THE TOWNSMAN AS SUCCESSFUL FARMER OVERSEAS [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.]
Sxn,—A good deal of publicity is given in the papers both here and at home to the idea that only farmers and farm workers can tackle successfully prairie farming. This, so far as I know, after twenty years' experience of farming and life on the prairies, is quite contrary to the facts. So, as it is a matter of some interest, perhaps you will find room for the following.
Farming in the Old Country, what with half-a-dozen crops, rotation, stock, and work on the land going on all the year round, is a complicated business requiring a wide knowledge Of agriculture in all its branches. Here on the prairies it is very different. We have only six months in which work on the land can be done. We have one crop, grain : wheat principally, with oats, barley, flax seed and rye. Potatoes are only grown for the - farmer's own consumption. For hay,
we cut the natural prairie growth where it grows long in the low-lying land around the sloughs. Permits are also given the farmers to cut on vacant land such as school sections. The stock of the average farm here consists of two or three cows, a pig or two, and the usual flock of chickens. Many prairie farmers do not bother even with that, buying their provisions in town.
As regards the work on a prairie farm, we do not trudge behind a walking plough. We sit on the plough, either sulky, single, or gang, double-furrow plough. The other tools, seeder, discs, harrows, grass cutter, are even more simple. The binder is more complicated : a man might take a week to get on to it. In the same time any man of ordinary intelligence can learn to harness, drive, and care for horses. Milking a cow is a case of learning a little trick which can be mastered in five minutes. Speed comes with practice. The ordinary care of stock is a matter of using common sense. In cases of sickness where they are concerned, the prairie farmer, like everybody else here or at home, calls in the vet.
In short, one season spent with a prairie farmer will' teach any man of ordinary strength and intelligence enough to enable him to start fanning himself. Any Westerner knows this to be the simple truth. Throughout the prairie Pro- vinces there are, it is no exaggeration to say, thousands of men successfully fanning who were formerly mechanics, carpenters, painters, clerks, and shopkeepers.
I number many such among my personal acquaintances.—
Howell Court, Broadway, Winnipeg, Man.
[We entirely agree with the writer. One of the most hopeful facts in the migration problem is the knowledge that the townsman, after a year's experience on the spot, can become, and frequently does become, a successful farmer. We recall the case of two former employees on the Central London Railway who were prosperous in the prairie Provinces. Many similar cases have come under our personal observation in all parts of the British Empire.—En. Spectator.]
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