Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba — 14 - Letter 14

June 6th.

A waggon is going into town to-morrow to fetch a sulky and a gang- plough, and some potatoes for seeding; and we hope a few also of the latter for eating, as hitherto our only vegetables have been white beans and rice.

You may be wondering what these ploughs are: a sulky is a single-furrowed sixteen inch plough, to which are harnessed three horses, a man riding on a small seat and driving them instead of walking; and a "gang" is a two-furrowed twelve- inch plough, and drawn by four to six horses, and which will break over four acres a day; the sulky about three.

A---- has had one for some time, but as yet only the deep ploughing or backsetting of last year's breaking has been going on, and until the seeding and harrowing is finished, which ought to have been done before now, but this year has been delayed by the lateness of the spring, and the snow being so long in melting, no fresh breaking has been begun.

There are still about two hundred and eighty acres to break, or, more properly speaking, two hundred and forty, as forty acres are in marsh, in which water stands so deep no cultivation would be possible, though, later on, the marshes yield beautiful crops of hay; rather coarse-looking stuff, but undeniably nutritious, and not distasteful to either horses or beast.

It has often been speculated as to whether there was any means of draining the marshes, but, owing to the extreme level character of the country, you could get no fall, and tiles would not do on account of the severity of the frosts, which penetrate deeper into the ground than the drains could be carried.

The Government have cut good-sized ditches at right angles to the river, and they are found to be the only practical drainage which is feasible, and, when once cut and the water set running, have no tendency to fill up, but gradually wear deeper and broader, so that in time they almost become small rivers.

We have one running through our west marsh, and on a bye-day we sometimes fish in it for pike; not that any of our party have been successful, but some of our neighbours catch fish, and very fair-sized ones.

The land is wonderfully rich and good.

A black loam (which colour is no doubt due, partly, to the gradual accumulation of the charred grasses left by prairie fires), of about two feet in depth, with a clay and sandy sub-soil, and in which, they say, they will be able to grow cereals for the next twenty years, without manure or its deteriorating; though if there was only time to do it before the snow falls, it seems a pity not to put the manure on to the land instead of burning it, as they do at the present moment.

Perhaps when all the land is broken, which they hope will be by the end of next summer, they won't be so pushed for work as they are.

The ground here requires a great deal of cultivation.

It is first of all broken with a fourteen or sixteen inch plough, so shaped that it turns the sod over as flat as possible, generally from the depth of two to two-and-a-half inches deep, the shallower the better, and then left to rot with the sun and rain for two months and a half.

It has often been tried, and with very good results, to put in a crop of oats on the first breaking, sowing broadcast and turning a very thin sod over them; and the sod pulverizes and decomposes under the influence of a growing crop quite as effectually as if only turned over and left to itself.

There are also fewer weeds, which is of importance, as it often happens that the weeds which grow soon after the breaking are as difficult to subdue as the sod.

If the soil is nice and soft a man and team of horses will break an acre and a half a day, and average throughout the season an acre.

The breaking goes on until the middle of July, and the end of August the "backsetting" begins, which is ploughing the same ground over again about two inches deeper.

The following spring the harrows (which are "disc" of a peculiar shape, twelve to eighteen razor-wheels on an axle, and in going round cut through and break any sods), are run over repeatedly both before and after the seeding; the ground is also rolled and then left, and for the two-and-a-half bushels of oats or two bushels of wheat-seed per acre, hopes for a grand return being always entertained.

By some experts late autumn sowing is strongly advocated, as, during the fall, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere, there is scarcely any growth; so that the grain sown late cannot germinate, nor can it absorb water or rain enough to rot it, the winters being so dry.

And when the first days of spring come the snow melts, the starch of the seed has changed to grape-sugar, and begins to germinate; so that the young plants will in no way be damaged by subsequent droughts, nor by the frosts which sometimes come after heavy rains in August and much injure the crops.

At the present moment we are craving for rain, and should the crops not be as plentiful this year as expected, on account of the drought, I should feel much inclined to try autumn sowing.

Before the prairie is broken, the turf is very tough, and requires a great deal of force to break it; but when once turned the subsequent ploughings are easy.

Our chief difficulty and trouble are the stones; they generally lie just beneath the surface, differing very much in size.

Some are huge and have to be regularly trenched round and horses harnessed to a chain put round them to raise them out of the ground; when they are put on to the stone-boat and conveyed to the boundary fence.

It generally falls to E----'s and my special lot to drive the stone-boat or the waggons, whilst the men with crowbars and spades go before the ploughs clearing them all away, for fear they may blunt the shares and throw them out of the furrow.

The last two or three days, when not stone-picking, A---- and Mr. B---- have been stretching the barb-wire with which they are enclosing the property; and there has been great chaff about our "Jehuship."

The wooden posts along which the wire is run are put in the ground, and they then have to be rammed down with a fearfully heavy wooden mallet, which I can hardly lift.

To get purchase on the mallet A---- mounts into the waggon, which accordingly has to be driven quite close up to the post without touching it.

The two old mares we drive are more than difficult to turn or stop to a nicety, the result being that once I went too near and broke off a piece of the waggon.

Another time, after a corner-post had been driven in most securely with props, E---- drove up against it, taking the whole concern away bodily.

The weather is quite delightful, no mosquitoes as yet to speak of;

but the two big marshes on either side of the farm harbour them dreadfully.

Wild duck also abound in these marshes; there are thousands about, and we have found many nests and been revelling in the eggs, a delightful change to our regular _menu_.

The nests are very difficult to find; we two went one afternoon in the buggy to look for some, and the men declare we looked in the marshes themselves for them, which was not certainly the fact; though after driving round all the outsides, and not having been warned that the marsh on the eastern boundary of the farm was very deep, we came home that way, not at all liking the water coming up to the axle-trees and the horse floundering about at every step.

To turn back was as bad as to go on, and as we saw wheel-tracks along the fence we stuck to them, thanking our stars when we got through safely.

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