfavourable nature of the climate of their i.sland home, it would be unreasonable, as his lordship observed in the speech already quoted, to " expect that a colony from thence should exhibit the same aptitude for agri- cultural enterprise and settlement as would be possessed by a people fresh from intellectual contact with the higher civilisation of Europe." They are, however, " endowed with a great deal of intellectual ability and a quick intelligence. . . . They are well conducted, religious, and peaceable. Above all I I'*«*'J>1' 133 SUNNY MANITOBA. they are docile and anxious to learn." This is the general testimony of intelligent observers. In an interesting article in the Weekly Tribune, Miss Helen Gregory writes, " The Icelanders are an intellectual race and very fond of education. In the library of one farmer was found a copy of Byron, Whittier, Scott's « Rob Roy,' Huxley's 'Physiology,' De Cope's * Natural History,' and a Webster's * Unabridged Dictionary.* He was asked if when reading English he used the dictionary often. ' No, except when I read scientific works,' was the rather startling answer." Less enterprising than the Mennonites, these Icelanders are steady and industrious, and are much valued as farm servants. They regard Canada as their natural home, and maintain a sturdy belief in the legend of its dis- covery by their ancestors four hundred years before Col'imbus wan born. k«IMlM!MMK;. \ ': r CHAPTER IV. The Dominion lands in Manitoba, within " the fertile belt "— or so much of them as lie within twenty-four miles on either side of the Canadian Pacific Railway — are surveyed in quadrilatural townships. Each of these contains thirty-six sec- tions of one square mile or thereabouts — that is of 640 acres. A road allowance, one chain wide, runs between each section north and south, and between every alternate section east and west, making a net- work of public roads crossing at right angles. In the earlier surveys, covering the greater part of ivlanitoba, the road allowances were one chain and a half, or 99 feet, wide on the four sides of every section, so that the roads in both directions are just one mile apart. The following diagram represents the sections of a surveyed township : — 133 I'M ■m IT''- 1 24 SUNN V MANITOBA : TOWNSHIP DIAaRAM. 640 "iCRES^ N. 31 O.P.R. _36_ Oov. W. 33 aoT. 29 Sohoola. 19 O.P.B. I X8 ~Qov. _ 7 _ O.P.R. 38 O.N.W. or OP.R. _2e_ OOT. aq Oov. 17 O.P.R. 8 H.B.' Qov. O.P.R. 21 ON.W. or O.P.R. 16 Qov. 9 aN.W^ or a.P.R. Gov. 34 Oov^ _27_ O.P.R. 22 Oov. 16 OJP^R. 10 "Gov. 3 O.F.R. ^5_ O.F.R. 26 H.B. 23_ cr.p.R. 14 Oov. 11 _ SohoolB. Oov. 36 Gov.' 26 O.N.W. or O.P.R. 24 Oov. 13 O.N.W^ or O.P.R. 1 Oov. 1 O.W.W. or O.P.R. I B. w. C. p. U, — Canadian Pacific Railway Company's LanJt. GOV, — Govern^ went Homestead Lands. SCHOOLS. — Sectiotu reserved/or support o/Schools. H. D.— Hudson Bay Company's Lands. C. N. IV.— Canada Nortk-lVest Land Company's Lands /or as far west from IVintiipeg its Moose Jaw only. Each of these sections is divided into quarter sec- tions of 160 acres. The even-numbered sections, ex- cept 8 and 26, where not already taken up, are open for homesteading ; and the odd-numbered sections except 1 1 and 29, arc the property of the Canadian ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 125 Pacific Railway, and are offered for sale at prices ranging from $2j^ to $10 per acre. On payment of a registration fee of $10, any person who is the head of a family, or any male above the age of eighteen years, may, on making application to the local agent of a district, obtain homestead entry for one quarter section of the class of land open for home- steading. This entry entitles the holder to occupy and cultivate the land, and to .secure an eventual title to the same as a free grant from the crown on the following alternative conditions : — (i.) The homesteader shall begin actual resi- dence on his homestead and cultivation of a reasonable portion thereof within six months from date of entry, unle.ss entry shall have been made on or after the first day of September, in which case residence need not commence until the first day of June following, and continue to live upon and cultivate the land for at least six months out of every twelve months for three years from date of homestead entry. (2.) The homesteader shall begin actual resi- dence, as above, within a radius of two miles of his homestead, and continue to make his home within such radius for at least six months out of every twelve months for the three years next succeeding the date of homeste.'id entry ; and shall, within the first year from date of entry, break and prepare tH smKamassamm H 126 SUNNY MANITOBA : for crop ten acres of his homestead quarter-section ; and shall within the second year crop the said ten acres, and break and prepare for crop fifteen acres additional — making twenty-five acres ; and within the third year after the date of his homestead entry, he shall crop the said twenty- five acres, and break and pmpare for crop fifteen acres additional, so that within three years of the date of his home- stead entry he shall have not less than twenty-five acres cropped, and fifteen acres in addition broken and prepared for crop, and shall have erected on the land a habitable house in which he shall have lived during tne three months next preceding his application for homestead patent. (3.) The homesteader shall perfect his homestead entry by commencing the cultivation of the home- stead within six months after the date of entry, or if the entry was obtained on or after the first day of September in any year, before the first day of June following, shall, within the first year after the date of his homestead entry, break and prepare for crop not less than five acres of his homestead ; shall, within the second year, crop the said five acres, and break and prepare for crop not less than ten acres in addition, making not less than fifteen acres in all ; shall erect a habitable house upon his homestead before the expiration of the second year after his homestead entry, and before the commencement Qf \ - ITS PEOPLE AND ITS mbUSTRlt.S. \11 the third year shall bond Jide reside therein, and cultivate the land for three years next prior to the date of his application for his patent. Much prairie land is destitute of timber which, both for fuel and for building purposes, is essential for the settler. In such cases it is provided that " Home- stead settlers, whose land is destitute of timber, may, upon payment of an office fee of 25 cents, procure from the Crown timber agent a permit to cut the following quantities of timber free of dues : 30 cords of dry wood, 1,800 lineal feet of building timber, 2,000 po'^iar fence rails, and 400 roof poles. Homestead settlers may also obtain a permit, on payment of the same fee, to cut burnt or fallen timber of a diameter up to 7 inches inclusive, for fuel or fencing, for their own use. " In cases where there is timbered land in the vicinity available for the purpose, the homestead settlers, whose land is without timber, may pur- chase a wood lot, not exceeding in area twenty acres, at the price of $5 per acre cash." Provision is also made for the settler who desires grazing land adjacent to his homestead. In the Territories, such lands not exceeding an area of 100,000 acres under a single lease, are leased for ranching purposes only after public competition ; but in Manitoba exception is made in the case of the bond-fide settler, to whom a tract of land not Ill .lUNNV MANITOBA ; ^'■ exceeding four sections is leased, without public com- petition, for a jieriod not exceeding twenty-one years. The land available for homcsteading in Manitoba is being very rapidly absorbed. Already the privi- lege of pre-empting is withdrawn ; and the settler who intends to farm more than 160 acres should ascertain, before entering for his homestead, that an adjoining quarter section — or whatever area of land he may require — is available for purchase. Un- improved Government lands may be bought at from $2 to $2^ an acre. In 1890 the Canadian Pacific Railway sold 192,000 acres at an average price of $3.75, whilst the North-West Land Company realised $6 an acre for their sales. Extensive tracts of land are held by syndicates for much higher prices. Everything points to a rapid rise in the value of land. It is stated in the official Statistical Year-book that, with the exception of the years 1882 and 1883, the area of land entered by actual settlers under the pro- visions of the Dominion Lands Act was greater in 1889 than in any previous year. In 1885, owing to the disturbance in the North-West, the area entered for homestead purposes only amounted to 249,552 acres, but since then the increase has been continuous ; the increase in 1 888 over 1887 amounted to 100,833 acres, and in 1889 over 1888 to 275,717 acres. k "*:*«« ^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 129 The payments for homestead fees on Dominion Lands in Manitoba and the North-West, which in 1888 amounted to $28,500, rose in 1889 to over $50,000, and the advance was more than main- tained in 1890 and 1891. Two or three good harvests would in all proba- bility bring about a repetition of the famous land boom of 1882-3. In the latter year the homestead fees ran up to $127,200; and whilst in 1889 the total area set out for settlement was 516,960 acres, in 1883 it reached 27,000,000, and the number of homesteads taken up in these two years were respectively 3,282 and 168,750. If these figures w?re not oflficial they would be wholly incredible. The following are the comparative figures for the last three years for which returns are available of transactions in Dominion Lands including sales. 1887, 521,791 acres; 1888, 687,994 acres; 1889, ip85,793 acres. The reader will draw hit own conclusions. It should be remembered when we are told of 200,000,000 acres of land in the Dominion awaiting settlement, that probably less than half of this vast area is good agricultural land. Of such, 80,000,000 acres are already fully surveyed, in 500,000 quarter sections. The area now annually taken up, by homesteading and purchase, exceeds 1,000,000 acres. At the present rate of increase, without the recurrence of a ^H 1 :1 lll fTfii Ti'.Tiii.iTftriiij'ii1'iJtg',-^^=:^^6>'?='= I3Q SUNNY MANITOBA : "boom" such as in 1883 occasioned so enormous an increase in the sales, they will reach 2,0(X),ooo acres in the present year. A repetition of the boom of 1883 must inevitably so enhance the value of land that the system of free grants will be either abolished or greatly modified. The above figures relate to the whole Dominion. In Manitoba the quantity of land taken up for actual settlement in 1890 was in excess of any year since 1882, the total reaching 600,000 acres.' The total acreage under crop, which in 1887 was 663,764 acres, increased in 1891 to 1,324,841 acres, a difference of 661,077 acres; to which 50,000 acres must be added as the area under flax, and 714,000 acres newly broken and ploughed, ready for seeding in the coming spring. ' The following interesting intelligence comes from Ottawa on the very day that these sheets are sent to the printer : — "The Hon. Thomas M. Daly, Dominion Minister of Interior, announces that the year 1892 was the best ever known as regards the settlement of Manitoba and the North-western Territory. 4.948 persons acquired farms of 160 acres each from the Government, an increase of 40 per cent, on the previous year. In addition to these, 1,632 settlers purchased lands from the Canadian Pacific. Railway Company.'' Assuming that no purchaser from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company exceeded the minimum of 160 acres, the new land taken up for settlement in Manitoba and the Territories in 1892 was no less than 1,052,800 acres, an increase over 1890 of 65 per cent., and- very nearly equal to the total for the whole Dominion in 1889. i f ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 13 i The Annual Commercial Report of the United States Consul at Winnipeg shows very clearly the rapid development of the trade of Manitoba, partly due to the increased shipment of cattle. The report is for the consular district of Winnipeg, or the area between longitudes 87° and iio^, and from the International boundary to latitude ycP N. Years. 1872 .. 1873 .. 1874 .. 1875 .. 1876 .. 1877 .. 1878 .. 1879 .. 1880 .. t88i .. 1882 .. 1883 .. 1884 .. 1885 .. 1886 .. 1887 .. 1888 .. 1889 ... Imports. $ 1,413.585 1,288,257 2,423,990 1,865,579 2,318,391 J. 876,753 2,545,421 3,422,375 4,637,668 7,362,640 16,199.772 24,291,767 12,784,719 10.983,713 7,820,959 9,157,843 7,716,494 7,895,116 i^XPORTS. $ 295,452 256,324 565,323 587,547 672,666 695,970 849,725 537,574 518,665 636,197 871,614 1,843,481 1,988,278 2,627,341 4,297,533 7,492,371 6,507,202 4,184,480 $ Total. 1,709,037 1,544,581 2,989.313 2,453,126 2,991,057 2,572,723 3,395,146 3,959,947 5,356,333 7,998,837 17,071,386 26,135,248 14,772,997 13,611,054 12,118,492 16,650,214 13,359,606 12,079,596 During the first three years of this period the foreign imports were subject to the tariff of the Colony of Assiniboia — 4 per cent, ad valorem and a specific duty upon wines and spirits of twenty-five cents per gallon, and with a liberal free 132 SUNNY MANITOBA : list — but since 1874 the Canadian tariff, varying from 18 to 35 per cent, has been in force. The extraordinary increase from 1875 to 1885 represents the exceptional importation incident to the construction of i:he Canadian Pacific Railway. In the column of exports, the figures of the first ten years represent quite exclusively the shipment of furs, mostly to England, but after 1 882 the exportation of a surplus of grain and cattle swelled the total movement of Manitoban products more than ten-fold, amounting in 1887 — a year of a remarkable crop, to $7,492,371. In 1889 the wheat crop was injured by drought, and in 1890 by an exceptionally wet season and an August frost. The produce in the two years was respectively 7,201,000, and 14,665,000 bushels ; whilst for 1892 the crop, so far as at present ascertained, did not much exceed that of 1890. The fact is generally attributed to an exceptionally bad season, cold weather during the month of June arresting the growth of the plant, and a rain storm in October injuring the unthreshed stacks. But the real explanation appears to be the poor seed that was sown — the unsaleable frozen wheat of 1 89 1. The result was forecast in the Btdletin (34) of the Agricultural Department, in which it is remarked : " Where poor seed was used the crop is not as good as it ought to be, the growth being ■--^'Hm It IS /TS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRJES. 133 thin." The area under wheat cultivation was in 1890, 197 per cent, greater than in 1889^ -nd this advance was fully maintained in 1891 and 1892, and will be greatly exceeded this year. The wonderful development of trade since 1883 is obviously due to the great extension of the railway system. In 1880 a railway of 65 miles connected Winnipeg with the International frontier. Now ten lines of railway, all of which are throwing out branches, centre in Winnipeg. A year ago there were 1422 miles of completed railway in Manitoba, including 266 miles of extensions of the Northern Pacific, whilst projected developments will shortly extend to every part of the province where a railway is at all needed. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company are pushing the Glenboro' extension to intercept the Souris line at Plum Creek, and a communication from Manitoba due north to the Saskatchewan coal fields will be completed simultaneously, thus opening up coal fields both north and south. Vigorous measures are also in progress for a direct connection of Duluth and Winnipeg during the present year. There is, moreover, a fair prospect of the long-projected railway to Hudson Bay — of which forty miles are actually constructed — becoming an accomplished fact. The project of opening a new route through Hudson Straits and Bay by r ! t34 SUNNY MANITOBA : steamer is perhaps the most important of all these enterprises. The route for the transmission of emigrants and produce between Manitoba and Liverpool would Le shortened by 500 miles, or more than two days ; and though the difficulties to be overcome are great, especially in connection with the navigation of Hudson Straits, the pro- moters of the railway are quite confident that they will be surmounted. If, as they maintain, naviga- tion will be open for six months in the year, the saving to a loaded steamer of two days each way will compensate for occasional detention by ice in the Straits. Manitoba is essentially an agricultural province, and from the nature both of its soil and climate, as well as its geographical position, it is certain that agriculture will always be its principal industry. The soil, as is well known, is a rich, argillacious mould, or loam, formed by the lake deposits and forest growths of ages. Its average depth is from two to six feet, and it rests upon a deep and very tenacious clayey subsoil. The dark colour of the soil is no doubt in part attribritable to the long accumulation of the charred grasscn left by annual prairie fires, whilst its richness must be assigned to the same cause, along with the accumulation through long centuries of other decayed vegetable and animal matter, and the droppings from birds laasi / ITS PEOPTE AND ITS INDUSTRFES. 135 and untold millions of animals. But this " profusion of storcd-up wealth " is not inexhaustible. The capabilities of the soil for growing grain of superior excellence are universally admitted, and have been extolled at the expense of its proved capacity for growing food for cattle in great variety and abundance. It is now pretty generally admitted that the methods of farming hitherto practised in the province are radically faulty ; that wheat-growing year after year is practically drawing a cheque upon the future which is certain to be dishonoured in the long run. The inducements to this practice are unhappily as plausible as, in too many cases, they are compulsory. For the most part the settlers are men of extremely limited resources, living from hand to mouth, and many of them destitute of the most rudimentary knowledge of the science of agriculture. Not a few have gone straight from the desk, the shop, or the practice of one of the liberal professions, to follow a calling which it is erroneously supposed requires no train- ing, no technical knowledge, and little intelligence. A year or two since, the heir to an English earldom had to be sought for amongst the farmers of Manitoba, and it is likely enough that he was less fitted for agricultural pursuits than to adorn the ranks of those who toil not, neither do they spin. I :< 136 SUNNY MANITOBA : Many amusing stories are told of the crass ignorance of young Englishmen who have gone out in the confident belief that "any man can farm." The following I know to be authentic. A man who had probably never before seen, much less handled, an agricultural implement, on being told — in Canadian phrase — to " hitch his oxen to the plough," backed one of them into its shafts, and was then at a loss to know what to do with the other. Another — like the former an English gentleman — actually ploughed for an hour without a plough-share ! The event was held to be worthy of commemoration. He wrs invited to a convivial entertainment, and, all uncon^fcious of his merits — or demerits — was well pleased with the derisive flatteries bestov td upon him, until the final act 01 decorating him as the champion ploughman of Manitoba made him unpleasantly conscious of his ludicrous position. But ignorance is no monopoly of the English emigrant. The laugh is sometimes the oiher way. With charming simplicity a Canadian one day expressed to my son his sur- prise that so many Englishmen emigrated to Manitoba. " Why," he asked, " don't they remain at home and take up homesteads near London ? " Much commiseration has been recently expressed in certain quarters for the lot of the young English emigrant in Manitoba ; and the depressing dis- y. < r. '♦v., rr, J.- J\ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. \yj comforts of a bachelor's shanty '..ave been very vividly, if not quite accurately, portrayed. Lady Aberdeen, in her well-known letter t Mr. Stead, has had the shrewdness to lay he t- .ger on this particular dark spot of prairie life. .. shanty built of rough logs, dovetailed at the corners, their crevices filled inside and out with a substitute for mortar — which has a provoking propensity to fall out and leave more ventilation in roof and wall than is absolutely necessary — with its one room for living and sl-^-^oing, its nail-kegs as a substitute for chairs, and in migrant's chest serving for a tabl'j ; with it sm,.i> windows and door innocent of latch or .1 m 'le, and which if intended for ornament was a jad blunder, if for use, a deplorable failure — suci; z ilianty, in which, if it have an upper chamber, those who occupy it may have to climb like a spider to thej«* bedrooms, is not an aesthetic structure, and may be depressing enough to the man who views it otherwise than as a means to an end. And, although it might be difficult to find the shanty combining all these discomforts, the bachelor undoubtedly has a hard time of it. The tedious preparation needed in cooking, and the various domestic offices he has to discharge, are not only uncongenial, but he has not time for their performance. His food is badly cooked ; he eats it without relish, and perhaps suffers from c*- .■^,y»K«iMWi^fiiiM m»i'''>iamin.-C:x0i _ I4B SUNNY MANITOBA : I am not theorising. It would be easy to multi- ply evidence of the profitableness of hog-raising in Manitoba. A farmer residing at Strathewan writes : " An ordinary Berkshire grade of pig, six weeks old, can be bought almost anywhere in Manitoba for $2 ; commoner pigs in proportion. At six months old, if these pigs have been well fed, cleanly kept, and are fairly well bred, they should dress 140 lb, each. Now estimate the cost of this 140 lb. Pigs at six weeks old, weight 20 lb., costing $2 ; four and a half months to make 120 lb. increase, will eat an average of 3^^ lb. of food for each pound gained, or 420 lb. in all, costing usually about 75 cents per 100 lb., or $3.15 ; cost of killing and hauling to market, say ^o cents, or in all $5.65. The average price of pork at that season of the year, viz., October, is 8 cents, which for 140 lb. would bring $1 1.20, leaving the profit of $5.55 (23/-), for each pig for the summer, which ought to satisfy even the most exacting for their labour and skim- milk." Where the pigs are bred instead of purchased, the profit is necessarily larger if judgment is shown in the choice of breed and in the art of feeding. For there is an art even in pig-feeding, known only to the initiated. Damaged wheat will make good bacon, and may be most profitably thus employed ; whilst it releases for sale other produce— such as potatoes, which may have been grown as a mere 'TT'i'SKi'"'^ to multi- raising in an writes : ;ix weeks Manitoba At six :d, cleanly )uld dress ^is 140 lb. >sting $2; . increase, ich pound about 75 illing and all $5.65. on of the 140 lb. 55 (23/-). to satisfy ind skim- )urchased, shown in ing. For n only to ke good m ployed ; -such as s a mere ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 149 maintenance diet for the winter — a practice which Professor Shaw, of Guelph Agricultural College, has shown to be utterly wasteful. " In meat-making," he says, " there is no place for a maintenance diet. The animals should be kept pushing ahead." On this subject a Manitoban writes : " It is a most unfortunate situation for a farmer when he finds that he has cattle and hogs and no feed for them ; and it is almost equally unprofitable, though not so distressing, when, as is the case this season, there is abundance of grain unfit for market and no animals to eat it." The farmer who judiciously raises pork for his own consumption, and for the market, will never farm at a loss. In Manitoba all the condi- tion'- ^or this industry are favourable. The price of porn is seldom less than 50 per cent higher than that of beef, and the cost of labour in its produc- tion is more than recouped by the conversion of straw, which would otherwise be burnt to get it out of the way, into valuable manure. As yet, the Manitoban farmer has not taken kindly to sheep-breeding; but wherever the experi- ment has been made it has proved highly remunera- tive. The opinion so frequently expressed by touts of American railway companies, that the severity of the winter in Manitoba rendered sheep- raising precarious, if not impossible, has been proved incorrect. A learned Professor of the »*•■ ffm-'^miri'iimmfmm 150 SUNNY MANITOBA : Acad^mie des Sciences has recently given to the world the results of experiments by which he has shown that, of all living things, the rabbit is the most capable of withstanding a very low tempera- ture, whilst sheep, goats, and hogs take good second, third, and fourth places. It is now forty years since sheep were first introduced to the Red River, and no case of disease has ever been known. The wool is of fine quality, wethers producing fleeces of 6 lb. to 8 lb., and ewes of 3 lb. and upwards, according to the breed. Mr. Thomas Spence, clerk to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, writes : " The experience of many years shows that no physical impediment arising from climate or soil exists to prevent the prairies of our North-West becoming one of the best grazing countries in the world. . . . For raising cattle and horses this country is equal to Illinois, and for sheep-raising it is far superior. The quality of the beef and mutton raised upon our northern grasses has been pronounced of superior excellence. Among the peculiar advantages of Manitoba for stock-raising and wool-growing, the most prominent are — i. The richness and luxuriance of the native grasses : the grass is mainly cut on the swamps and meadows which chequer the prairie, or fringe the streams and lakes. 2. The great extent of unoccupied land affording, for many years ■s--'if^-*-^\ '.fyf^ ill is-,df4i^»*-ft i to the i he has t is the empera- second, irs since ver, and he wool of 6 lb. rding to jislative perience ediment ^ent the : of the . For qua! to luperior. pon our superior ages of ing, the curiance ' cut on ; prairie, le great iy years : ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES ijt to come, a wide range of free pasturage. 3. The remarkable dryness and healthfulness of the winter. The cold air sharpens the appetite, and promotes a rapid secretion of fat and a vigorous muscular development. All the.se point to stock-raising as one of the most important, and promising, and diversified channels into which the industry of the immigrant and capitalist is to be directed." Similar testimony is borne by farmers in the colder state of Dakota, where only these who have adopted " mixed farming " have been in any degree prosperous. One of these practical men writes to the Not^ West Farmer : " This climate is specially adapted for sheep. Since I came here I have been urging some of the large farmers to go in for sheep. Although Scotchmen, they seem slow to take the hint. However, some of the small farmers, who have nothing to fall back upon in a bad year, are beginning to find out there is a profit in sheep in a good or bad year, but as most of them have had no experience they are starting with any .scrubs they can get hold of, and they are not particular about the rams they u.se." Sheep, he says, are like Scotchmen —they soon get acclimatised. The great thing to be desired is not only to get people awakened to the value of sheep in a system of mixed farming, but to convince them that only such breeds should be tried as have been shown i^y 1 mmmStSmmmmmSm i^-te-. i 152 SUNNY MANITOBA experience to be best suited to the country, and that proper care must be bestowed upon them by men familiarised to their treatment all the year round. One great obstacle to success at first, continues this gentleman, " was the lack of root crops to supply the place of the turnips which formed so large a part of their winter food in England. American farmers have never been partial to root crops. Yet the English breeds of sheep cannot do well on dry grain and forage in winter without some kind of succulent food." As we shall see in the next chapter, this want is now supplied by the silo, and, where root crops cannot be grown, succulent material in great abundance may be obtained at a small expenditure of labour.. Sheep and hogs are not only specially adapted to a cold climate, but in Manitoba both have been proved by experience to be profitable, producing the very best returns in wool and meat. Sheep- raising has the further advantage of necessitating to some extent a rotation of crops ; whilst it enriches the soil, it also encourages the farmer to get a crop of rape or turnips out of land which would otherwise lie fallow. A well-known gen- tleman in South-Western Manitoba informed me that he had found this industry highly pro- fitable. In the late autumn of 1890 he fed 700 sheep and many head of cattle for over a ^■"ii^.f.:»^inpjj-' , and that I by men ar round, inues this to supply rge a part in farmers Yet the II on dry e kind of the next silo, and, succulent ined at a ilapted to ave been roducing Sheep- ssitating whilst it irmer to d which ivn gen- nformed ly pro- he fed over a k' ns PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTKIES. 153 month on 40 acres of rape. The cost of seed was 30 cents per acre, or 4CS. for the 40 acres, and the crop was almost clear profit. The sheep were brought out fat for the winter, and the land put in prime condition for the following year's wheat crop. One of the great advantages of putting sheep on land is that it brings it into that compact condition so favourable to the growth, and to the harvesting of grain. A farmer near Wawancsa, Man., two years since, summer fallowed a consider- able breadth of land, and as the weeds grew up he kept his flock of sheep on it, which, besides keeping the weeds down, put the land into that compact condition which is necessary for a good wheat Stat id. " When harvest time came round, and the hmder was sinking in wet mud on ordinary land, it went over the trampled soil with perfect ease." Another advantage of sheep-rearing is that, whilst the rich prairie grasses afford good pasture for at least half he year, the animals may be fed and fattened in the field on crops, which, instead of impoverish- ing the land, are " .sown as food for others." The land is doubly enriched ; it is most effectually cleaned ; and the wasteful system of fallowing, rendered necessary by repeated cropping with wheat, is superseded. In the Bulletin issued by the Department of Agriculture, for December, 1892, it is said : " From' reliable information obtained by t n IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) r^ r^o Va Vl ^/ 1.0 M 12.5 I.I I «. |2.0 11.25 'Am Photographic Sciences Corporation •ss \ V <^ fv 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) •73-4503 ^ 0^ 'I ! . ) 4' <" ^ t54 SUNNY MANITOBA this Department, there can be no doubt that this class of stock is one of the most profitable." The principle of a rotation of crops, at which Canadian farmers shake their heads, regarding it as the Englishman's fad, is as old as the practice of agriculture. In Manitoba it is even of greater im- portance than manuring the soil. Many competent judges object to manure. I have frequently heard it affirmed that the one result of its use is an enormous development of the growth of weeds, and that the soil is so rich in nitrates that it may be cropped for twenty years without resort to fertilisers. Others, however, are so convinced that land is already deteriorating, and must deteriorate, how- ever rich and productive, by the continued growth of one plant without manuring, that their experi- ments in mixed farming have been undertaken for the sole purpose of converting straw into manure, and thus returning to the land as much as possible of what has been taken out of it. Naturally, these are the men who also favour a rotation of crops. Pliny understood that a crop which exhausts the soil should be followed by one which enriches it. " If the farmer's soil be exhausted," he says, *' let him, in that case, help himself thus : let him sow next year's crop on the field where he has just gathered his beans, vetches, or lupines, or such other crop as enriches the ground ; for indeed it is k-"*s&r- mf!iMmWm i. )t that this .le." s, at which arding it as practice of Sfreater im- competent ently heard use is an of weeds, t it may be fertilisers, lat land is )rate, how- led growth eir experi- rtaken for o manure, IS possible ally, these f crops, hausts the nriches it. says, " let : him sow ; has just or such deed it is ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 155 worth notice that some crops are sown for no other purpose but as food for others." A rotation of crops upon average soil, with the best farmyard manure, has been found by those who have tried it to tell in a very marked degree in increased annual produce. It is to be hoped that the excellent results attained at the Brandon Experimental Farm will even lead to an extensive cultivation of turnips. '* Seven varieties of swedes," says Mr. Bedford, "and ten varieties of white and yellow turnips were tested during the past season. The best of the swedes gave over 1,500 bushels per acre, and the white stone yielded 1,300 bushels. Man- gold wurtzel gave 825, and field carrots 381 bushels. It will be seen by these yields that roots can be successfully grown here." Nor have farmers been slow to note the fact, the area planted with roots in 1892 being nearly double that of the preceding year. The official figures are. for 1891,9,301 acres, for 1892, 17,498, or an increase of 8,197 acres. It is the thrifty Scotchman who is beginning to find out that he may exhaust the fertility of the soil, the restoration of which will be too costly, if not altogether impossible ; that a rotation of crops pays in the long run, and especially as favouring the remunerative industries of hog, sheep, and cattle-raising. One of these, sent out three years since by the Commercial Colonisation Company, mmmfm ^tx^'^-'mmm 156 SUNNY MANITOBA : ? writes : '* I had a total of 19 acres of wheat, viz., 7 acres cropped on breaking, 7 acres on stubble, and 5 acres on turnip and potato land. I threshed out 600 bushels of wheat, giving an average yield of 20 bushels per acre on the breaking, 31^ bushels on the stubble, and 48 busftels per acre on t/ie turnip and potato land" The yield of turnips, sown broadcast, he estimates at 20 tons per acre, and of potatoes over 600 bushels per acre ; and this from land which if it had not been so cropped would have lain fallow. The potato crop, it will be observed, is only an estimate, and probably a sanguine one. It is, however, confirmed by a gentleman at Springfield, Man., who raised last year 1,000 bushels from two acres. But if the actual yield was half the estimate, the profit would greatly exceed that of the heaviest wheat crop. Potatoes sold for seed in the spring will bring $1 a bushel ; but taking the lowest average of 30 cents a bushel, the yield would be $90 an acre, equivalent in value to 90 bushels of wheat at $1 per bushel ! This of course presupposes careful handling, and manuring of the soil. Potatoes that are simply ploughed into soil already exhausted may be a very good preparation for the following year's wheat crop, and if the yield is only one-tenth of the above, or one-twentieth of this Scotch farmer's estimate, it will be more remunerative than wheat in any ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 157 average year, whilst instead of exhausting, it will cleanse and enrich the land. The growth of these tubers, as also of turnips, is frequently quite phe- nomenal. One pound of potatoes, cut to single eyes, produced last year 2>6\ lb., and had they been cut with two or more eyes the yield would have been greater. At the Virden Agricultural Show I have seen turnips weighing 27 lb., which, I was told, would have added several pounds to their weight had they been left in the ground a month longer ; whilst potatoes weighing 2\ lb., and of unsurpassed quality, were also exhibited. Turnips measuring 36 inches in circumference ; mangold wurtzel weighing 27 lb., beets 23 lb., and cabbages 49 lb. each, with carrots 3 inches in diameter, and radishes 2 feet in length are reported from many localities. Crops of 3CXD to 700 bushels of potatoes, and of 400 to 1,000 bushels of turnips to the acre, are reported by many of the " 100 farmers " to whom circulars were addressed last year by the Department of Agriculture, asking for information drawn from personal experience in farming, and which in every case are attested by the name and address of the correspondent. Published under the authority of the Department, these reports may be regarded as authentic, whilst they justify the com- ments of their authors — " Manitoba is a good place for farmers with little money," and " I do not think / SUBj nimmmm .»j ^ ISS SUNNY MANITOBA. that this country can be beaten, as it is good for all kinds of farming." Contrasting such results with those obtained in the United States, we can understand the Manito- ban farmer's satisfaction with his position and prospects, which so much impressed the English delegate farmers who visited the province in the summer of 1890. Nebraska reports 27 bushels of potatoes to the acre, Kansas 28, Illinois 30, Indiana 37, the Dakotas 45, Ohio 46, and Iowa 48 bushels. " It is impossible," writes Mr, J. T. Wood, one of the English delegates, " to imagine a people more sanguine of their success, and the future of their country than are the Manitobans. All interviewed, of whatever nationality, were unanimous in declar- ing their preference for Manitoba over Quebec, Ontario, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or whatever country they happened to hail from, and were equally emphatic in their disinclination to return, except to visit friends and relatives ; whilst they are robust, independent, and happy." And the secret of their contentment lies in the fact that, by intelligent observation, they have discovered how varied are the means of amelioration which man is capable of opposing to the disadvantage of climate, and that these may be completely neutralised by a more scientific system of agriculture. CHAPTER V. For stock-raising on a large scale Manitoba is not everywhere adapted, owing to the scarcity of water, and the large area of unfenced arable land. But where a sufficient supply of water exists, a few head of cattle are a great help to the farmer in mixmg his industries. This is the foundation of durable success. In almost every instance where complaints of early frosts have been made, they will be found to emanate from men who have extended their acreage of wheat beyond their power of handling it. Under the hot August sun it ripens so rapidly that before half the crop is cut the other half is either caught by a snap of frost, or shells out from over- ripeness. The testimony of the " lOO farmers '* referred to in the last chapter, is uniformly in favour of extending the live-stock branches of the farms of Manitoba. By no other means can its farmers protect themselves from the disappointments and disasters which are sometimes incident to exclusive wheat-growing. The subject is of so much importance that I 159 I'^JOij^^'-^^i^- -■■--'-- -.v-i--.^ - 'a»Ki^^m.^r- IMP i6o SUNNY MANITOBA : transcribe a few of the lOO answers to the question, What is your opinion of mixed farming, ;>., stock- raising and grain growing combined ? " The only successful way." " Makes success sure." " Stock- raising and grain growing certainly ought to go together." " Only way to continued prosperity." '* The true way." " Every farmer in Manitoba should follow it." " I could not farm in any other way." " Absolutely necessary." " Works especially well on a small farm," and so on. These are the conclusions arrived at, in some cases unwillingly, by practical men, whose experience has taught them how gradually and constantly to increase the sources of revenue which agriculture can yield. Cattle thrive and grow fat on the native grasses ; and the profusion with which roots grow — as also barley and rape — minimise the cost of carrying them through the winter, and are calculated to encourage increased attention to stock raising. In an average season any quantity of hay may be cut in the sloughs or swamps ; and by feeding silage, as an eminent authority said the other day at Portage la Prairie, farmers "could turn out a lot of choice manure, which could be used to grow more corn, and after such a crop they would always have the finest yields of wheat, and pave the way to a proper system of crop rotation — a positive necessity if they were to farm Jtere successfully!^ B: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRfES. i6i In a country where fields are unfenced, and where the area of open prairie becomes more circumscribed every year, the herding"of cattle is now imperative, and may be done at very small cost, as one boy can well take charge of the cattle of several farmers. Unfortunately the Dominion and Provincial Herd Laws, though both designed to protect the farmer against the incursions of cattle, are not in full agreement. No honest man will allow his cattle, be they many or few, to injure his neighbour's crops. But all men are not honest. Here and there one may be found who, presuming upon the ambiguity of the law, or upon the easy urbanity of his neigh- bour, who he knows will shrink from resorting — as every native Canadian very properly does — to his legal protection by impounding the cattle, will turn them loose upon the prairie in sight of his wheat fields, to which by natural instinct they forthwith trend. I have known one such coolly declare that, so long as his beasts got a good feed, he was in- different whether it was upon the prairie or upon his neighbour's corn field. Another, with charming simplicity, told me that he took care to keep his cattle from straying upon the fields of a Canadian farmer " because they always pounded them." Remonstrance, threats, or even the pounding of trespassing cattle, which may at length be forced upon the reluctant farmer, have no effect upon such a II mtk amttt l63 SUNNY MANITOBA : man. He coolly assumes that the " invidious " act will not be repeated ; and if it were, the fines which the pound-master can inflict are a small price to pay for the privilege of habitually running his cattle upon a rich corn field. It is nothing to him that they trample down and destroy ten times as much as they eat. But such men are rare. They are not Canadians, nor Scotchmen, nor the humbler class of English settlers — but "gentlemen's sons," some of whom are the bane of the country. There are many honourable exceptions, and a few black sheep are found in every flock. But, as a class, these men appear so destitute of all moral sense as almost to justify the language — too strong for exact quotation — in which a patriarchal Canadian denounced them in my hearing. " Except ," he said, '* there ain't a worn-out Englishman in Manitoba . . , that mayn't go to the devil." I do not subscribe to that sentiment. On the contrary, there are gentle- men of the class referred to for whom I have the highest regard ; but such would agree with me that, as a whole, the class who are sometimes contemp- tuously spoken of as "remittance farmers" afford an illustration of what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls " the imperfect adaptation of an organism to its environ- ment," men whose function in life would seem to be the replenishing of the world's stock of rascalism, and the doing their best to save it from dying out. ividlous " act e fines which I price to pay ig his cattle ; to him that nes as much They are not Tibler class of )ns," some of lere are many ck sheep are s, these men '. as almost to act quotation lounced them e said, " there Manitoba . . , subscribe to e are gentle- I have the ith me that, es contemp- irs" afford an ;er calls " the its environ- seem to be »f rascalism, dying out. /rS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 163 On the boundless prairie there is no difficulty, and a minimum of expense in herding cattle ; and the farmer who pays attention to stock-raising on a moderate scale finds it a paying industry. There is no cattle disease in Manitoba. The importation, in recent years, of pedigree animals has greatly im- proved the breed ; and in the great development of the Canadian cattle export trade Manitoba is now able to secure its share. The rapid increase of this business, and its profitable character, when the cattle are of good quality, is shown in the fact that, whilst in 1874 Canada exported only 39,600 beasts, of which no more than 455 came to Great Britain, in 1 89 1 the number shipped to British ports was 107,524, valued at ;^i,77i,ooo sterling. The Canadian Gazette, reporting the arrival in Liverpool a year ago of 500 head of cattle from the Canadian North-West, of which experts had said that when they started on their long journey they must have been equal to the best Scots, observed : " The steers now arrived are of exceptionally fine quality; indeed, it is admitted by Americans and other im- porters that the quality has never been equalled by the cattle from any of the other ranches in the United States or Canada. This opinion is borne out by their being immediately snapped up at the highest market prices. The venture must have proved a profitable one, and we are informed that H„i—ii|W 164 SUNNY MA NI TO HA next year, and each succeeding year, the quality will improve still further." Experience has shown the correctness of this forecast. The Canadian farmer has learned that while all sorts and con- ditions of beasts will find a market over the border, it is only first-class animals, specially fed, that will meet the English demand. A noteworthy illustra- tion is afforded by the fact that whilst the number of Canadian live beasts imported into this country in 1890 was 2i,cxx) less than in 1889, the smaller number realised $i,250,cxx) more than the larger. Important and profitable as is this industry, there is every reason to believe that in the near future dairy farming will take the first place in the agri- cultural interests of Manitoba. Recognising the wisdom of encouraging this industry, the Dominion Government two years since appointed a Dairy Commissioner, whose functions are to give farmers practical lessons in butter and cheese making. The experiment has already proved highly successful, and the McKinley Tariff Act which has practically closed the American markets to the Canadian farmers has had the effect of inducing them to make a resolute effort to recover their lost hold of the richer market of Great Britain. Whilst we annually pay ^4,cxx),ooo to France alone for dairy products, and a further ;^iS,cxx),ooo to other countries, our importation of Canadian MINM ■:»•■ quality ,s shown Canadian nd con- 2 border, that will illustra- number i country ; smaller larger, try, there ar future the agri- ising the Dominion a Dairy e farmers mg. The uccessful, iractically Canadian them to St hold of o France ;5,0CX),CX)0 Canadian ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INIWHTRIES. 165 butter has, within five years, decreased as much as 85 per cent. To some extent this may be due to the absorption of the new milk by the numerous cheese factories of Canada ; but it is chiefly at- tributable to \yi inferior quality of the article supplied to the English market. The Canadian farmer has been slow in learning that an article which might pass muster in the lumber camp would not suit the more fastidious tastes of a people whose Free Trade policy has brought to their doors the most perfect products of every clime and country. The effect is strikingly shown in the Canadian ex- ports of cheese and butter to the English market. Whilst the former has more than doubled within a decade, and increased from $2,000,000 in 1872, to $9,372,000 in 1890 ; the latter has fallen from $3,500,000 in 1872, to $340,000 in 1890. If we take a wider range, the results are the more sur- prising. In 1867 the export of Canadian cheese was 1,577,000 lb. In 1890 it was 94,200,000 lb. On the other hand, the total exportation of butter, which in 1874 was over 12,000,000 lb., had fallen in 1890 to 1,951,000 lb. ; whilst the importation of butter from the United States, which in 1888 was valued at $62,000 advanced to $143,000 worth in 1889, or 190 per cent! In 1890 the value was re- duced to $61,000, probably owing to the operation of the McKinley Tariff Act. It is probable that "•" »■ ■y^i? * MMMI «;a>^Vi;^fta>v^.-«*teB.%l>llfc>irtiti'i>iiyi^ ■*" i68 SUNNY MANITOBA : fair value back. If we would save the fertility of our land, we would give the substances removed from the soil in farm products all the value they can carry, and dispose of them only that way. Dairy farming, while providing large supplies of food, will protect our soil and keep it rich." Progress and adaptation are principles at work to-day in Canada as never before ; and recent fiscal legislation in the United States indicates the lines along which successful competition for the British market may be developed. Apprehensions of over- production, which have hindered many farmers from embarking in the dairy industry, will lose their terrors, as both increased demand and better prices encourage enterprise. It is now recognised that, with an increase of 50 per cent, on the export duty to the United States, there is no market at home or abroad for butter of inferior grades ; whilst the wholesale men will generally give fifteen to twenty cents per pound for a first-class article. The butter sent to Winnipeg last fall from Dr. Barnardo's farm at Russell, where great pains are taken in its manu- facture, realised twenty-five cents a pound, two- thirds of which was clear profit. A Manitoban Dairy Association has recently been formed for the advancement of dairy science, the promotion of economy of labour, and the use of Nt^uea^fr -^i^afetiifieei.-^."* '-. / jrtility of removed they can Dairy bod, will at work ent fiscal the lines e British s of over- ners from ose their :ter prices ised that, port duty at home vhilst the to twenty 'he butter rdo's farm its manu- und, two- recently y science, the use of ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 169 the most approved methods of production. From this excellent results may be confidently expected ; for there can be no doubt that home dairy workers have as much to unlearn as to learn, before they can hope to rival the products arising from the application of scientific processes and highly skilled labour. Something more than the mechanical pro- cess of butter-making is required to be known ; but there is no reason why farmers' wives should not turn out as good butter as any creamery. To my knowledge this is done ; but it requires patience, thought, and skill which all have not at command. In settled districts, where the new milk can be easily collected, the creamery plan of butter-making seems preferable, as both labour is economised and far better results are secured by the use of appliances which the individual farmer cannot com- mand ; though from want of adequate capital this plan has not always proved successful. The announcement, therefore, that the Government is about to plant a public creamery and cheese factory in each province, is good news for the farmer, since the milk will presumably be collected by the estab- lishments, thus saving a good deal of unprofitable labour. The farms in Manitoba are too wide apart to allow of the new milk being sent to the creameries by the farmer's team, even where good prices are guaranteed. An excellent creamery at I70 SUNNY MANITOBA : Shoal Lake, making 500 lb. of butter a day, and giving its patrons 16 cents per lb. for their share, suspended operations a year or two since simply owing to the difficulty of collection. In the present state of Manitoba, and owing to the shortness of the butter season, a creamery is too risky a business for private enterprise, unless a very large capital is embarked in it. But co-operative dairying is profitable, and is making steady pro- gress. A reliable authority has declared that failure and loss are the inevitable result without the guarantee of two hundred and fifty cows. And where this can be secured, further co-operation on the part of the creameries becomes necessary, to en- sure the regular and rapid transit of the butter to the foreign market ; as neither the railway com- panies nor shippers care to accept every small con- signment that may be offered to them, when the expense involved in providing cool chambers is as great as for ten times the quantity. It is this con- sideration which lends importance to the proposed action of the Government. Whilst the equipment of their creameries will be a guarantee to the farmer of greater profits than can be made in home dairying, their contracts with the railway companies will ensure that regularity in shipment, the absence of which has been a cause of disappointment and loss. L^'Jai iay, and ir share, simply )wing to ry is too s a very perative dy pro- t failure Dut the . And ation on y, to en- utter to ly com- all con- hen the rs is as lis con- oposed pment to the 1 home ipanies bsence nt and i r •^ i ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 171 A proprietor of private creameries in Manitoba has shown what may be done where a good supply of milk can be relied upon. The results of his work are of so interesting a character, as confirming the claim advanced for Manitoba, that the milk there raised will make more butter and cheese than can be produced, under the same conditions, in any other part of the world, that I offer no apology for a rather long quotation from the Nor' West Farmer: — " When such a sweeping assertion is made it is only proper that the interested inquirer should have the fullest proof that this claim is based on a per- fectly fair and accurate reading of facts sufficiently numerous and so common that no question of its correctness can reasonably be raised. The experi- ence of Mr. Barre, in his last year's operations at the Joly creamery, Manitoba, gives the latest and plainest specimen of evidence in favour of Manitoba as a dairy country that cannot well be called in question by any reasonable investigator. . . . The cows of the district are all native, with scarcely even a male brought in from the outside world, and their production for the season, by the use of a Danish Westorn separator, was as follows : — •MMNHI mm mLumi^i^r:. •■ae:-* .i«--:v,^»«,-sn,r 172 SUNNY MANITOBA : 8 ft 2 ^ N »M ^ 1 ^ f^ c^ M OO' ON .• m ^4 N ^ 00 b -? 00 N • ^ r ON ^ t^ H4 "3 N d N •— « M M 00 t% ^ 8 5 • tC l-» (4 s f* N4 t— > N •5 . .5 §8 • • ;t • .0 ^• s - 1 ON S W- ;M : • CJ : •5 ; ; •^ TS . M •^^ ■*-» ^ Vm •5 B 3 •*-• u 13 &•« 1 \* 6 * J ; ^ 9 '2 73 C 1 0> ■73 ^ ^ ; J3 C 9 § 1 § c 1 a a S <*-' <«-i i in rt 2 1 -§ 9 8 C^ El. PU H H C« PLI Mr. Barre explains that, in accordance with the principles already laid down, he finds the quality of this year's spring milk was below that of other ^-' C .ii.** -* mt " ■■ » i I A M ^ ' J : ~*-.VMfe«tf'. •'J'P^^Jf^wtVP^PW 'M% \ i ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 173 years in which the cows came through the winter in better condition. The cows lay out in the cold wet nights of the late harvest and fall season, thus lowering both yield and quality. He believes, by more generous treatment in fall and winter, and better housing, the butter season could be profitably extended to close upon seven months. Contrasting the season's average of Manitoba as indicated by the year's intake of this factory, gives this result in pounds of butter to each ICXD lb. of milk : — Manitoba .. 476 Quebec .. 4-25 United States .. 4'oo Ontario •• 375 All Europe •. 3-50 On an average for the whole season Mr. Barre paid his 200 patrons from 55 to 68 cents (2s. 3d. to 2s. lod.) for 100 lb. of milk. The yield of 4f lb. of first-class butter per icx) lb. of milk was far above what the average farmer could obtain in home butter-making; and, speak- ing from a large experience, Mr. Barre expresses his conviction that a market for a much larger quantity of creamery butter than Manitoba has yet been able to produce depends only upon maintaining the quality. Milk that has been proved to contain more butter and cheese than that produced in any other country in the world should make the «74 SUNNY MANITOBA : dairy industry one of the most important resources of Manitoba. It is not upon the experience of an individual creamery proprietor that the cham- pionship of the province rests. At the Dominion Exhibition at Toronto, in 1887, the butter of Manitoba took the first, prize, in competition with • all Canada, equally to the surprise and chagrin of some of the professional dairymen of the Eastern provinces. The remarkable falling off in the export of Canadian butter, referred to above, is due entirely to carelessness and the absence of cleanliness in its manufacture. Before it can become the staple industry of the colony, a certain prejudice in the minds of English dealers has undoubtedly to be removed, and it must yield to the force of facts. The allegation that Manitoban butter, after travel- ling 4,000 miles, cannot be fresh and wholesome is disproved by the considerable amount of ex- cellent New Zealand butter which meets a ready market in London. What is wanted to enable the butter of Manitoba to rank with her wheat, com- manding the highest prices in the English market, is skilled work, or, in other words, the substitution of the creamery for the home butter-making process, with skilful packing and expeditious shipment, under conditions which only a large extension of the co-operative principle can ensure. '"S«"i* * i:rTX»Jr2£=" . I » »i l iM ll i gS J Mir s r si j SigUi g ia iiS i aw:' li v ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 175 The development of trade relations between Canada and the mother country must be a certain result of recent American legislation, and the one seems likely soon to be regarded as an adjacent farm of the other, with British Columbia as thq Western boundary of Great Britain. The efforts which Canada has already made to transfer to English markets the trade in poultry, eggs, and dairy products, formerly carried on with the United States, have proved most encouraging. Of this we have recently had a remarkable illustration in the arrival at Liverpool alone, during the last fortnight of 1892, of 30,000 Canadian turkeys, weighing 100 tons. It is to England that Canada must look for the only reliable market for her produce, whatever may be her future trade relations with the United States. In their own interests, as well as from sentiments of loyalty and international justice, the producers of the North-West would themselves meet the McKinley Tariff Act with a bold and rational policy of complete Free Trade with the mother country. As the elections of last year showed, even the Eastern provinces are awaking to an intelligent recognition of the true fiscal interests of the country ; and in the warnings which those elections gave to the Government it was Canada's loss — now happily retrieved — that the fortunes of ,' kt0>ttU^l4UtlC.-: — ■■ a w w t i ti ,-; -^tui^.^ ■'!*'■ .*■ wm mfifmmmm f 176 SUNNY MANITOBA : war resulted in the actual defeat of the most liberal, patriotic, and far-sighted member of the late Gove»nment — the Hon. Mr. Carling. Not a few even of those who were most influenced by the strong personality of the late Premier, who were one with the Free Traders in heartily recognising his many good qualities, are equally agreed with them in demanding the demolition of the old tariff walls by which international trade is so disastrously handicapped. The system of agriculture generally pursued in Manitoba is less scientific than that which has been the growth of centuries in Great Britain. It is, however, steadily improving, and when it is remembered that barely two hundred years have passed since it was the practice in Scotland to plough and harrow with rude implements tied to the horses* tails, it is not surprising that native Canadians should be somewhat impatient of British criticism. Since the establishment of the Experimental Farms — due entirely to the Hon. Mr. Carling — attention has been given to the application of science to agricultural pursuits, with valuable results to the farming community. The objects for which these farms were established are, inter alia ; — To conduct researches and verify experiments designed to test the relative value, for all purposes, M !-;iv, Ui'rf I m, • /TS PEOPLE AND ITS /NDUSTkrES. 17I of different breeds of stock, and their adaptability to the varying climatic or other conditions which prevail in the several provinces and in the North- West Territories. To examine into scientific and economic ques- tions involved in the production of butter and cheese. To test the merits, hardiness, and adaptability of new or untried varieties of wheat and other cereals, and of field-crops, grasses and forage-plants, fruits, vegetables, plants and trees, and disseminate among persons engaged in farming, gardening, or fruit-growing, samples of such surplus products as are considered to be specially worthy of introduction. To analyse fertilisers, and to test their com- parative value ; to conduct experiments in the planting of trees ; and in ascertaining the vitality and purity of agricultural seeds. The success of these institutions in the develop- ment of a science of agriculture has already been fully established. For obvious reasons we must here confine our attention to the Experimental Farm at Brandon. It was not at the time of my visit in full operation ; but under the intelligent and capable management of Mr. Bedford numerous experiments, generally attended with satisfactory results, have been made, and object lessons in 12 ■ "^- -•iff^—'"' ^mk «^^*^ 178 SUNNY MANITOBA: cv cry department of agriculture provided for those who arc willing or able to profit by them. The farm covers 640 acres, and is situated upon the Assiniboine river, a mile north of Brandon. The site was chosen as securing a rare combination of soils, and also of both elevated and low lands, supposed to represent the different grain-growing districts of Manitoba, and is thus adapted for testing the suitability of various products to differing localities. The Experimental Farm at Ottawa is no doubt equally full of instruction, or more so, from the fact of its being the headquarters of the Dairy Commissioner, the Chemist, the Entomologist, and the Horticulturist who preside over their several departments. But, it has been truly said, the UP "que advantage of the Brandon farm "is that those who can only see it once in a season, or it may be those who never see it at all, can learn from its published reports the exact value, at the close of the season, of every product that they saw or heard of at some earlier stage of its growth." By this timely publication of the substance of experiments made with cereals, roots, grasses, tree-planting, &c., the farmer becomes possessed of the results for his practical guidance a whole season before the revised reports of kindred institutions reach his hands, after punctilious regard to the red-tapeism which requires ITS PEOPLE AND ITS /N/)(/STh'/ES. 179 that they should be first submitted to parlia- ment. To the Reports of the Brandon Kxperimental Farm, I shall have frequent occasion to refer. It may be here observed, however, that the enter- prising Director, realising the immense importance to the stock-raising interests of Manitoba of the production of good fodder, has devoted special attention to experiments in fodder-corns and grasses ; with the interesting result, as I gathered, that he prefers the natural wild grasses of the country to all foreign importations. Mr. Bedford recently stated in public that, .soon after getting po.sse.ssion of the farm, his attention was given to the native grasses of the province; that in 1889 a small quantity of seed from several varieties was collected and sown, and that despite the prolonged drought of that year many grew and survived the following severe winter. After two summers and one winter their condition was quite promising. It is, indeed, questioned by some whether wild grasses, as long as they remain wild, are of much value, except for ensilage. But horses prefer them to cultivated varieties ; whilst cattle and sheep, fed throughout the year almost solely upon the native grasses, are said by experts to do remark- ably well, coming out in the spring, if properly cared for, strong and in good flesh. However this W i w * I » i gm i I i WiT i ' ii fll M^ii H r i8o SUNNY MANITOBA : may be, much of the natural harshness of the wild grasses disappears under cultivation ; the leaves and stems become more succulent ; and the plants, thus modified by culture, promise to yield new varieties of great value as forage crops. The wild grasses which, on the Brandon farm, have given the best promise of producing a reasonably fixed cultivated race, are Muhlenborgia Sylvatica and Poa Scrotina, " both of which show possibilities for a full yield and good fodder when under cultiva- tion," and are quite as rich and nutritious grazed In the winter as in the summer. Of the sixty varieties of grasses and clover which have been tested, I understood Mr. Bedford to say that the Hungarian forage plant made the best growth in 1890, yielding four tons to the acre ; whilst Kentucky blue grass, after lying dormant for twelve months — probably owing to the exceptional dryness of the summer of 1889 — produced a luxuriant growth of herbage. Kentucky blue is, however, inferior as a hay cropper to a common wild rye-grass, of which much is expected. It is chiefly valuable as a pasture grass. " No one," says Mr. Bedford, " should sow blue grass, unless they meant it to stay on for years, and, if it was put in with other sorts that made a bigger im- mediate yield, such as Timothy, it would take hold under the others and gradually shove them ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. i8i all out. It is only a pasture grass — no good as a hay cropper ; but it is bright and green in the fall when every other sort of grass is brown and dead." Mr. Bedford has also formed a high opinion of Lucerne clover, of which I am informed that, in France, twelve successive yearly crops are reaped from one sowing. At present the most favoured of the cultivated grasses, with the average farmer, appears to be Timothy — a grass which was well known in England in the last century. It has much the appearance of rye, having a broad blade or leaf, and grows luxuriantly in suitable localities. A native of Virginia, some seeds were carried into North Carolina about 1750, by a Mr. Timothy Harrison, whence its name. In an old book, published in Manchester in 1764, I find it very highly commended, and the writer records an experiment made with a view of testing its sweetness. A large field was divided into four equal areas and sown with clover and other grasses. " When they were all arrived at a proper growth, horses, black cattle, cows, and sheep were promiscuously turned into the field, . . . it not being at all imagined that they would all prefer one kind. However, this was the case, for the Timothy grass was eaten by them quite bare before the other roots were touched." .titikk:r»>iiJ^llie»tmti I I r t f w.. t r-^. i i H I- I "• 182 SUNNY MANITOBA : Although with the great majority of Manitoban farmers it is still possible to obtain all the hay they require from the " sloughs " on the prairie, in the more settled districts the cultivation of grass is a problem of great interest and importance. The experiments conducted by Mr. Bedford afford abundant evidence that the soil and climate are well adapted to almost every variety of grass and fodder plants. He gives the yield of some grasses (dry) as follows : — Timothy and Clover ... Alsike and Timothy Sanfoine Clover Native Grasses mixed under cultivation Lucerne Clover Mixed Tame Grasses Meadow Fescue The yield of some fodder plants (dry) for 1891 are as follows : — 4,100 lb. per acre. 4,600 >> »» j» 3,600 M » ,» 5,100 M »> ♦> 3,000 ,» ,j >> 2,700 »l ,» ,» 2,640 »» >» n Oats and Tares ... Oats and Peas ... Barley and Peas ... ^x.YC • • • • • • ... 10,255 lb. per acre. ... 0,037 n n >» ... 0,o02 ,, „ ,, ... 4,150 >) It „ The average yield of fodder corn for 1 890, from thirty-two varieties tested, was 50,000 lb. (green) per acre. Of fodder corns a great variety have been tested, Thoroughbred White Flint far eclipsing all rivals. ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 183 The yield, as I was informed, reached forty-five tons to the acre, and, with some other of the stronger varieties, the height of the plant was eight feet, against five and six feet as the largest growth of the previous season. Until quite recently it was assumed, and is even now fre- quently stated, that the climate of Manitoba was not favourable to the growth of this crop. Mr. Bedford has exploded that myth. Last year, he says, " the seed of over thirty varieties was sown with a common grain drill in rows three feet apart, and kept free of weeds by the use of the single horse cultivator. When cut on August 28th the yield of green corn was from twelve to forty-six tons per acre, or equal to one half of this in dry fodder. These yields may appear large to one unaccustomed to the growth of fodder plants here, but when it is remembered that in our rich soil all varieties of grain have a tendency to throw out side branches and stools, one can readily under- stand the large returns. We stack the corn in large shocks in the field, and draw it into the barn on the first fall of snow. It cures perfectly in the shock, and is readily eaten by all kinds of stock. This year it is proposed to sow a large area of this grain to be used for silage." The experiments in the.se fodder corns pos.sess great interest for the farmer, since though deficient in 184 SUNNY MA NITOBA : ft i 5' tr- ' fattening qualities, they are unsurpassed as forage, especially for cows, whilst they keep the weeds in check as no other crop does. In his interesting report, Mr. Speir, one of the Scotch delegate farmers, says that it has been found in Ontario " that more food can be grown on an acre of land seeded with Indian corn and cut green than by turnips, and the introduction of the silo bids fair to put green maize in much the same position in Canada as the turnip is in Great Britain." As the Manitoban farmer is brought to realise the profitable nature of this crop, there is reason to hope that the wasteful method of summer-fallowing will give place to a rotation system, without which wheat-growing is little better than a gamble. As we are here concerned, not with theories of farming, but with its practice in Manitoba, matters of great importance to the farmer, such as the relative merits of deep and shallow ploughing, both in relation to weed-killing and to wheat growth, are outside the scope of this volume. Such matters of practical cultivation are proper subjects of discussion at Farmers' Institutes, when the experience of different methods, of different seasons, and of different soil conditions may be compared, and the less informed farmers taught how to grapple with difficulties, to avoid mistakes, and to secure the success which is within their ed as forage, the weeds in is interesting :ch delegate 1 in Ontario acre of land Ben than by ?ilo bids fair me position iritain." As realise the is reason to er-fallowing :hout which mble. ith theories Manitoba, ler, such as ploughing, to wheat is volume, are proper utes, when f different 3 may be ;rs taught mistakes, hin their ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 185 reach. Such institutions are now established in every part of Manitoba, and it would be difficult to exaggerate their importance. Owing to peculiarities of climatic conditions there is an inevitable push and hurry in farm work at certain seasons. Procrastination or idleness, muddling or ignorance, will receive the reward which they merit. Each returning season brings its special work, which must be performed promptly and intelligently if irretrievable loss is to be avoided. In the interval between harvesting and threshing, the farmer seizes the opportunity for stubble ploughing, and the best ploughing will yield the best return for his labour. Every hour is valuabL , for the chances are that in October a severe snap of frost may arrest this work ; and however fine and mild the subsequent weeks of the year may be, the frost rarely relaxes its grasp of the soil until the following spring. Mr. Speir, in his report, writes : " In all the North-West ploughing is done very shallow, seldom over six inches deep, and in the present state of the fertility of these lands it has been found to be the best plan. If the land were deeper ploughed it is generally conceded that the crops would suffer less from drought ; but it has been found that grain on new land, deeply ploughed, generally grows so much to straw that it does not ripen well, and that about as much 1 86 SUNNY MANITOBA : t is lost through lafe and irregular ripening and occasional deterioration by frost as is gained by conservation of the moisture." It is clear, however, that no fixed rule can be laid down as applicable to all the varieties of soil and situation. The great thing is to get the largest possible acreage ploughed that the soil may be exposed to the pulverising and fertilising action of the frost and snow, and ready for seeding as soon as these disappear. When ploughing is no longer possible, the pro- vident man employs his spare time in laying in a store of wood for winter fuel, for the erection or repair of farm buildings, for fencing, and other purposes. Wood may be obtained in most districts within a reasonable distance ; and, as we have seen, a settler who has no timber on his homestead may purchase a wood lot, not exceeding twenty acres, at the price of $5 per acre. But the " bush," as it is called, is being rapidly exhausted ; and already coal is largely substituted for wood for domestic purposes. Unfortunately the price of coal, which in 1890 was forty shillings per ton at Elkhorn, has been prohibitive to many settlers ; the supply will however meet the demand. In the south-east of Alberta the Lethbridge mines are now in full working order, and a branch rail- way connects them with the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, thus ensuring reduced ■■^fc-^^-— ■— < ■ ITS PEOPLE AND IIS INDUSTRIES. 187 freight charges and moderate prices for coal of excellent quality. But this is neither the only nor the principal source of supply for Manitoba. As we have already seen the coal fields of the Souris district, which are ascertained to extend from the Souris river to a point near the io8th meridian, are now opened up by a railway ex- tension from Brandon. These beds, overlaying the cretaceous clay, are carbonised trees, inferior in combustion to the coal further west, but they have the advantage of being more easily workable, as well as more accessible. A few words should be said in this place of the autumnal aspect of the prairie. We have seen it in spring and in summer ; and in the following chapter we shall see it ; 1 its winter garb. In the fall the red sun of the Indian summer floods the prairie with light and warmth, with which the hard frozen earth seems strangely unaccordant. There is a degree of electricity in the atmosphere which plays upon every nerve, and in which the old man renews his youth. But in the autumn sunset nature seems to put forth all her powers to electrify his sense of the sublime. Thirty years have passed since Professor Hind wrote that, in its setting, the sun " throws a flood of red light indescribably magnificent upon the illimitable waving green, the colours blending and separating with the gentle M. i 1 88 SUNNY MANITOBA roll of the long grass, seemingly magnified toward the horizon into the distant heaving swell of a parti- coloured soa." No drizzling sleet, or chilly rain, or pestilential fog, ever mars these wonderful effects. The Indian summer is sometimes slow in coming, but when it comes it is perfection. If the summer is lovely, the autumn is glorious — a spectacle of wonder to the eye, surpassing the power of art to represent or of pen to describe. A single night often produces the sudden transforma- tion. At the first touch of severe frost the profuse and beautiful foliage of the maple, and the graceful leaves of the trembling aspen change the livid green which they have retained all through the summer, for the most dazzling hues of great variety. The autumnal tints of an English landscape are perhaps more varied, but not more beautiful than the won- drous wealth of prairie colours. In favourable falls, one writes : " These autumnal hues vary in a most wonderful way, the same woods, and sometimes the same trees, showing every variety of bright colour, from a pale and delicate yellow to criinson, and on to the scale of deep purple." The red- stalked willow which surrounds every bluff is clothed in leaves of gold, and mingled with it are shrubs, which I am unable to name, whose red ?nd purple tints are rendered more lovely by contrast, here and there, with the yet-green \ S»,mfmta^i ti »i' r A " . m unified toward I'd I of a parti- chilly rain, or [derful effects. )w in coming, IS glorious — irpassing the describe. A ti transforma- 5t the profuse i the graceful le livid green the summer, variety. The 2 are perhaps lan the won- ourable falls, ry in a most I sometimes y of bright to criiiison. The red- ry bluff is ed with it me, whose ore lovely yet-green ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 189 leaves of a willow which has escaped, or defied the touch of frost. All around the prairie is dotted with the white cotton-like pods of the anemone, and with myriads of dwarf-rose b. jhes in varied shades of green and brown and red, whilst clusters of the large fruit of the hawthorn are resplendent with colour. The grasses, too, are a notable feature. One who knows them well, writes : " The reddish hue of the poas and other wild grasses, the salmon colour of the sedges, the yellow of the bunch, buffalo, and blue-joint grass, the deep green of the vetches, the saffron-coloured reeds, the red, white, blue, and yellow of the rich autumn flowers blend their beauties in a marvellous picture." But it is death — not life — which thus transports us with its beauty. The autumn leaves are waiting the first wind to scatter them. In a few days — two or three weeks at the utmost — every trace of all this glory will have vanished. The wide prairie will be enveloped in its shroud of snow ; the sway of winter established. But neither do the heavens appear as though draped with mourning, nor is respiration choked by fog, which is practically unknown. The sun shines with almost unin- terrupted brilliancy. Cyclones are unknown — except by report. In a word, the early winter — the Indian summer — is frequently the most agreeable part of the year. CHAPTER VI. A PREVALENT and very mistaken idea exists, that half the year in Manitoba is a season of enforced idleness — that from the time when the frost gets its permanent grip of the soil, until the end of March, out-door occupation becomes impossible. Nothing could be more erroneous. Very little snow falls on the prairie, a depth of fifteen inches being seldom exceeded ; though in Manitoba, as we have lately experienced in England, there are exceptions to an ordinary season. Storms of sleet and wet snow are unknown ; the snow is so dry and light that in sheltered localities cattle, sheep, and horses may be left out nearly the whole winter. Such at least is the opinion of stock-raisers, who hold that even a low temperature is not injurious to cattle when the cold is dry. The deeper the snow, however, the better it is for the farmer. Be it much or little it freezes as it falls. Accumulating in hollows or sloughs, the whole extent of prairie becomes a level surface 190 itamm /TS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 19I excellent for sleighing. It is no longer necessary for the teamster to keep his horses or oxen upon a possibly circuitous trail ; in every direction he can travel in a straight line, and over an even surface to his goal. At the season when grain hcis to be hauled — it may be ten or fifteen miles — to the nearest elevators, a good road is matter of no small importance ; and from October to Christmas, or even later, the farmer's teams are busy in carrying the produce of his fields to centres of distribution. Elevators are now erected at most railway stations, and are of great advantage to the farmers, who convey their grain in bags containing about three bushels ; the contents are emptied into the "hopper," weighed, and then passed through the machinery perfectly clean, and ready to be transferred to the long train of cars provided by the various railway companies at every depot. The elevators belong to private companies or individuals ; and the men in charge, of whom we shall have more to say anon, grade and price the wheat. There are practically four grades — Nos, i and 2 hard, and Nos. i and 2 Northern — inferior samples being either rejected, or adjudged of rubbish value, though, in fact, " frosted " wheat, as it is termed, is good enough for milling purposes, the flour being of a darker colour but losing none of its nutritious properties. It is therefore a profitable article of merchandise, TW^TTV' 4- ' tgi SUNNY MANITOBA : even more so, it is said, than the highest graded wheat. If the farmers would reserve it cither for home consumption or for pig-feeding, it would soon command its fair price at the elevator. Un- fortunately they too frequently reserve it for seeding, with the inevitable result that a sickly plant is cut down by the first frost. If it escapes that peril it has insufficient vitality to resist the effects of drought ; its growth is slow, harvest is late, and an August frost brings home to the grower that truth of universal application, that what a man sows he shall also reap. But thus, also, the climate is credited with effects which are simply and wholly due to the want of ordinary prudence and forethought. The winter is a season of comparative leisure, affording opportunities for social intercourse of which Manitobans are not slow to avail themselves, and the social conditions of the country leave little to be desired. But they partake of the rerum prhnordia. The mansion in Belgravia, or the precincts of St. James's Hall, besieged by ox- waggons of a more . r less primitive type, would be a spectacle for gods and men. But on the prairie the ox-waggon is no more incongruous, but a good deal more comfortable, with the thermometer 20° or 30° below zero, than the " buck board " or ' buggy " of the more opulent WKSK- ITS PEOPLE AND /IS JAVUSTA'/ES. 193 resident ; and a drive of twenty miles to a concert or social gathering is an event of ordinary occur- rence. I have found that there arc few things about which people at home are more incredulous than the possibility of an agreeable side to the social life of the prairie. Everything depends upon the capacity one possesses for adaptation to new con- ditions. In a general way, the amusements of the town are of course absent ; and the man who has no better aim in life than to " kill time," had better stay at home. Fastidious people, to whom the conventionalities of English society are almost a religion, who hold a violation of the Decalogue and of the rules of grammar in equal abhorrence, or who have conscientious objections to the smell of fustian, would neither please nor be pleased with the average prairie community. Solecisms and eccentricities of speech he would assuredlv hear from men whose best suit of clothes is not always made of broadcloth, and in whose general manners he would perhaps detect a certain lack of polish, combined with a distinct assumption of equality. Suppose him to congratulate a Canadian — say upon his good crop of potatoes, he would be answered — " You bet ! I guess there's quite a few ; " and if the reply produced a swoon, the chances are that there would be no 13 t\ m ^^ ! ! "] 194 SUNNY MANITOBA : doctor within fifteen or twenty miles ; for doctors find it hard to earn a living where the atmosphere is a constant tonic. There is no doubt that the Canadian is a pro- nounced democrat ; allowing no superiority in intellect, or culture, or wealth, to influence his claim to perfect social equality. A man is taken at his worth, and in such estimate there is no place for considerations of birth or occupation. It is unfortunately true that the native Canadian will sometimes use a freedom to which a man fresh from the sacred conventionalities of civilisation finds it hard to reconcile himself, and which no amount of good nature can condone. The follow- ing is, I hope, an extreme instance : — My son had employed a brick-setter, who, with his father, farmed a homestead at a short distance. The supply of milk ran short, and, with great good nature, this man, who was slightly indisposed, remarked — " We've quite a lot at home, and I would go and fetch some but I don't feel like walking to-night." I protested that such a thing must not be thought of, which possibly he under- stood as an invitation to remain for the night. Without another word he entered the shanty, threw off his outer garments, and took possession of my son's bed ! Equality is not claimed ; there is an entire ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. '95 re is an entire absence of that insolent self-assertion which we sometimes encounter in the English mechanic. It is simply taken for granted, without a suspicion that it might be challenged. But with it there is also a degree of self-respect, and a complete absence of the hardness, injustice, cruelty, and avarice, and the imperfect recognition of the meum et tiium which occasionally characterise the English settler. Of the contentedness and absence of avarice which characterise the Canadian, I met with a curious instance. An old man, who, I believe, could neither read nor write, living with his wife in the poorest shanty on the prairie, constructed of one-inch boards, unplastered within, and whose homestead was mortgaged, heard that by the death of a relative in England he had inherited a large fortune. The informa- tion came to him in the form of a newspaper cutting, sent by some friend. Two or three months later I met him and offered my congratu- lations. " I suppose it's all right," he said, " but I don't know." " Have you no legal adviser ? " I asked. " No," was his reply ; " if they bring the money to us we shall be glad of it ; but they must bring it, I sha'n't bother." It is not often that Canadians are thus ignorant. The Dominion Government is behind no country in the world in the provision it makes for the m^ I i Iv . 196 SUNNY MANITOBA : education of its people. In Manitoba — as in the other provinces — education is free, and any district in which there are fifteen children of school age, can claim the establishment of a public school with a duly qualified teacher. By an Act of the Manitoban Legislature in 1888, the separate, denominational system was abolished. The con- trol of the educational system is vested in a Board of Education, and the increase in the number of schools has been remarkably rapid. Statistics of the Roman Catholic schools are not available ; but whereas twenty years ago there were but 16 Protestant schools in the province, in 1881 there were 128, whilst in 1892 there were 522 dis- tricts organised, and over 600 schools in operation, with a school attendance of 19,000. But in the absence of school inspectors attend- ance ceases to be compulsory, and parents are too often satisfied with very meagre attainments, removing their children as soon as they can be useful on the farm. I one day encountered a group of five youths who were discussing the latitude of some town, but wholly unable to agree whether latitude was reckoned north and south of the equator, or east ?nd west 0/ Winnipeg! Those holding the orthodox opinion were in a minority of one. When, on being appealed to, I supported their not very confident guess — for it i>i.:»iyir" mmamtummmn 4: toba — as in the and any district 1 of school age, a pubh'c school ^ an Act of the the separate, led. The con- is vested in a ncrease in the narkably rapid, schools are not ago there were rovince, in 1881 e were 522 dis- dIs in operation, jpectors attend- nd parents are :re attainments, is they can be encountered a discussing the unable to agree rth and south 0/ Winnipeg ! ion were in a I appealed to, t guess— for it 11 1^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 19I was no more than that — one of them bald — *' Well, now opinion is equally divided, so we can't settle it." I offered to explain, but was told that one man's opinion was as good as another s. The older people are often the better educated ; many of them, though born in Canada, being of Scotch or English parentage ; and some of these are excellent company. Their range of conversa- tion iT>ay not be wide, but they are acute observers, intelligent, cheerful, courteous, provident, generous, and God-fearing. More cannot be said of the best class of English settlers, except that they excel the Canadians in culture, which, however, not unfrequently proves to be very superficial. Life with such is no doubt restricted in its interests ; but is it not the same with those who are exposed to the fret and strain of business life in our towns ? The range of their conversation is equally limited, only it is on a different plane. Every one has heard of the "surprise parties" which form a characteristic and very agreeable feature of social intercourse in the winter months. The easy and rapid motion of the sleigh is as delightful as it is invigorating — especially to those who are fortunate enough to possess horses. To those who are not, the dog sleigh has a charm peculiar to itself; and a walk of twenty or thirty miles has no terrors for the pedestrian, as in the i .- - ~-- . , - I I n> ^m> i li 198 SUNNY MANITOBA : germ-laden fogs and slushy roads with which recent winters have too much familiarised us. The snow being dry, and rain unknown, the moccasin is the universal foot-gear ; no other kind of shoe being equally warm and light. With the younger portion of the community toboganning is a favourite amusement, and in a hilly district it is not only intensely exhilarating, but has just that small spice of danger in which irrational youth delights. It is much to be regretted that the consumption of spirits, made more fiery by abominable adul- teration, appears to be on the increase ; but this is chiefly amongst the " remittance farmer " class, with whom " whisky-sprees " have become an institution. Horrible stories are told of boys lured to these revels, who, when solicitation %iled and ridicule was gallantly borne, have been com- pelled by brute force to drink the accursed "fire water " until, lost to a sense of shame, they have become as debauched as the demons who cajoled and betrayed them. As a rule, however, prairie communities are temperate, and persistent inebriety results in social ostracism. The climate favours sobriety, for, whilst the fact is more generally recognised than at home that alcohol lowers the temperature of the body, the exhilarating atmo- sphere lessens the craving, even of the habitual mSm with which iliarised us. iknown, the other kind With the toboganning lly district it [has just that tional youth consumption tinable adul- se; but this irmer " class, become an old of boys itation %iled e been oom- :cursed "fire le, they have who cajoled /ever, prairie ent inebriety nate favours re generally 1 lowers the rating atmo- the habitual ll .SPORTSMAN'S CAM I'. ''^mmmrn mammmmatmitsi s^ju mi ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 199 drunkard, for an artificial stimulant. There is nothing to create the unnatural desire for some- thing that shall excite vital action, where the air he breathes supplies a stimulant that brings no lassitude in its train. In the " fall " the diligent farmer has no time for sport, as in a country where farming operations can be carried on with little intermission. For those, however, who are so inclined, wherever bluffs and sloughs abound birds will be plentiful at almost any season. "If you are wise," says the Marquis of Lome, " you will make a note of the places where these ponds are most numerous, and come again with a little camp outfit in the spring or autumn, when the duck flights are going to or returning from the Arctic. I have shot eight or ten varieties of ducks and geese in an hour or two in such country, and the birds are in excellent condition." Flocks of birds of many varieties, migrating from the far north, find a rich feast upon the stubble on the extensive grain fields which the unbroken prairie, often blackened by fires, did not afford them in former days, and game of this kind promises to become increas- ingly abundant, although their stay is brief But when threshing is over there is game enough left on the prairie to satisfy any reasonable sports- man. Wild geese and ducks have taken their aoo SUNNY MANITOBA \ departure, but the prairie chicken and the plover, the sand-crane, or wild turkey, and other birds, are still plentiful. The indiscriminate slaughter of the prairie chicken is now checked by a close season, ex- tending from the ist of January to the ist of September ; and a bird which but lately seemed marked out for extermination, and which consti- tutes a dainty dish, breeds freely in the sloughs and falls in great numbers to the sportsman's gun. It is, perhaps, to be regretted that an Act passed in 1888, which made it an offence punishable with a heavy fine to expose any of these birds for sale or to send them out of the province, has been rescinded. But, judging from the great abundance of the birds last season, these strict provisions appear to have accomplished their pur- pose, and the dwellers in towns may well think that they are entitled to a share in the favourite game-bird. A strict observance of the close season will probably suffice to remove any fear of its extermination. The partridge, or ruffled grouse, is common in most wooded districts all over Manitoba. Unlike the prairie chicken, it never leaves the shelter of the woods, where it feeds in winter on the buds and berries of the hazel, hawthorn, wild roses, and other shrubs. It has all the characteristics of the rm'' ''rw^^j ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 201 partridge of Ontario, and is considered as good eating as the chicicen itself. This bird has also become more plentiful since the close season has been enforced. The Act forbids the taking or having possession of the eggs of all birds, and also the shooting, trapping, or killing of any bird or animal included in its provisions on a Sunday, whilst no person without a domicile in the province may shoot at any time without a license, which costs $25. The Government, however, grant a free permit to shoot to the bond-fide guest of a resident. The sand-crane, or wild turkey, is, from its very lofty flight a more difficult bird to bag. I have frequently heard their hoarse cry from an altitude at which they were entirely invisible. But in the ealy morning they settle, sometimes in large numbers, on the stubble, and, though not easily approached, the careful sportsman has no difficulty in getting a good shot. Hares and rabbits are abundant, and as the variety of flesh meat is not great, they are much appreciated for the table. There are in Manitoba three or four varieties of the rabbit. The largest, and probably the most common, is the mountain hare, or Jack-rabbit, as it is called, which generally weighs from ten to twelve pounds. But the sportsman aims at higher game. In most parts of Manitoba the elk is now practically extinct, but 909 SUNNY MANITOBA : is still found in the Souris district, whence it occasionally migrates north and west, aid I have known them to graze on the wheat fields in the early morning within ten miles of Elkhorn. In the northern part of the province moose-hunting stilt offers its attractions to the hardy devotee of sport. Fox-hunting is, however, the favourite pursuit, especially with English and Scotch settlers. Apart from the pleasure of the chase — whatever that may be to a human being who kills merely for the sake of killing — fox-hunting has home associations, and lends itself to social inter- course as no other form of sport can do ; and, above all, it is shared by the ladies — who, I believe, are its principal and resolute apologists. If that is a reflection upon the fair sex, I hasten to offer them a well-merited compliment. In the agricultural shows, which afford so much interest and instruction, and which are usually held in October, the ladies take a lively interest, and add very appreciably to their attractiveness. I was much impressed with this fact at the Virden show. The building in which exhibits are made was divided into two compartments — one for grain, vegetables, and dairy products, the other for light manufactures and the fine arts. Interesting as was the former, with its vegetables of monster size, its variety of grasses, cereals, and other produce, it was eclipsed Frict. whence ft kest, a.id I have ^eat fields in the ^^ Klkhorn. !„ "Joose-hunting . ^ardy devotee er, the favourite ^^ and Scotch o^ the chase-^ 'being who kills fox-hunting has to social inter- ^^" do; and, '^'lo, I believe ists. '' sex, I hasten '■"^ent. In the 'ch interest and •^d in October, ind add very I was much 1 show. The W'as divided "' vegetables, manufactures the former, s variety of 'as eclipsed ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 203 by the latter, with its etchings, water-colours, cm- broidery, and birds and animals which would not have discredited the most skilful taxidermist. The opinion was freely expressed that the best part of the exhibition was the fine arts department, and especially the display of ladies' work. The stock exhibit had of course a special attraction for the practical farmer, but was on a more limited scale than might have been expected at such a centre. This is perhaps explained by the very inadequate offers of prize-money ; if I remember rightly $20 being the highest prize in the entire list. Portage la Prairie and Brandon excepted, Virden has, within a radius of twenty miles, a larger agricultural popu- lation than any town in Manitoba, and is most favourably situated for an exhibition. But if its past record is to be improved upon, more prize- money must be distributed. A remarkable feature of last year's show was the small exhibits of sheep and hogs. The district is so well adapted for the profitable raising of these animals, that it is to be regretted that emulation is not encouraged by offer- ing prizes exceeding $2 or $3. A feature of the show which I did not witness was the horse-races in which again the ladies were well to the front ; but, says a local writer — who deserves impaling — " several ladies of the vicinity who used to think the judge a nice man have cJianged tlieir minds'^ •*iK! *°* '^UNNY MANITOIIA.- To return from this digression ;f supposed that, as a rule the T"' ' • "'' "°' ^ 'I'cted to sport Th„ ' '* 8'''=atly ad- -ccessfu, farmer l^TT- "' "■"'' '^ "-" '"e "<'ation,a„d is satisfi. , , '"u" "" °"''^'°"'" '<=- -^'- or his\:: r jr'tS'"tt "'"'' ^- «"nter brings its sneei.l T "''"''"'"• ^he -Perabundance of SeT^^' '"'• """"^ """ "° The days are short TT "° '""" ''"^ 'd'-^ness. -re orchis t:;r;oir ''""'"■°" '° '"'^ --'f-' da'O' >vorlc, of grl ha!^ "^^er-ending round of "e has farm b^g, TJ""J-";' °^ -ia, duties. '«Pa.>, and all his pL foTThl "^"""^'^ °' '" •nature. He will J.Z ~'"'"e ^^'^on to '«'es, the Dairy Astclr""^r' '"'"■"'<=-• '"»«- '"-' shows ; cLt :nSra H ^ ^' ^^"■-'- adopting ideas which aecum ^I . ''""■' P°^^'''"« «hown to be adva ageouT V T'"^^ "^^ >-s the return of sprin/the l''"" ' '° '"'" the unclouded sun which th"''""5 "^"'^ »"<»-. and »". There is „" tTme 7 *' '■'■°'*' °"' "^ 'he system of sprang pZ"""' '°l P'°"^'""^. and the years ^^^^!u^ Ct'r'Xl T"'' ' '^- an-.ongst other reasons ThT^ "''^"''""ed. for this spHng loses the o^^t ^"^ Pioughed i„ the "o-sh the young plant.TndTe": rtr"'rK'° loose-a condition fatal m seed-bed wheat which requires aim '-T"" ^^"'^"^ "^ yuires a firm grip for the root. I m/ms »-UWUM i E^Jiar?:' 't must not be c»" 's greatly ad- port i.s never the in occasional re- 'ng his bluffs for chicken. The aflfords him no ■'"e for idleness. 1 to the needful "^"^'^^g round of '^ social duties, •earrange, or to ^'^nQ season to ^"armers' Insti- - iocal agricul- ^vhere possible 'Perience have -icome to him the snow, and ost out of the ^'^^S. and the tained a (qw ^ned, for this 'ghed in the required to he seed-bed ' growth of root. ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES, to% It is seldom that the farmer can get upon his land before the first week in April. All his thought is then directed to seeding, the various cereals and the area to be sown laving been previously decided upon. It is possible that, owing to deficiency of labour or to its early suspension as the result of October frost, his stubble ploughing was not com- pleted in the autumn. In that case the unploughed area is prepared for the reception of seed by the harrow. Putting on weight, it can be cultivated to a depth of four inches, and, as some maintain, put in better condition for seed than by the plough, the soil being more thoroughly pulverised than by ploughing in wide furrows, when the clods "are simply turned upside down, themselves unfit to recoive seed, and the fine soil kept open by them." Upon that I venture only one remark that to the lay mind it appears obvious that the seeds of weeds, with which the stubble is crowded, will germinate before the wheat and imperil its growth. The most approved seed-distributor is the press drill, the important feature of which appears to be that it rolls the soil firmly over the deposited seed. The young plant is thus protected from hot winds and frost by the unpressed, and therefore higher soil around it. The seed also .yjcrminates before the weeds, which are choked out by its vigorous growth — a matter of much greater importance than early Smjvy MANITOBA ■ sowing. Although rain „. • -C May. heav/l'rr.nr-^ ^alis .•„ Ap., "f fore June, ^nd if the sLu .'^°"' ^^P^^enced 'he surface mould inlSt '" • " '"-''''"' '"at "'"e rema/ns ,oo.,e and d ! .f" ^"""'-^ ^--'•- Early seeding then beccmeT^ '''" ■'' ^"."ed. be-ng so long delayed as M '""'■''• ^^''''nation and to increase theH^kJ/'"' '"' '^^^^ « start -1,-consolidated b^ all"""'^' "^ '"'•-'=■ '" a .<-- shown by expenW T;-."'''^ ^^^■^'"g "as '•nportance. a diflerenc/of n n "^ °' ""^ """^^ d'tions being equal-„al ' ''^''~°'''er ^°"- .■""^''as45perclt.in?hewe,/ 'f"^"^^ °^ as '"^^disproportion i„ quJit ' ' """" ' '=°"-^^P°"d. '^^Sto^r^tin' ''■•"-or Which n'ental Farm at Brandon i tt '' '° ''"= ^xperi. harrowing over the newly-so' *"'~'''"'" "^ "ght Wade has shown above^h? f"""' "^ ^°°" as the °f M.-.-ng such annX^dfa r- u' '"^ P^P"- buckwheat, which are ^tTJ'"''''-'^"'^^^^ and teresting experiment in ,80^ f' ^'- An in- ■■^^'t^ •• On several plo^^^l "^'^ ""^ '"""owing «'«;e ^'-milar, all but one wi tr '°" '°"<^'«°"^ untouched plot had about fifl-T"^'' °""^ '• "'he han the others, and theXafl''"'" ■""^ -^ds ">« grain crowded down the ^'^ f"^'- ^^"^t ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 207 good growth as well. Peas were treated with equal success." Another valuable service rendered by the Ex- perimental Farm is the careful tests made to asceitain the early ripening qualities, and the returns per acre, of a great variety of grains, which the farmer is now enabled to make a factor in his calculation. For all such experi- ments exact areas are measured off, the yield of which is weighed, measured, and placed in carefully-labelled sample bags in the show-room, for the inspection of visitors to the farm. The extent to which these experiments have already been made at the Brandon farm by its able director is as surprising as it is creditable to his energ>' and capacity. In the exhibition room he has gathered a collection, perfectly bewilder- ing to the uninitiated, of cereals, grasses, and other products grown upon the farm — interesting to all, but invaluable to the intelligent agri- culturist. No less than 1 2,000 samples of wheat, barley, and oats were distributed gratuitously from the Experimental Farms last year, where experiments had shown that they were likely to prove useful to the recipients ; and the dis- tribution of roots, grasses, and trees is on the same liberal scale. As an instance of the work done on the central farm at Ottawa, Mr. Wood, i;i 208 SUNNY MANITOBA : one of the English delegate farmers, mentions that in 1889, "251 varieties of potatoes alone were grown side by side under similar conditions, whilst 237 new varieties were raised from hybri- dised seeds." Hitherto the wheat grown in Manitoba; has been almost exclusively the " Red Fyfe " ; and the preference for this grain has been justified by the high rank it has taken in the markets of Great Britain and the Continent. But, in a climate like that of Manitoba, even quality must be subordinated to the safety of production. The wheat that ripens soonest is that which must eventually supersede all others. The original introduction of the Red Fyfe into Canada is worth recording, as, in the opinion of many, its early ripening qualities have suffered from its cultivation in Ontario. A fresh importation of the grain would, it is believed, place it in the van of all competitors. A few grains of this wheat, found in the hold of a Russian vessel at Glasgow, were sent out to an Ontario farmer, and it took its name from having been first grown on the Fyfe farm in that province. Its adaptation to soil and climate soon acquired notoriety. Samples com- manded high prices, and deterioration naturally followed the repeated sowing of the same grain upon the same soil. It was grain thus impoverished I I' ^»^ ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 2oci that was introduced into Manitoba, and is still likely to hold its own although, as the Brandon experiments show, White Connel — a wheat recently introduced from Ireland — surpasses all others in productiveness. The following varieties, grown on new land inclined to be light, were tested against Red Fyfe. Yield per acre. Bush. U>. Redfern .. 25 24 Eureka ... .. 27 16 Old Red River .. 24 — California White .. 25 26 Russian Hard Tag .. 26 48 Summer Cob ... ... 28 26 Campbell's White Chaff .. 24 36 White Conne! ... ■ • • .. 29 14 Red Connel ... • ■ • .. 26 — White Fyfe ... • • • .. 26 42 Red Fyfe (alongside) .. 27 58 The results of the tests in other cereals will be no less interesting to the agricultural reader. Barley is reported to have " made very surprising yields," whilst even the quantities indicated " do not show the full extent of the returns, for the ground was in most cases covered with grain shed out from the difficulty in getting it cut in the wet weather. The land was new breaking on top of the hill, and in half-acre plots, on which the following varieties were tested. All the tests made indicate that the Danish Chevalier is the 14 •j-J>tf7-_^rr^- -r'T 7t--^ iio SUNNY MANITOBA : I' '.I I best all-round two-row barley, acre was : — Danish Chevalier Peerless, White Swedish Beardless ••• 1 naiiei §•• ••• ••• Two-rowed Duckbill Golden Melon Danish Prentiss Prize Prolific (imp. seed) „ (home-grown seed) English Malting New Zealand The yield per Bush. 51 49 49 48 48 48 47 46 43 42 40 40 Lb. 26 38 8 20 10 12 36 40 42 26 40 8 " New varieties of barley were tried in small plots against Prize Prolific as a standard, resulting in the following yields per acre : — Six-rowed Odessa Prize Prolific, 2-row Gold Thorpe Rennie's Baxter's Carter's Salle II i> " Indian varieties : — Palimpu Tahsik Soray Plash Spitti Valley ... Bahgramony ... Bush. Lb. 68 24 59 43 56 25 54 36 44 2 40 14 60 24 50 — 47 — 39 18 39 14 "A large two-rowed barley, resembling wheat ns PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 211 and beardless, made 40 bushels 8 lb., and weighed 62 lb. to the bushel. This was too thinly sowed. The plots on which these varieties were tested were in the valley, and the Prize Prolific grew after potatoes. " Danish Chevalier barley was also tested for press drill, against common drill and broadcasting, and for thick and thin seeding in half-acre plots every way equal, with results per acre as follows : — Press Drill Common Drill Broadcast Bush. Lb. 60 14 56 10 50 46." Oats sown on the high lands, though partially shelled out, are thus reported : — " Of Black Tartarian enough to seed a half acre was selected, the grains all small plump, black- side grain with no arms on the ends. This sort of seed made 12 bushels an acre more than the average sample of the same seed. Of the best known varieties the yields were as under from half-acre plots. Welcome proved earliest : — Bush. Lb Black Tartarian, selected .. 88 4 „ ordinary quality . .. 76 2 English White .. 83 Early Blossom .. 82 Early Calder .. 81 Glenrothen ■• 77 V ii J Hi 212 SUNNY MANITOBA : New Zealand ... Black Champion White Russian Banner White Australian Flying Scotchman Welcome Bush. 76 74 73 73 72 71 64." The tests of the season (1890) as between early and late sowing were unfortunately unreliable in consequence of the August frosts, which very largely deprived them of the accuracy without which they are misleading. Professor Saunders has, however, supplied this want in a bulletin in which he gives the results within his own experience. It shows in a very marked way the advantage of early seeding. In one variety of barley the seed sown on April the 22nd pro- duced nearly 16 bushels per acre more than that sown a week later. In another the difference was II bushels. In oats, for some unexplained reason, the yield was remarkably low, and the difference did not appear so quickly ; but whilst the first sowings yielded 37 and 35 bushels, those of a month later yielded 17 and 19 bushels. In spring wheat the greatest difference was seen between the sowings of May the 6th and the 1 3th ; the former yielded 8 bushels and the latter 4 bushels per acre. -^ -- 1'- * — ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 213 As the most important cereal, the interest of these experiments centres very largely in wheat. The publication by the Board of Agriculture of the complete statistics of the principal crops in the United Kingdom for 1890, enable us to compare the results obtained in Manitoba with those of an exceptionally good year in Great Britain ; the yield per acre of wheat having in only two years of the past decade exceeded that of 1890, whilst that of barley was the largest ever recorded with the single exception of 1885. It is a noticeable feature of these returns, as con- firming the statement that the yield of wheat increases as the northern latitude within which it can be grown at all is approached, that in some of the northern counties of England the yield was as much as 7 bushels an acre above the average, while counties like Essex, Sussex, and Kent fall below the average. The yield per acre of wheat in Great Britain was 3074 bushels, against 29-89 in 1889 ; that of barley, 35*02 or 3^ bushels an acre more than in 1889. The best crop in 1890 appears to have been oats, which yielded 41*40 bushels per acre, or 2*13 in excess of 1889. The turnip crop was 1 5*27 tons per acre, as against a yield of 1,500 bushels on the Brandon Experimental Farm. The mean yield of hay from clover and rotation f ■ I ai4 SUNNY MANITOBA : grasses is returned as a little over i^ tons per acre, or half the quantity which is frequently cut from a good slough on the prairie, whilst the yield of cultivated grasses at Brandon in 1889 ran up to as much as 5^ tons per acre. Bearing in mind that the comparison is one of an exceptionally bad season — a year of drought — in Manitoba, with one of the best years that English farmers have experienced within a decade, these figures speak for themselves. The problem which the Experimental Farms have to solve is — What is the best wheat for Manitoba, that is, the wheat which matures earliest, is most prolific, and of the best mill- ing properties? It would be rash to affirm that it has yet been discovered. A single season's experiments may prove very misleading, and the important question of the tendency towards degeneration of promising imported varieties can only be tested by the experience of many seasons. Some varieties make a great show tnv-=^ first year, leading the inexperienced or over-sanguine to boom them before their real merits have been ascertained. Experiments should be left to the Experimental Farms, where they can be made in large numbers, under exactly similar conditions, and reported by skilled experts for the benefit of the community. As a result of ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRJES. 215 -private experiments, Ladoga wheat has been thus boomed ; and no doubt it has in many places justified the high opinion formed of it ; but its alleged liability to smut and to degenera- tion, can only be accurately tested by experiment, which to the individual farmer may prove both costly and indecisive. It is possible that — as appears to be the case with V^hite Connel — it only requires a year or two for acclimatisation. The gentleman who introduced the latter from Ontario — though it also is really a Russian wheat — states that his first year's crop only yulded 12 bushels to the acre ; the second year he had 20 bushels, and the third year 37 bushels to the acre. This, although far from decisive, accords with the tests at Brandon ; but, says Mr. Bedford, although from returns sent in from all parts of the North-West it has been found to ripen, on an average, ten days earlier than the Red Fyfe, " even if the latter does not yield quite so well and yet escapes the frost, every one knows a fair yield of unfrozen grain is more profitable than a large yield of frozen." Of the White Connel wheat Mr. Bedford says, " It somewhat resembles the White Fyfe, but . . . ripens more evenly than that: variety, although scarcely any earlier than the Red Fyfe. Its thick chaff appears to protect it from the frost," Red il 2l6 SUNNY MA NIT on A ; Fyfe, on the contrary, is very sensitive to fall- frosts, owing tc its very thin skin and thin chaff, whilst it ripens unevenly, giving a percentage of immature grains very injurious to the sample. A point in its favour is that it commat^^ds the highest price in the English market. Speaking at the Brandon Farmers' Institr.te last year, Mr. Waugh, the accomplished editor of the Nor'- West Farmer^ said : " The best kind of wheat is the variety whose seed of good quality can be most readily got, which after you have got it suits the greatest number of '-.oils, yields the highest average crop of good wheat, is most acceptable to the greatest number of buyers, and can be grown the longest time in the same district without showing symp- toms of serious degeneration. Taking all these points together, and looking to past experience as the safest guide to future action, I say that Red Fyfe is the all-round best wheat ever seen in the North-West. We are all, I dare say, familiar with the objections that can be brought against it, but I stand to my position in spite of them and if I were to go south of the International boundary line, where Scotch Fyfe, as they call it, degenerates much faster than it does here, I am certain that there is a more widespread con- fidence in Red Fyfe there than there is even in this country. That confidence, both there and ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES, 217 here, is based on the fact that Red I'yfc, after a dozen years' trial, has been found the best adapted to our soil and climate, and commands the highest price on the market." Hut even Mr. VVaugh is fain to add, " It is certainly just a little too fond of fine weather in August, and when a cold spell comes down about that time. Red Ky^'^ does not get on with it so well as we would like." " Ff," said another speaker, " we could get on it a heavier coat, we might decide on it as the best for Manitoba farmers to grow." It is clear that the Battle of the Grains is not yet fought out, and that it must be solved by the Experimental Farms. Meanwhile it has been convincingly shown that both the quality, and the yield per acre, of all Manitoban-grown wheat and other cereals, are higher than in any other part of the North American continent, whilst the amount of labour required to produce a crop is, owing to the nature of the soil, less than in any other part of the world, India perhaps excepted. Many are hoping for excellent results from cross- fertilisation ; and at the Central Experimental Farm Mr. Saunders is crossing Red Fyfe *vith some of the early Indian wheats, and hopes to get a variety as early as the latter with all the good qualities of the former. Meanwhile he is so con- I 7 } ■\ U\ m 218 SUNNY MANITOBA : vinccd of the early ripcni'nfj qualities of the Lado^fa that he advises its cultivation. Ill an ordinary season seeding is finished in ihc last week of April or the first week of Maj-. The attempt to increase the acreage of wheat hj- later sowing almost invariably results in loss. Mixed crops for winter fodder may still be sown. Peas, or vetches, mixed with oats and barley, have answered well at Hrandon, yielding over 4 tons to the acre. For another month potatoes ma)- also be planted, and ra{)e and fodder-corn sown. Mr. lied ford states that rape, or cole, is one of the most promising green crops, " giving plants 3 feet across the top, and 4 feet high. Sown in 3 feet rows on June 3rd, it yielded in October 33 tons of green fodder per acre. Cattle eat it greedily, and with us it has never tainted the milk when fed to cows." The practice of continual wheat growing is largely accountable for the prolific crops of weeds, which convert some otherwise excellent farms into wasteful wildernesses. A volume might be written on the subject of weeds, and the best methods for their extermination. In the spring months, when other work is less pressing, the farmer's attention is directed to the attainment of this end. In the present state of agriculture in Manitoba, summer- fallowing is the approved method. The plan usually followed is to allow the weeds to grow *i«:i JTS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 219 until they fjet into bloom, and then bury them under a six-inch furrow. It has this recommenda- tion, that the decayed vegetable substance will enrich the next year's wheat crop. Hut the soil is full of seeds — it may be of last year's growth, or of twenty years ago. Whether scattered on the prairie, or buried so deep in the ploughed soil as to be beyond the reach of atmospheric influence, there seems to be practically no limit to the period of the germinating powers of almost every variety of seed. It has been recently stated that a piece of land in Northamptonshire was converted from a furze fox-cover to pasture, a state in which it remained for thirty years or more ; it was then deeply cultivated, and the following season a crop of gorse sprung up over the whole field. Elsewhere, a gardener in order to plant some rhododendrons last spring, turned over a quantity of peat soil, the bottom portion being brought to the surface. The bed is now covered with a thick crop of seedling foxgloves, the seed of which must have beei: !ying there in a state of complete dormancy for probably half a century. This marvellous vitality of the seed of noxious weeds requires the utmost vigilance on the part of the farmer. To prevent their germina- tion with, or in advance of the wheat, the land should be well harrowed on the day it is ploughed. This is regarded as a point of the first importance, 'J ' 4 220 SUNNY MANITOBA and the harrowing is repeated at Ica.st once a month until August. After that date, however vigorous their growth, all annual weeds will be killed by frost before their seeds can riijcn. When it is remembered !:hat a single plant — say of lamb's- quarter — will produce lo.coo seeds, which allowed to ripen, will go on growing, if unchecked, for an unknown number of years, it is not surprising that no fear of tearing up the grain hinders the farmer even from harrowing his newly sown fields, and experiments on the Brandon farm show how salutary are the results. Mr. Bedford says, "I have tried harrowing on top of the grain after the wheat got above ground. I did it once on a num- ber of plots in the valley, that had been sown on old weedy land, leaving one plot untouched. There were 300 times as many weeds on that plot as on the others that had been harrowed, and the grain was a much poorer crop." Before the young blade of wheat .shows above the surface a vigorous growth of weeds frequently appears, and, unless destroyed, will grow more rapidly than the grain, as, being nearer the surface, and getting the benefit of light and warmth, they get a first start. Some authorities therefore recom- mend harrowing even before the grain comes through the soil, a practice of which Mr. Bedford disapproves. Some of the grain he says, is torn . .— ii-? — ~f i.iA-'ij3SUM^*^jSk^S3Jt^M 'ca.st once a date, however weeds will be ripen. When •say of lamb's- which allowed hccked, for an surprising that Icrs the farmer )wn fields, and m show how Iford saj's, "I grain after the )nce on a num- bcen sown on ot untouched, s on that plot rowed, and the t shows above cds frequently II grow more or the surface, warmth, they irefore recoin- grain comes Mr. Ikdford says, is torn ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 221 up by harrowing in any case, and by harrowing before it got above ground he believes that the slender shoots would be injured, and the destruc- tion of weeds secured at the cost of the crop. In ploughing for summer fallow, the farmer's desire is not only to get a good crop of weeds to plough under as manure, but to bring to the surface the buried seeds, which may be destroyed, as soon as they germinate, by the Randall harrow. Such ploughing is therefore sometimes deferred until July. Driving with an old and experienced farmer by his summer fallow, so covered with a strong growth of weeds that they presented the appear- ance of having been sown with the drill, I was startled at his reply to my expression of com- miseration. " I wish the weeds were twice as thick," he said. Ploughed under before the seed has formed, the new growth from the seeds so brought to Ihe surface is destroyed by harrowing, whilst the condition of the land is improved for the next year's crop. In the mean time new land has been broken ready for backsetting in the fall. When breaking is done in the spring, a crop of potatoes may be raised the first year by simply ploughing the sod over them. For this heavy work oxen are considered preferable to horses, and, as they are much less costly, a crop of potatoes thus raised may pay the purchase money and leave the '\'i li -.-;-:-'^"9r f lf^***^^ 222 SUNNY MANITOBA : farmer a surplus. The myth that horses will not live in Manitoba is long since exploded. If its authors had said that horses cannot, like oxen, live exclusively on prairie grass, they would have affirmed a truth even now imperfectly recognised. It is the necessity for high feeding, or the anxiety to raise wheat upon every available acre, which prevents many farmers from substituting horses for oxen. Oxen, however, as a well-informed observer says, " are the necessity of the farmer in cultivating his farm ; in fact, in breaking the prairie he could scarcely do without them. They are powerful brutes, and, for oxen, are wonderfully active. They cost nothing for keep, and also have the advantage of being cheaper than either horses or mules." About the last week in July hay-cutting begins. The exact date for cutting on unoccupied lands is fixed by the Government. The time is probably not distant when, under a regular rotation of crops, every farmer will grow his own hay and fodder corn. At present he depends almost exclusively upon the native wild grasses which grow luxuri- antly in the sloughs, and which, cured to hay upon the ground, make excellent fodder. Where the sloughs retain water the grass often exceeds three feet in height, and three tons to the acre, and when they arc dried out a ton per acre is generally secured. ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 223 The object of the Government in fixing the date at which cutting in these sloughs .nay commence, is to ensure the seeding of the grasses before they are mown, and also to prevent one man from gain- ing an advantage over another. It is open to question whether either purpose is fully attained. The date fixed is too early for the seed to have ripened, and in most settlements there is generally one unscrupulous " grass-grabber " who, if he does not actually violate the law — as to which he betrays an easy indifference — will circumvent his neighbours, and by cajolery and lying secure the best sloughs, even though they abut upon that neighbour's land. Such men, so far as my experi- ence goes, are generally bar-frequenting " gentle- men's sons," of whom Manitoba has more than enough. It is pitiable to see the extent to which the whole tone of a man's life and thought can be lowered by selfishness and a deliberate disregard for the interests and rights of others. Sometimes, however, these '* human items " find themselves outwitted — it may be, also, by gentlemen's sons more worthy of that designation. One of these informed me that a year or two ago his sloughs were thus feloniously cut. He quietly looked on, and early the following morning carted the hay away and stacked it in his own yard. His un- scrupulous neighbour did not venture to dispute .; I 224 SUNNY XtANITOBA his rijrht to the hay, which he had unintentionally spared him the labour of cutting. On the Canadian Pacific Railway lands no im- pediment is offered to settlors in cutting the sloughs on unoccupied lands ; but on Government sections a nominal fee is levied for the privilege. Even this, however, does not always prevent the grass- grabber from cutting such sections without a " permit." There is, indeed, a Government agent to be reckoned with, whose duty it is to visee the permit before the grass is removed. But however deficient in manly habits and self-reliance the average "remittance farmer" may occasionally prove himself, the grass-grabber always possesses the latter quality. He will inform such of his neighbours as are likely to compete with him for a given section, or as are known to be on terms of intimacy with the Government agent, that he has applied for, then that he has obtained, the permit to cut. Suspicion is not as generally disarmed as he may suppose ; but he safely presumes upon a prevailing indisposition to push inquiry to the point of a po.ssible breach of neighbour ly relations. I was myself witness to a scene in which one of these prairie pariahs informed a neighbour who, as he knew, contemplated applying for a Govern- ment permit, that he had himself obtained one for an adjacent section — the same for the half of I-^-'-' ITS PEOPLE AND IT^ lyDUSTRIES. 225 wh!ch my friend purposed making application. He stoutly averred that he had the Government permit for the whole section in his pocket. Challenged to produce it, he was convicted of three deliberate falsehoods — he had no such per- mit ; he had not even applied for one ; and the form of application which he reluctantly produced was not, as he alleged, for the section, or square mile, but for the half of it. Such men arc happily rare. Where they are found they are widely known and justly appre- ciated. There is grass enough for all, and the greatest injury they can inflict upon their neigh- bours is to send them a few miles afield for hay, which no man with a spark of honour would seize upon in sloughs adjoining and — in the case of the worst offenders — abutting upon their land. The long grass dries rapidly, and is generally cut, cocked, and carried within a week. The stacks are never tliatched, the absence of rain in the winter months rendering such protection super- fluous. Wheat harvest follows immediately upon haying; in fact, the completion of the latter has sometimes to be deferred to the imperious necessity of pro- ceeding with the former. It is an anxious and a busy time ; and often the elements seem to com- bine to plague, if not to threaten ruin to the 15 ll • i f ■ \ .tmm ■* iiiii I mm m-\ 226 SUNNY MANITOBA: I \ «i farmer. If his grain is cut a clay too soon the sample Is shrivelled and unmarketable. If reaping is deferred, the marvellous rapidity with which an enormous area may be cut with the self-binding reaper affords him no guarantee against a host of dangers. The hot sun ripens the grain so quickly that it may shell at the touch of the knife ; or a strong wind may shell out half the crop between sunset and sunrise ; or a severe snap of frost may ruin it entirely. Sometimes the cautious farmer will reap half his grain on the green side, and allow the remainder the benefit of one or two days' further ripening, only to realise dout'c disappoint- ment. The first half he has cut prematurely, whilst the second, left one night too long, is badly frozen. But his case is far from hopeless. It is generally agreed that the snap of frost which undoubtedly did much damage on the night of the 22nd of August, 1890, is the earliest on record ; and hopes, which do not appear too sanguine, are entertained that several varieties of grain already introduced will mature a full week earlier. There are also precautions to be taken against frost, which as yet are only in the experimental stage. Smudge fires have been found very efficacious. They are made simply by igniting piles of damp straw and other refuse. Mr. Speir states that one of the oldest / ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 227 lO soon the If reaping h which an self-binding it a host of 1 so quickly knife ; or a op between f frost may ious farmer 2, and allow two days' disappoint- >rematurely, ng, is badly is generally indoubtcdly ic 22nd of and hopes, entertained introduced re are also irhich as yet mudge fires y are made \i and other the oldest settlers in Manitoba told him that he could keep frost off a square mile of land, or more, by simply emptying cart-loads of straw on the north and east sides along the road allowance, and setting fire to i1: when frost seemed likely to come on ; that is when the wind is from a north or easterly direction, or there is the unusual indication of fog. Those, he says, " who have been successful in keeping off frost by this means say that the smoke is gradually driven by the little wind which prevails over the crop, where the bulk of it lies during the night, effectually preventing any damage. As a rule, it appears to be only one night in a season, or in several seasons, that any damage is done, and if such an area of crop as a square mile, or less, can be saved from damage by so simple an expedient, and at so little expense, it is a great pity it is not oftener adopted. In the wheat-growing districts straw is of so little value that it is generally burned ; it might, therefore, at threshing time or other convenient seasons, be hauled where neces- sary, and lie there till such time as it was wanted." After all, very similar or equal difficulties have to be encountered in every agricultural country ; and there is a tendency to exaggerate every accident and drawback to which the farmer in Manitoba is exposed. Mr. Hutchinson, another of the English delegate farmers, shrewdly noticed :i >!: * 1 ] A 1 338 SUNNY MANITOBA : and rebuked this tendency. On his arriv.il in Manitoba, he says, he found the farmers complain- ing of the wet weather, and they told him that, with the exception of 1 884, it was the worst season they had had for fifteen years. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hutchinson at my son's farm on the worst day in that season, and when he informed me that he had not discovered any scarcity of water in the province, I was more than half in- ■;Hned to think that he was facetiously referring, nut to water in the soil, but to the weeping skies beneath which he had just driven nearly forty miles. For when it does rain in Manitoba, one is left in no doubt whatever as to the fact. Mr. Hutchinson, therefore, saw things at their worst ; and this is what he has to say of them : '* If we had had such weather in Cumberland, we should have been congratulating ourselves upon the favourable harvest conditions ; as the season was, on the whole, not so wet as many we ex- perience here." Mr. Moore, the editor of the Mark Lane Express, who spent some months in Manitoba in the same year — as he says, " seeing the country at its worst " — was struck with the same tendency to make more of its drawbacks than the facts warrant. The croakers are generally the men of whom I shall presently have to speak, who know literally lis arrival in crs com plain - )ld him that, : worst season I the pleasure ion's farm on II he informed y scarcity of than half in- jsly referring, weeping skies nearly forty Manitoba, one I to the fact, lings at their say of them : imberland, we urselves upon as the season many we ex- ^ Lane Express, ba in the same y at its worst " sncy to make facts warrant. ;n of whom I know literally i ITS PEOPLE AND ITU INDUSTRIES. 229 nothing of the country, and whose purpose is to lower the price of produce of which they are the only purchasers. Being asked his opinion as o the damage done by frost in the autumn of i HvO, Mr. Moore replied : '* The frost came too late to catch the grain in its milky state, and though no doubt it has reduced some of the wheat in its grading, the general damage is slight, of course nothing like what has been represented. In fact, in the English harvests there is usually some damage of equal severity. V:.*^ climatic difficulties in Canada seem to me o b^ nriade more of than the facts warrant ; in Kn iand they are greater than here. This year, f example, the harvest time has been one o' 'continuous wet, making it impossible to harvest the vvheat and a quantity has sprouted in the ear, and some I hear is rotting on the ground. Canada of course has very cold weather at times, but all countries are liable to these climatic difficulties in farming. At the Royal Agricultural Society's show at Nottingham in 1888 there was a snow storm in midsummer week, and you will remember that in 1867 the Derby was run in a snow storm at the end of May." In point of fact, the injury which the wheat sustained was less the result of frost than of the exceptionally wet season which arrested the work of stacking for two or three weeks, and then -A k r, -S- ..4fal 350 SUNNY MANITOBA saturated the partially or imperfectly built stacks. There arc difficulties to be encountered in every country ; and there are few in Manitoba that cannot be overcome by effort and forethought. From the necessity of economising labour many farmers thresh from the shock — a practice which seems to have surprised the English dclegatcfarmcrs, who notice it as an illustration of " the rough-and- ready way in which farming is often done in the North-West." But Mr. Sandison of lirandon esti- mates the saving at $25 a day for each separator ; besides avoiding the loss of grain from repeated handling. When the wheat is stacked it is done in very primitive fashion. Thatching is unknown, and the art of stack-building is not advanced in Manitoba. The best prices for grain arc generally realised before navigation is clo.sed, and, as this may occur any time after the beginning of November, grain is rushed to the elevator and prices consequently lowered. The needy farmer, who must sell his wheat at whatever price it will fetch, is thus very much at the mercy of the agents at the various centres of distribution. Wheat, as we have seen, is graded into four qualities, the price for each being fixed in a rough- and-tumble way by the agents of the owners of the elevator. These men are always prepared to pay cash for wheat ; but their avarice is, in some ti 4» I r built stacks, crcd in every Manitoba that cthought. : labour many )racticc which Ic^^atc farmers, ic rough-and- 1 done in the IJrandon esti- ch separator ; rom repeated :d it is done \ is unknown, advanced in arc [:jcnerally and, as this :>cgiiining of elevator and icedy farmer, price it will of the agents id into four J in a rough - le owners of prepared to is, in some / I I ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES, 231 cases, only surpassed by their ignorance. Of course there are degrees botii of avarice, of ignorance, and of alertness for cheating. And there are men of high character who would stoop to neither. I fear that such cor titute a small minority. In November, 1890, 1 heard of a well -authenticated case in which, fortunately, the cheater was cheated. A farmer being offered 60 cents a bushel for good wheat, when the current price was 65 to 70 cents, refused to sell. On his way home he met a neighbour who, on hearing his story, shrewdly suggested that they should change teams, and both return to the elevator. His friend submitted to the same agent the wheat for which 60 cents had been refused, and was offered 70 cents without hesitation, afterwards selling his own wheat at the same price. It was, perhaps, moved by the knowledge of such sharp practice that, in announcing the advent of the well-known evangelists, the Mordcn Monitor recently wrote : " Many farmers arc expressing the hope that Messrs. Crossleyand Hunter will, on their arrival in Morden, devote particular attention to converting the grain buyers of this district to the principles of Christianity." : CHAPTER VII. A QUESTION of transcendent importance to the Manitoba!! farmer is the water supply of the country ; yet there is nothing about which the average settler is more apathetic. In rainy seasons his sloughs are filled with water, which may hold out until July ; and for his domestic supply he trusts to surface water which is frequently found at a depth of lo feet or 12 feet. But all seasons are not rainy, and wells have a tendency to play out at critical times ; whilst the water which they yield is sometimes brackish, and refused by the cattle. Even the water in the sloughs is occasionally strongly alkaline owing, probably, to the alkalis deposited in the .soil by the extensive prairie fires being washed by the rain into these basins. The cause of the poor water — as of tho.se alkali spots in his wheat-field which the less informed farmer so often bewails — can, in the opinion of Professor Macoun, be traced in many instances to the exceeding richness of the soil, which will ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 233 retain its fertility just so long as it retains its salts. Another advantage of alkali is that it tends to stiffen and shorten the straw, and promotes the early maturing of cereals. Mr. Macoun rejects the theory that alkali deposits are due to prairie fires, and refers them to the cretaceous clay which undoubtedly underlies the whole country. But the springs issuing from cretaceous clay are too far below the drift, the greatest depressions ii which are unaffected by them. As a general rul however, Mr. Macoun's advice is probably sound. " Dig in the drift, never go through it." Wells, he says, " sunk to a moderate depth anywhere in the drift which covers the whole country , . . will contain good water. All wells sunk through the drift, into the cretaceous clay, will likely be more or less brackish." This may account for a practice which much surprised mc — but of which experience .seems to have .shown the wisdom — of sinking wells through knolls rather than in depressions. The higher the knoll, it is .said, the more certain is water to be found below it. The fact remains, however, that, in the vast majority of cases, wells sunk through the cretaceous clay even to a great depth — as in the Territories — have yielded pure water, and may be expected to do so in Manitoba. To the mere wheat-grower the presence or absence of a plentiful supply of water will make . 1 [I Ivfi 234 SUNNY MANITOBA : all the difference between success or failure. But the mere wheat-grower will in a few years be as extinct as the buffalo on the prairie. To the dairy - farmer and stock -raiser, a reliable and abundant supply of water is absolutely indispen- sable. There are writers who tell us that water is abundant throughout the province. But these are of the hysteric type, from whom we also learn that *' the mountains of Manitoba abound with ore," and that such is the fertility of the soil that it " sometimes yields several crops in one year!" In Southern Manitoba the want of water is less felt. Plum Creek, a tributary of the Souris, waters a rich country. East and west are the Souris and the Red Rivers, whilst between these are Pelican Lake, 13 miles long, White- water Lake, covering a very large area, Rock Lake, and some others, all .surrounded by luxuriant grass and affording an unfailing supply of water for stock. But in some parts of South - western Manitoba the scarcity of good water is acutely felt. As 1 am anxious not to overstate the case, to the prejudice of the Prairie Province, it is only fair to record that of the hundred farmers, scattered all over Manitoba, from whom the Department of Agriculture last year invited in- formation, only three report scarcity of water. - '4 ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 235 The remainder give their testimony in such words as these : " Plenty, from wells 10 to 15 feet deep ; " "Spring at the house, and creek for farm;" " Plenty from a well 40 feet deep ; " " Well 8 feet deep ; " " Constant spring ; " " Plentiful, well 1 5 feet deep ; " " Never failing wells of good water 20 feet deep ;" " Excellent water at 22 feet ;" " Inexhaustible well 58 feet ; " " Plenty in shallow wells," and so forth. The fact is indeed notorious that subterranean springs exist over the greater part of the province, but their discovery and the storage of water are, at least in some cases, beyond the resources of the individual settler ; and the fact has to be recognised that the want of water renders a large area of land in South-west Manitoba at present unfit for settlement. A dozen men are personally known to me who have sunk well after well, only to abandon in despair the fruitless search for water In one case, a farmer suffering from water famine was compelled to leave his crops rotting in the field, whilst his time was divided between <^'5?'gi"I4 wells in every promising locality, and driving his cattle three miles to water. He thus dug a dozen wells before he succeeded in finding water more than a mile from his dwelling. He then seemed to have struck a lead, which promised a good and continuous supply. Two months later ^PSS: M , bii t 'it' 236 SUNNY MANITOBA .- I passed this well, and found it perfectly played out — without a trace of water. Men are to-day leaving improved farms, their patience as well as their resources exhausted ; yet the chances arc that the man who buys or homesteads them may strike water at his first attempt. But it is a chance. I have known such cases. In one instance a farmer, after abandoning in despair his fruitless well-digging, offered his hired man a bonus of $10 if he succeeded, and he did so at the fir*t attempt. In another, a well had been abandoned on striking the " blue clay," which is unworkable with the spade. The same night the sides caved in, and a bountiful lead of good water filled the well. The digger had just missed it by a few inches. Had he been six inches further from it, the probability is that the water would never have been discovered. In yet another case, a man, having no appliances wherewith to bore through the blue clay, abandoned a well upon which he had expended much labour. His farm passed into other hands, and at a further depth of less than a foot a copious supply of good water was found. The uncertainty of the discovery of water is not the only difficulty with which the farmer has to contend. There is always the chance that a lead when struck, after long and costly labour, may :^^— ■■LiJi WEp ^' /ija-Td^^^. 'JSl^lbi- -aF??Jr^ 77-5 PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 237 prove to be at the point of exhaustion. The well must then be filled up, or it remains a source of peril to cattle. The future development of the province, away from lakes and rivers, depends generally upon deep well-sinking ; and there is every reason to believe that in very many localities artesian wells, of a depth not exceeding 200 feet, and often less, would change the face of the country. Of all such wells ever opened, the artesian wells of Dakota are the most remarkable for pressure, and the immense quantity of water supplied. More than 100 of these, from 500 feet to 1,600 feet deep, arc now in successful operation. In some instances they show a gauge of pressure of 180 lb. to the square inch, and yield a never- varying stream of pure water. Of course, well- boring on this scale is beyond the resources either of individuals or of a scattered agricultural com- munity. It is the proper work of the Government. Experiments recently tried in the North-West Territories, under precisely sim.ilar physical condi- tions, have yielded most encouraging results. But Manitoba enjoys Home ule, and the Dominion Government recognises obligation to assist her in the development of h 1 resources. It is, indeed, true tha at the cost of incredible labour, and of vast penditure, the Dominion Government has exj ^imented in this direction x&mm^ ^^■^ ..- .■■■ . . . ,..p.:- ._, 1J! 238 SUNNY MANITOBA : i ) ! ! I ; at Deloraine. But in this case it cannot be con- gratulated upon its sagacity. Two years ago a depth of 2,000 feet h-:-. H«en reached, and the newspapers report that they have brought up a Chinaman. They are unlikely to bring up any- thing else. If, instead of misdirected pertinacity, where failure was once demonstrated, experiments had been made in other localities, good results would almost certainly have followed, and the waste of public money have been prevented. Should any measure of success now crown the infatuated perseverance at Deloraine, little will be accomplished, beyond the bringing up of the Chinaman, as the effluent must almost of necessit)- be insufficient for irrigation. But the task is not beyond the resources of the Provincial Government. If it is objected that water, flouing to waste within 50 feet to 500 feet of the surface, is intermittent, and that springs arc not always found where expected, or where most required, this only enhances the obligation of the Dominion Government to co-operate with that of the province in discovering them. It is perfectly idle to object that " there is a risk of a Government becoming too paternal, and of its being expected to do things more appropriate to private enterprise." The Dominion Government is the owner of these lands, upon which it invites It . i ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 239 settlement ; and private enterprise will find ample scope in their cultivation. It would be as reason- able for a London landlord to invoke the private enterprise of a tenant in adding roof, flooring, and all other details to a tenement of which he had built the four square walls. A sufficient supply of water is an essential pre-requisite of stock- raising, mixed farming the essential condition of successful agriculture ; and the case for Govern- ment assistance in procuring water, the existence of which in abundance is not denied, is unanswer- able. It is not the extravagant expenditure of public money, as at Deloraine, which is asked, but simply that the Government should do the work of boring at cost price. With a constant and plentiful supply of ?cod water the value of every homestead would be doubled. The resulting benefit to the province, through the rapid settle- ment of waterless districts, with a contented and prosperous population, would more than compen- sate for a trifling expenditure on well-directed work of this nature. Meanwhile there are large areas in which the enterprising settler can dispense with extraneous aid in securing a fair supply of water ; and he may derive some consolation from the opinion of Professor Macoun that "the absence of water on the prairie is a good sign," It shows, he says, H •« f? 240 SUNNY MANITOBA : " that the soil is well suited for farming purposes, but it is no proof that water cannot be had by digging." If the settler is fortunate in striking a good lead in water-bearing strata, at a depth of lo feet to 12 feet, he can sink his well to a depth o( 30 feet or 40 feet. Then the water, which would otherwise run to waste, will be stored up against exceptional demands, or the po.ssible diminution of supply. It is true the lead may play out altogether. But half a loaf is better than no bread, and, generally speaking, the farmer is in- telligent enough and provident enough to adopt .some such method for securing a perennial supply of the precious element. The following is one of many illustrations of the ingenuity which is brought to bear on this problem. A farmer, realising the importance of securing, if possible, standing water in a slough contiguous to his cattle-sheds, writes : ** In a small slough close to the house, which has had no water in it for about three springs, I dug a small hole about 9 feet deep curbed with three ordinary barrels, which at the time gave me about two pails of water per day for about three weeks and then dried. In the winter I made a good brushwood fence round the slough by intertwining the brush on upright posts, 6 feet high, which caused snowdrifts to form, 4 feet to 5 feet high, and as hard as a good road, which, JTS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTHIES. 241 when it thawed in the spring, made a fine sheet of water, half an acre In size and 4 feet deep. After two and a half months the water dried up, and then I had to resort to my small well, which I could approach now, and watered from it eight head all summer and fall, and am at this time watering four head every day. I am this winter putting more brush round, and intend building another well close to the old one, about 4 feet in diameter, which I think will give plenty of water for any farm with six horses and four to six cows, the water also being the best of drinking water. This I only tried as an experiment, and found it so useful that I had not to draw a bucket of water from off the place for my stock or horses the whole summer, which I had been doing for the last four years before. There is very little expense, the labour and time in all would not amount to a week it brush is to be had not more than four miles away, including the digging of well and curbing." The value of a good well, supplied from a natural reservoir of this kind, is inestimable, and it is within the reach of many a settler who, in the absence of such supply, cannot practice mixed farming. Or he may adopt the plan of the Australian settlers, and dam back the water which the melting snows leave in every basin. When the conformation of the land lends itself to 16 .;> il t •? (..V'' 242 .sr.V/V V MAxiron.] .• this method of storaji^e, the labour and expense involved will prove an excellent investment. Where this is impracticable, and the wells yield onl)' alkali water, it may not only be sweetened by condensation, but it has been shown that such water, filtered in pipes throuj^h 50 feet of sand, becomes fresh. Other processes of clarification may be simpler and more expeditious, but the fact that salt water can thus be utilised for cattle is one of j^icat importance. The exodus of Canadians to Dakota and Minne- sota a few years since was attributable in a less degree to the exagfjreratcd reports of the fertility of those states, than to the belief, which exi)crience has not confirmed, that water was r:':er)'whcrc plentiful. Sir Richard Cartwright certainly scored when, during the recent election campaign in Canada, he retorted, though with great exaggera- tion, upon the IVcmicr, " True ."••'"'"vofi-nists are the men who have driven a million good Canadians from Canada to the United States during the last ten years." Dakota is, in fact, in far worse plight than Manitoba, and Canadian immigrants have had cause to rep'^nt the rashness which impelled them to "become the prey of the American eagle," as one phrases it, debauched by " the rainbow-hued statements of Yankee emigration agents." In aiul expense itu'cstmcnt. wells yield be sweetened nwii that such feet of sand, f clarification tious. but the liscd for cattle )ta and Minne- tablc in a less of the fertility lich experience as r:':ery\vherc crtainly scored campaign in rcat cxaggera- .vntionists arc Tood Canadians during the last c plight than ints have had impelled them lean eagle," as rainbow-hued agents." 1'^ N ::■« ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 743 Dakota, as in Manitoba, wheat is the staple produce. The harvest Bulletin for 1890, issued by the Department of Agriculture for the province of Manitoba, shows the average yield of wheat to have been 246 bushels per acre. In Dakota the average was only 9 bushels, in Minnesota 12 bushels, and in Wisconsin \2\ bu.shels per acre. " These are official figures, and from them farmers can draw their own conclusions as to which part of the American continent po.sscsscs the best wheat-lands." With the conviction, painfully acquired, that no state in the Union, or in Canada, can show equally profitable results for good farming with Manitoba, deluded Canadian immigrants, and the Mcnno- nites, who five years ago followed their example, are returning in large numbers. Many of them, after disposing of their American farms at a heavy loss, have repurchased their old homesteads at greatly enhanced prices ; whilst some of those stranded in the United States cannot find pur- chasers for their farms at any price, and "are casting sad eyes towards the Manitoba which they forsook, and where their co-patriots are con- tented, some even wealthy." A merchant from Ellendale, N. Dakota, who was in Toronto two years ago, was interviewed on this subject. Threshing, he said, was then going ♦, % iV i ^^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) <^^^<^ 4'. :^ J 1.0 I.I -1^ 12.5 ^ U£ 12.0 US Hi 1.8 »• 1.25 III 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" ► ■SS^ »1> 5 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 ^ V iV :\ \ 4 <6 V ^1* 6^ ' M I' il I ritjiHif ij :| 260 SUA'NV MANirOBA in Nebraska in 1890, and 25,000 acres of sugar beets are said to have brought the growers $100 per acre. These lands are reported to have been made valu- able, and their owners and tillers are prosperous because of the discovery that " they are well adapted to growing beets for sugar. Upon this same land the farmers have been trying to grow corn and oats and wheat for fifteen years ; have had poor crops half the time, and when they had good crops were compelled to sell them at very low prices. Yet they kept on raising these crops, because they were the crops they raised where they came from. They did not think it worth while to experiment much with other crops, and foreigners had to show them that they had just the soil and the climate for beets for sugar. They had got into a rut and stayed there. In the rut they got possibly $8 to $10 per acre off their land ; out of the rut they got ten or more times that amount from their land. Their interest or rent is not increased, and their expense for labour is increased very little compared with the gain in receipts. Evidently the faster they can get out of the rut the better for them." This picture may be overdrawn ; but, without looking for a yield of $100 worth per acre, it is certain that the Manitoban farmer can grow beet very profitably, and with advantage to the soil. The question has got beyond the experimental stage, and •4? vnA : ITS PEOPLE AND ITS IXDUSTRIES. 261 ) acres of sugar beets owers $icx) per acre. Lve been made valu- llers are prosperous :hey are well adapted Jpon this same land 3 grow corn and oats lave had poor crops had good crops were low prices. Yet they ;cause they were the ame from. They did cperiment much with d to show them that climate for beets for rut and stayed there. 8 to $10 per acre off ley got ten or more land. Their interest eir expense for labour red with the gain in r they can get out of drawn ; but, without worth per acre, it is armer can grow beet itage to the soil. The :perimental stage, and :® M it is lamentable that, for political ends, a Canadian Minister has gone uut of his way to discourage as " rash, incorrect, and regrettable," the disposition of capitalists to embark in an industry by which Manitoba would greatly profit. These words were addres.sed by Mr. Foster to an assembly of Trinidad merchants; and the thinly veiled purpose of securing to the West Indian planters a monopoly of the Dominion sugar trade was as unpatriotic as it was economically false. At that very time, experts in France who had analysed the Western -grown beets reported that they would produce 2 per cent, more saccharine matter than beets grown in Nebraska. A company was ready to commence building a factory in the North- West, and only awaited a guarantee from the farmers that they would grow a sufficient acreage to run it. That was the moment chosen by a responsible Minister to discourage the enter- prise by truckling to the rapacity of West Indian planters 1 It may be, as Mr. Foster, the Minister of Finance, said, that whatever foothold the West India islands get for their sugar or fruits in Canada, that foothold they will maintain without any pressure from home competition. But, as a Manitoban journal remarked, '* When Mr, Foster stated that the sugar beet could not be grown in Canada, he did not know what he was talking about." This opinion is fully con- ( ■ ; ?; I i enj'LB i w / 262 SUNNY MANITOBA firmed in the official Statistical Year-book recently issued. Political discussion is foreign to my purpose ; but the fact cannot be ignored that Canada has recently reprimanded, though not yet dismissed, a Protectionist Government, by reducing its majority nearly 50 per cent. The great majority of Canadians, irrespective of political considera- tions, believed that only the strong personality of the late Premier, which had so long combined and controlled men of opposite creeds and opinions, could continue to unite them in a truly national policy. This was the secret of Sir John Macdonald's power. The " grits " were willing to forget a great deal — even to postpone for the life- time of another parliament the desired revolution in Canada's fiscal policy — rather than lose the services of so strong and experienced an opponent of ab- sorption into the United States, and whose name will be for ever associated with the triumph of the great railway across Canada. But protective tariffs and electioneering jobs have been tolerated with growing discontent ; and it is unfortunate for the reputation of the great minister that he lived to fight the last general election. The Government, indeed, only avoided crushing defeat at the polls, by the ignominious stratagem of bringing distorted and unfair charges against their )BA: ^ear-book recently n to my purpose ; 1 that Canada has lot yet dismissed, by reducing its rhe great majority political considera- strong personality so long combined Dositc creeds and ite them in a truly secret of Sir John ts " were willing to )stpone for the life- esired revolution in lan lose the services m opponent of ab- md whose name will riumph of the great otective tariffs and erated with growing e for the reputation ved to fight the last y avoided crushing linious stratagem of larges against their /rS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 263 opponents, and by frantic appeals to the loyalty which assuredly is more thorough and sincere amongst Liberals than in the ranks of their political opponents. Personally I have not met a Liberal, native Canadian or immigrant, who was not revolted at the idea of annexation to the United States, whilst amongst Protectionists I found that it was re- garded as an open question, which might at least be entertained as " a pious opinion." Generally speak- ing, however, the Canadians are intensely loyal, and the sentiment is shared by the official class. A curious illustration of this occurred when Regina was selected as the capital of Alberta. I think it was Lord Aberdeen who recently related the cir- cumstances under which the town came to receive its present name. Originally known as '* Pile o' Bones," when it was chosen as the headquarters for the administration of the Territories a change of name was felt to be desirable. The governor was absent, at Quebec, and the question was flashed over the wires — " What name shall we give ? " The representative of royalty gave advice becoming his position ; and with the hearty assent of the Council, and amid the universal enthusiasm of the citizens, his suggestion of the name of the sovereign was adopted. The loyalty of the Canadian press is very pro- nounced ; and although it is sometimes said that, of i\ I !64 SUNNY MANITOBA : all the profitable industries which invite English capital in Manitoba, a good newspaper might prove the most remunerative, it is more than doubtful whether this is a letjitimate field for outside enter- prise. The newspaper press of the province is creditable alike to the energy and ability with which it is conducted. ICvery considerable village has its paper, and Winnipeg has several. The Government has wisely encouraged private cntcr- pri.se by providing free conveyance for all news- papers .sent from the office of publication. The result is what might have been anticipated. Where- as in 1878 the total number of newspapers and periodicals posted throughout the Dominion was 39,700,000, it had risen in 1889 to considerably over 70,000,000, or at the rate of more than seven- teen papers per head of the population. The tele- graphic reports of news from all parts of Europe are more copious than the reports of Canadian and American intelligence in the London and provincial papers ; whilst, owing to the difference in mean time an event occurring say in London at 6 p.m., and which cannot be reported even in the evening pro- vincial papers of that day, may be, and often is known in Canada soon after noon on the day of its occurrence. News is also more assiduously collected in England for the Canadian and American press than for our own papers. I am writing on a Monday, ¥\ ' )nA: ich invite English spapcr might prove lore than doubtful d for outside entcr- of the province is r and ability with considerable village has several. The aged private enter- 'ancc for all news- »f publication. The anticipated. Where- of newspapers and the Dominion was ^89 to considerably of more than seven - pulation. The tele- parts of Europe are ts of Canadian and )ndon and provincial ference in mean time ndon at 6 p.m., and 1 in the evening pro- ay be, and often is oon on the day of its assiduously collected and American press writing on a Monday, ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 265 and have to-day read in my morning paper in- telligence of a painful event which occurred in Lon- don early on Friday morning, and was reported in the Canadian papers of that day ; but of which a very limited portion of the English public were in- formed by a financial telegram from New York which appeared in a London paper on Saturday, and appears for the first time in the news columns of that and other London and provincial papers to-day. But, excellent as in many respects are the Manitoban newspapers, there is much room for improvement ; in the absence of which the opinion, now freely expressed, that this is another direction in vvhich the field is open for the profitable employ- ment of English capital and enterprise, must be allowed to have considerable weight. The Free Press, which has the largest circulation, has missed the opportunity of acquiring proportionate weight. Its persistent, violent, and even ribald attacks upon certain public men exceed the limits of decency, are deprecated by men of every shade of political opinion, and have exposed it to almost innumerable libel suits, with the result of which it complacently expresses a satisfaction in which the public do not share. It should, however, be recognised that in the past the Free Press has done, as its best friends hope that it may continue to do, good service in \ \ x.V. 266 SUNNY .\fAi\ITOBA: forming atui cnlij^htcning public opinion upon political, social, and aj^ricultural topics. It has already had a life of more than twent)- years ; its is ue is both daily and weekly, a leading feature of the latter being a verbatim report of a sermon by Dr. Talmage. But the rabid ferocity, and weari- .somc iteration through many columns, of its attacks upon public men is a feature, which, whilst de- priving it of the respect and confidence of its clientele, present.s a vulnerable point of attack to rival journalists not more immaculate than itself Its young opponent, the Tribune, which has just completed the third or fourth year of a troubled existence, has openly, and I believed calumniously charged it, now with being in the pay of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and again in that of the Jesuits, and muzzled by " the money-bags and boodlers " — whatever that may mean. A few months ago the Tribune wrote, " The Free Press contains .since 1888 . . . 9,430 articles denunciatory of Greenway and Martin, By actual measurement, if the.se articles were tacked together, they would cover a distance of 62 mile.s." It has been shown ** by actual measurement " that within this space of time the total column space of the Free Press, advertising columns included, has been less than 12^ miles ; whilst the calculations of the Tribune would require eleven articles a day, each 34 feet fiA: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 267 He opinion upon 1 topics. It has twcnt}' }'ears ; its Icadin;^' feature of rt of a sermon by rocity, and wcari- nnns, of its attaciably regret having industry of which average agricultural trade. They will open to them but to ; for a year without perseverance, thrift, capacity to adapt they may do well, irn over £i a day- livelihood on their they earn by plying ons, and plasterers- all settled districts. who perhaps form ligrate, are the last home in Manitoba, at defies discourage- e experinnent. But \y tested. In their the rapid growth of ustries of the towns, I obtained. I have /7'S PEOPLE AND ITS INDUS TA7ES. J79 found that not a few fathers of young men of this class hold the opinion that, if they .ship their sons off to Manitoba with ;^5o or ;{^ioo in heir pockets, they are bound to succeed. It is a fatal delusion. Rather, it would seem from illustrations already given, they are bound to commit all the stupidities of which youth is capable, and — a few more. It would be far better to give them no money at all, but either to secure for them a special training before going out, or to pay a premium to a com- petent farmer in Manitoba who would teach them the art of farming under the peculiar conditions of the industry in that province, and then leave them to .shift for themselves. Mr. J. T. Wood, in his report, advises young men, before leaving Eng- land, to make them.selves conversant with the best known methods of butter and cheese-making. The advice is excellent ; for, as we have already seen, the dairy industry in Manitoba is one for which there is a great future. At present it is in a very backward state, but it is being rapidly developed into a fine art, and its prizes will fall to those who can produce the best article. A stout heart, and two strong, willing hands are the best part of a man's equipment. Nothing else, indeed, can be said to be absolutely es.sential, and many have succeeded who had nothing else to start upon. " We want able-bodied men and women n^r- r »-«■■ *• ' » ' 280 SUNNY MANITOnA : m I.. who are not afraid of hard work," writes o!ic of the '• 100 farmers " to the Board of Agriculture. " Let the croai\er and drone stay away. We have no room for such, but the former are sure to succeed." Another says : " I think Manitoba as fine a country as any one could wish to settle in for farming : a man who is able and willing to work cannot hel[) but get on." Such testimony might be multiplied indefinitely ; but it is noteworthy that in every instance stress is laid upon the willingness to work, and even to endure privation for a time. Two years ago a young clerk in Manchester was thrown out of employment. His father placed him with a farmer in Manitoba, the premium paid exhausting his ability to assist his son in the calling of his choice. At the expiration of the year the young man hired out at good wages, was industrious, and providently accumulated his earnings. Last spring he took up a homestead, with every prospect of success. But he has a word of warning for young men of his own class at home. " It is very foolish," he writes, *' for young men to come out here who are not fitted for this life." And the class is a large one. It is not every one who can readily adapt him- self to a new country. Yet, although in my inter- course with settlers I endeavoured to elicit their honest sentiments, and even invited complaint, I itcs one of the :ultiire. " Let We have no 'c to succeed." fine a country or farmin^f : a cannot help be multiplied that in every ^ness to work, [ic. Two years IS thrown out 1 him with a id exhaustin^^ ca!lin<,^ of his :iar the youn^ idustrious, and . Last spring y prospect of ing for young 1 very foolish," out here who the class is a \y adapt him- 1 in my inter- to elicit their complaint, I ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 281 only met with one isolated case of dissatisfaction. The English delegate farmers bear similar testi- mony. Mr. Scotson writes : " I met many men who a few years ago had come out to Canada with nothing but their hands and brains, who are now in good positions on fair farms, and glad that Canada is their present and future home. These men are mostly located on their own lands, and feel a freedom hitherto unknown ; whilst they find the Canadians quite as English as themselves. It is hard to realise that this is the case so many thousand miles from England, yet it is undoubtedly the fact, and the farther west you get from Quebec the more English in character you find the people." I have written to no purpose if I have not shown that, as an agricultural country, a proper estimate will place Manitoba in the first rank, with none superior in richness of resource, and even, all things considered, in the advantages of climate. Addressing the English delegate farmers last autumn, Lord Stanley stated that during his brief experience in the North-West, he had received a strong impression of bright prospects for the future of that great section of the Dominion. He was confident, he said, that when they had visited the prairie province their verdict would be such as to bring out from the old country the best class of agricultural settlers to set the prosperity of that Vf'' p I" i l^f bJj ■■-Ti!.,. 8; ^K-» .96^A^.VK AfAAVronA : ^Tcat region on a firm basis. The Marquis of Lornc has amusingly related how ho sought in vain to (h'scover grumblers. A settler whom he one clay asked whether he had anything to com- plain of, remained for some moments meditatively silent. Presently his face brightene(\ and he ex- claimed, " Yes ; it is cold in the winter, and it is hot in the summer, and the dust makes me wash twice in the week!" To a similar question a Scotch woman answered : " Well, no ; that is — I have not the English — but I wad say that the milk is too rich for the childer." Pity that milk too rich for the childer cannot be substituted for what goes by that name in many a town in England ! But to bespeak commiseration for the man whose only grievance is that he must wash twice in the week would, I fear, be in vain. Lord Aberdeen, in a speech at Winnipeg in October, 1890, said that while desiring information he had been on the look out for disappointment, but, he added, " I hav.' not found many disappointed persons." His Lordsi-4/ justly claims to speak as an impartial observer. "You will ask," he says, " have you met no grumblers ? In any country there are dark-siders. It is not their fault, but it is constitutional in them. Lord Spencer told of a gentleman who took to fox hunting, who had a slight deformity, his head being slightly to one side. Miirijuis of he sou^^ht in tier whom ho thing to com- ■i meditatively \ and he cx- ntcr, and it is akes me wash ar question a lo ; that is— I ' that the milk that milk too tutcd for what 1 in England ! :he man whose h twice in the Winnipeg in ig information isappointment, y disappointed ns to speak as ask," he says, n any country • fault, but it is icer told of a g, who had a tly to one side. /TS people: and its industries. 283 On one occasion he had a nasty fall. His com- panions came up and found him badly knocked about. One of his legs was bent and they pulled it straight. They found his head at one side, and the poor man was almost unconscious ; but as they attempted to screw it round he managed to gasp out ' Horn .so.' I have met a few dark-siders, but after a few questions, I found out it was more constitu- tional in themselves than in the country. I shall have no difficulty in answering the question some- times put to a visitor, How do you like our country ? Mr. Scarth had been good enough to imply that I might be of some small help to the army of tho.se who testify regarding this country. I am glad you will have such an authoritative report from those farmers. If I have an opportunity of speaking in public or in private, although I am not gifted with eloquence, by plain, unvarni.shed state- ments I will be able to testify of the magnificent openings of this great country, where there has been no little performance in the past, and there are boundless possibilities in the future." The convictions to which Lord Aberdeen gives expression are the outcome of intelligent personal observation and experience. " I had an opportu- nity," he says, " of driving over a considerable part of Manitoba, and had an interesting experience among the Highland Crofters. Those excellent in u i« 584 SUNNY MANITOBA people are now finding their feet, so to speak, and are in a very hopeful attitude over the resources and prospects of this country ; because we all know that in the Western Highlands of Scotland, owing to climatic influences and other causes, the habits of the people are not of the continued pertinacious kind which characterises those of some parts of Scotland. Great credit is due to these men that they have got a foothold in their new position and look forward with hope and confidence." These Highland Crofters are located at Killarney, near the Pelican Lake in Southern Manitoba. They have nearly all gone in for " mixed " farming, and in spite of bad seasons are generally contented and prosperous. The leading Crofter in this settlement is John McLcod, with whom Lord Aberdeen had an interview. To his inquiries respecting the re- sources of the country and the position and prospects of the Crofters, McLeod replied, "Well, my Lord, I can tell you that it was a lucky day for myself and family when we went on board the steamboat that took us out of Scotland, and landed us in this fine country. I have three sons p. id they own 160 acres of land each. I own 160 acres myself, making a total of 640 acres. I and my sons work together on the land and we have about ninety acres under cultivation. We have three yoke of oxen, several cows and young stock. We will have about 900 ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 285 IS ) to speak, and the resources se \vc all know Gotland, owing >, the habits of d pertinacious some parts of hese men that ;w position and lence." These Killarncy, near mitoba. They " farming, and contented and this settlement Aberdeen had pecting the re- n and prospects /Veil, my Lord, day for myself the steamboat ided us in this I they own 160 myself, making work together :ty acres under f oxen, several ave about 900 bushels of wheat this season, and an ample supply of oats, barley, potatoes and dififerent kinds of vegetables, and will have about 150 acres under cultivation next season. We are only three miles from timber at Pelican Lake. There is any amount of fish in the lake, and a large quantity of ducks and geese and plenty of wild turkeys and prairie chickens on the wheat fields. When the season for shooting comes in we can blaze away at them. We have no landlords here ; no old country game- keepers to arrest us for shooting game. Our carriages, horses, oxen, cows and farming imple- ments are free of taxation here. We only pay $30 a year taxes for the whole section of 640 acres. " We all like this country. The soil is a black, vegetable loam, from eighteen to twenty-four inches deep, and a rich, marly subsoil several feet deep and a blue clay bottom. Several farmers here have raised crops of wheat for ten years in succession without any manure. I often think of our people in Scotland who are working all their lives for the landlords for just enough to keep soul and body together. Let them come to this country, where they can be free from the grasp of landlordism and become the owners of an estate of 160 acres of good land, as long as grass grows and water runs. We have plenty of room for them in this great North- West country, and I can now with confidence invite .LL^iT i..:'iyi'J I « ;» •86 SUNNY MANITOBA : them all to come where they can make comfortable homes for themselves and families." The Earl then said to Mr. McLeod that his account was very good on the bright side, but that he wanted to hear about the dark side. " Very well, my son," said Mr. McLeod, " if 1 would tell you anything about the dark side I would be telling you something that I know nothing about, because it has been all on the bright side with me since I came here. I am authorised to make this statement by the whole of the Crofters in this settlement. When I first arrived at Killarney I was offered $2.50 per day for doing mason work, and the first job of mason work I done, I got $2.50 a day. I can now get $3 a day but I cannot leave my farm. There is plenty of work here for labourers and masons, but I prefer to stick to my farm, and I can say that any man who will work and till his farm properly, he can make a good living here." It is worth while, once again, to contrast with this picture of contented and successful industry, the experience, at the same point of time, of settlers in Dakota, whence a go-eat migration to Manitoba is now taking place of Canadians, who have learned, by painful experience, how shameless were the mis- representations of American agents, who declared that its wheat farms "have become one of the ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 287 ike comfortable :Leod that his it side, but that de. McLeod, " if 1 le dark side I that I know ;en all on the e here. I am : by the vvhoie When I first $2.50 per day st job of mason can now get $3 There is plenty »ns, but I prefer y that any man roperly, he can mtrast with this il industry, the le, of settlers in to Manitoba is o have learned, 5S vere the mis- >, who declared Tie one of the i marvels of America," and that " British travellers are staggered by their fertility, by the superiority of the grain, and by the cheapness of its production." Mr. D. Galloway, a gentleman well known in Win- nipeg, arrived there in October, 1890, after riding through Dakota from south to north. He said that, in passing through that State, he " found the crops almost total failures, and the country presenting a barren appearance. ... At Minot, the average yield of grain wai> from two to three bushels per acre ; eight miles S.W, from that town P. R. Undril had 35 acres from which he obtained two loads, yielding about 35 bushels. . . . Mr. Undril reported the whole country around him to be in the same position as himself, and the settlers were leaving as fast as they could get away." This statement Mr. Galloway confirms from his own experience. He did not find, he says, " a solitary one but was anxious to leave." He describes the settlers as " heartily sick of their position, and desirous of getting information about Manitoba." SwCh information, of a reliable character, is readily obtainable, and it is a pleasure to refer to the singu- larly accurate information — free from any trace of exaggeration — which is supplied in lectures, and otherwise, by Mr. McMillan, the accredited agent in this country of the Government of Manitoba. Manitoba has had its troubles ; but amongst its ••W" mm < ■ *t] ' >88 SUNNY MANITOBA : most contented settlers are those who have migrated from Ontario, the reputed El Dorado of the farmer. The following testimony of one of these may he accepted as authentic. " I sold my farm in Ontario and came to Mani- toba in the spring of 1881, bought a farm near the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, a short distance from where the rising and prosperous town of Carberry now stands, and went to work with a will, had good crops every year with the exception of one or two years in which the late grain got slightl}' frosted. Now that I am nine years in Manitoba I can say my accurnulations are tenfold. With industry and a little economy there is nothing to stay the tide of wealth and comfort in Manitoba. I have been through a great part of the Eastern States and Canada, and this summer, in order to get a better knowledge of the resources of the con- tinent, I took a trip to the coast and down through California, round through the Southern States ; in all, I visited eleven states and no doubt some good country. Let the bad speak for itself, and also dif- ferent climates, of which some were too hot, but taking everything into consideration I must say that Manitoba stands at the head." Colonial life, in Manitoba as elsewhere, is only suited to those who possess the qualities which, generally speaking, would ensure their success at ) have migrated of the farmer, these may be came to Mani- i farm near the aihvay, a short )rospcrous town to work with a 1 the exception late grain got nine years in Dns are tenfold, there is nothincj )rt in Manitoba, of the Eastern ler, in order to rces of the con- 1 down through lern States ; in ubt some good ilf, and also dif- re too hot, but I must say that ewhere, is only [qualities which, heir success at I ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 289 home — enterprise and courage, with sobriety and industry; an aptitude to learn by their own successes and failures ; and a readiness of resource, to meet and overcome difficulties and trials which they will be sure to encounter. The man who possesses these qualities need not hesitate because his financial resources are limited ; but the man who has them not will find no compensation in the possession of means which incapacity, ignorance, and self-indul- gence will quickly exhaust, leaving him a prey to disappointment and discontent. I am frequently asked what amount of capital is requisite for a fairly comfortable start in Manitoba. This depends upon so many considerations that any estimate must be subject to modification. Most practical men, knowing the country, would advise the farmer of limited means to begin by renting an improved farm ; he has then leisure to examine the country, select his homestead, and build house, stables, &c., without the loss of a season. One of the " lOO farmers" writes : '* Any one with a small capital to start with should do well in Manitoba, if he has energy. I would advise renting a farm the first year." " To those with capital," says another, " and who have no previous experience of farming, I would recom- mend the buying of an improved farm and they will save money ; taking care that the houses and 19 ' I :t- 'Tj^Tyr'K-f;; t ' r f 290 SUNNY MANITOBA : stables are good and comfortable, with a good well and a good-sized slough or lake near by for the cattle in summer, with plenty of hay land." The advice is excellent for those to whom it applies ; but the vast majority of emigrants are without sufficient capital to be able to profit by it. Whilst I am desirous to dissuade such from form- ing a strained conception of what may be practic- able, it may at least be said that hundreds have succeeded in Manitoba with no capital at all, whilst others with ;{^300 or ;^400 have failed ; experience, and a capacity for adaptation to the ways of a new country, or the want of it, being generally the cause. I have been favoured with a copy of a letter from a farmer near Brandon, dated the 14th of October, 1891, in which he says, "I came to Manitoba in 188 1, and my sons followed me in 1883. This year we had 500 acres under crop ; 400 acres of wheat averaged from 25 to 30 bushels per acre ; 100 acres of oats averaged 60 bushels per acre. I consider the outlet good, and am satisfied that any one willing to work can get along all right in Manitoba, no matter zvhether they start zvith or without capital'^ In illustration of what may be accomplished without capital, Mr. J. T. Wood mentions in his report a case which came under his own observation. Mr. John B. Watson, a native of Northallerion, had been a :, with a good well e near by for the hay land." those to whom it of emigrants are ble to profit by it. e such from form- it may be practic- lat hundreds have lo capital at all, ^400 have failed ; adaptation to the want of it, being in favoured with a jar Brandon, dated vhich he says, " I my sons followed i 500 acres under ged from 25 to 30 oats averaged 60 e outlet good, and T to work can get 'natter ivhether they In illustration of hout capital, Mr. J. )ort a case which ion. Mr. John B. grion, had been a ( ;. ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 29 i gamekeeper in Yorkshire. Four years ago he arrived in Manitoba with only five cents in his pocket. Being willing to work, he earned good wages, saved his money, and bought 160 acres of land for £^0. In 1890, he had 130 acres in wheat, 10 in oats, all very full crops. He had also, in addition to a team of oxen, 17 head of cattle and a comfortable house. This is a well-authenticated case, and other such have been adduced ; but they arc altogether excep- tional. A plough and a yoke of oxen constitute a poor equipment to commence farming with, and in the long run it is the man who patiently labours and waits for two, three, or even four years, who will succeed the best. A young man, when he has acquired necessary experience, if he is strong, ener- getic, and not easily daunted by difificulties, may make a fair start with a capital of ;^ioo. If he has ;^200, he will not only escape many difificulties, but his success will be much more assured. With resources so limited, the position of the young farmer in England is almost hopeless ; and it may be confidently affirmed that a sober, industrious man, with a capital too small for farming at home, will find that he can employ it to better advantage in Manitoba than in any other part of the world, Th' difficulties which he will have to encounter are, in the aggregate, no greater than the average m r If! K- 292 SUNNY MANITOBA : of troubles to le found at home ; whilst, even in indifferent seasons, he will reap better harvests than in any other part of the world with the same out- lay. The case of a man with a family is very different. Me must not only have a larger house, but as he will have to wait 16 or 18 months for his first crop, he must purchase provisions for that j)eriod. Sup- pose he goes out in A|)ril, his first care — unless he is wise enough to rent a farm — will be to build a house upon his homestead. This need not occupy more than four or five weeks. If he buys an improved farm, with 50 to lOO acres broken, it will cost him from $8 to $15 an acre — say .^640 for a farm of 320 acres, which will include house and out-buildings. If, however, he elects to take up a Government grant of 160 acres and to buy another quarter section of unimproved land, the latter will cost him from $2 to $8 an acre according to location and quality ; and this he may i)ay in instalments spread over nine years with 6 |)er cent, interest upon the unijaid balance. He would then require a capital of ;{^200 to ^250, to be laid out thus : — House and stable Stove and needful furniture One yoke of oxen One waggon $350.00 100.00 120.00 80.00 ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 293 Plough and harrow $25.00 Spade and other small implements ... 25.00 Provisions for 18 months — say ... 200.00 Seed potatoes and oats 15.00 Seed for next year's wheat crop ... 50.00 Two cows and half a dozen pigs ... 95.00 Hire of machinery with occasional extra labour 50.00 1,110.00 First year's payment on account of 160 acres — say 40.00 Second Ditto (including interest)— say 60.00 $1,210.00 = ^242 Liberal allowance is here made for every outlay, especially in the cost of provisions ; as a single cow, and 3 or 4 fat hogs to be killed in the fall, with garden produce, will go far to supply his wants ; whilst a temporary shanty, weather-proof and warm, may be built for less than $200. His oxen will cost nothing, or next to nothing, for feed, and are more useful than horses for the heavy work of breaking. If he is prudent, however, he will grow 10 acres of oats the first }'car ; the seed may be scattered on the sod, and two inches of soil turned over it. Good crops of potatoes maj' be grown in the same waj' ; his breaking being thereby improved, and the land rendered cleaner for the next j'-ear's crop. In his first year a farmer will easil)' break 40 MawAMMMM-aMC. i'1 I -'94 SUXNV MANITOIiA : acres, wliich will be ready for seecling in the follow - in^ April. His wheat will be cut at the end of August, and sold, perhaps, in October. If he is onl)' moderately fortunate, lie will have a crop of 20 bushels to the acre, which at 60 cents a bushel will yield $480, or £()6. Should the price be 70 cents, he will realise ;^II2, or if the yield should reach the low average of 1891, ;6i40 for his first year's crop. Meanwhile, with the assistance of one labourer, he will have broken another 40 acres, and will have 80 acres under crop in his third year. It is unnecessar)' to carry the calculation further. Additional machinerj- and stock will absorb all profits which can be prudently calculated upon. Hut, with average seasons and prices, a practical farmer may reasonably expect, by the end of his fifth year, to have paid for his land, erected a suitable house a!id farm buildings, purchased all necessaiy machinery, a few head of cattle and a score or two of sheep, and to have a profitable dairy of four or five cows. He should also have at least 160 acres under wheat, with proportioned acreage of root crops and fodder corn ; and his farm of 320 acres will be worth from ;^700 to ;{^i,ooo. The man who can wait may sometimes buy an improved farm at a price greatly below its real value. The frontispiece to this volume represents an eJvcellent house, built by a settler in his third M ITS PEOPLE AND ITS INDUSTRIES, 295 year, and, with 320 acres of good arable and pas- ture land, it is, I believe, now offered for ;{^500. To the English farmer, staggering under an annual rent which would buy out the fee simple of some of the best land in Manitoba ; and to steady, industrious men of every class, who, disabusing their minds of the false notion that "any fellow can farm," are prepared for hard work and perhaps some privation in their early experience, I com- mend the words of an English settler which I find in the pages of the Mark Lane Express : — " I see in the Liverpool Mercury that the Cheshire County Council advertised for four road inspectors at a salary of ;^200 a year, and had 454 appli- cations for the post. Now, most of these men must be persons of education, and, no doubt, have some little income of their own. Why don't such men go to the colonies ? they would, no doubt, get on well. This is the very country for people with a little capital and who like out-of-door life, and if they would set to work they would in a few years be in quite independent circumstances. Although we have had five poor harvests out of six, we lead the lives of country gentlemen compared with the majority of English farmers short of capital at the present time." 996 SUNNY MANI.VIiA: ik'l NOTK. — Kmi^rants are advised to book throng to their destination, and by the Canadian i'acific Railway, which is the only direct route. The rates are lower for throii^di tickets bou^dit in ICn^Maml than for railway tickets issued at the Canach'aii or American i)orts, whilst between Liverpool and the Far West the s.aving in distance by the Canach'aii Pacific Railway route is fully 800 miles. Third- class passengers should provide themselves with food for the railway journey, as provisions are expensive at the wayside stations. For those who can afford it, the luxury of the dining;-car and hotel service is unsurpassed, and in the elej^ance and comfort of its passenger equipment the Canadian I'acific Railway is without a rival. For third as for first-class passen^^ers the sleeping cars are most comfortable. Of the various transatlantic steamship com- panies the Allan Line has really no rival. I'or thirty-five years its splendid fleet of steamers carried the Canadian mails with ab.solute safetj- and remarkable regularity. The equipment of its boats for every class of passengers is all that could be desired, and the rates are a marvel of cheapness considering the quality and unlimited quantity of rations even to steerage passengers. Its accom- modation for " Intermediate " passengers contrasts verj' favourably with that of some other lines, and 1: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS WDUSTKIES. 297 n book throu},Mi anadian Pacific >iit(\ The rates ^Mit ill i':nn;laii(| Ihc Canadian or iverpool and the )y the Canadian ) miles. Third- : hem selves with provisiotis are VoY those who ng^-car and hotel le elejrance and it the Cana(h'an . For third as jcping cars are steamship com- no rival. I^'or let of steamers absolute safet)- equipment of its is all that could -el of cheapness itcd quantity of 's. Its accom- npfcrs contrasts other lines, and the comfort of these " floating; hotels " renders the ten (lays' voya^^e to Quebec a very delightful experience. The courtesy and attention of the officers of every grade are proverbial. Every boat has its library, whilst games, concerts, and other amusements relieve the short voyage — too short, I have found it — of all monotony. Speaking from personal experience, I advise all emigrants to book through to their rlestination by the Allan Line and the Canadian Pacific Rail\va>'. It should be added that the Dominion Govern- ment now offer the following bonuses to bond-fide settlers from the United Kingdom, who take up land within six months of their arrival in Canada : — $15 (;^3 is. 8d.) to the head of a family, and half that sum to any adult member of the family taking up land. Fully a third of their pas.sage money is thus returned to emigrants to any part of Manitoba, who should obtain forms of application for the bonuses from an authorised agent of the .Allan Steamship Company, as with- out these the bonuses will not be granted. UNWIN BROTHERSi CHILWORTH AND LONDON. I \ #' Large cruwn 8vo., cIolIi, 5s. each, fully Illustrated. 1. ^3e (^bScnfures of a ^ounser jion. By E. J. TRELAWNY. With an Intrixluction by EDWARD GARNEIT. lUusiraied with several Tortraits of Trelawny. II. (KoBetf Grurg's ^ournaf in Qltabasascar. With FtefACc and Notes by Capt. S. P. OLIVER, Author of "Madagasca. III. Qllcmotra of t^c elf; and Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Dr. ROUERT brown. V. ^^e Q^uccaneero anb Qllaroonera of ^mertca -. Being an account of certain notorious Fn-ebooters of the Spani.- AI'.MlMUb VAMiii.kV. VIII. I^K. be ^torg of H)c. .SttituotciA. liy JAML.^ JEFFREY KOClli: To which ^^ abided ILc Life of Culomil DAVID CKtjCKE'Il. (^ (inafiter (Vtlarincr : being the Lilt and Adventures of Caht. ROBERT WILLIAM EAbTWiC*. Edited by HERHERT COMPTON. X (JvoloRofroiufi ; Qxi'c^^t a\\i> TTorrtor. Xtau:>lait:a from the Gieck, and Picluv.t.d \Mlh an AtCvunt of the KIcphi:>, b^ '«>h3. EDMUNDS. With Introduction In M, J. GENNADIUS, Greek Mini»ici Catalogue of Select Books in Belles Lettres^ History y Biography ^ Theology j Travel^ Miscellaneous y and Books for Children. f ^amefi C^ogcc, CAMERON, R.N I AM LAblWlCJL P US. Greek Miuiaici f^diu MivtB. a Kirk rl<=» Qi^fTr»i/if> ^Y Francesco de Quevrdo. ablO de begOVie. nfustratcd with sixty Drawings by Daniel Vierge. 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