In the first I will speak of the farms and
farmers--their homes and how they live; in the second, I will describe
our own home and its surroundings; and in the third, I will speak of
the Indians under my husband's control, and tell how we got along
during the three years I was there.
THE FARMERS AND THEIR FARMS.
It would be out of place and even impossible for me, at present to
give you any figures relating to the crops and harvests of the
North-West. Suffice, to say that for two summers, at Frog Lake,
in my husband's district, we raised wheat that was pronounced by
competent judges to equal the best that ever grew in Ontario.
The land is fertile and essentially a grain-bearing soil. It is easy
to clear, and is comparatively very level. There is ample opportunity
to utilize miles upon miles of it, and the farms that exist, at
present, are evidences of what others might be. No one can tell the
number of people that there is room for in the country. Europe's
millions might emigrate and spread, themselves over that immense
territory, and still there would be land and ample place for those of
future generations. We were eight hundred miles from Winnipeg, and
even at that great distance we were, to use the words of Lord
Dufferin, "only in the anti-chamber of the great North-West."
The country has been well described by hundreds, it has also been
falsely reported upon by thousands.
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