Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba — 36 - Letter 36

THE RANCH, September 29th.

This is the country I should like to have a farm in, were I bound to emigrate.

In this valley every sort of grain and vegetable seem to grow in the most luxuriant way, and we have been feasting on tomatoes, cabbages, beets, lettuces, etc. The butcher, who is also greengrocer, sent a potato twelve inches long by nine round, "hoping the ladies would take it in their trunks to England as an average specimen."

Then on the "Mesa" or parks above the foot-hills, large herds of cattle can always graze through the winter.

We have had jelly made of squawberries and the Oregon grape, which is excellent.

There are also wild gooseberries and black currants, both of which we have found.

This ranch is 160 acres; the only buildings the owner has put up are the dwelling-house and one shed as a stable and implement-house.

Hay last year was selling at 10 to 12 pounds a ton, potatoes 3d.

to 6d.

a lb.

, oats 4d.

a lb.

, and everything in proportion; eggs 3s.

to 4s.

a dozen all the year round, milk 6d.

a quart; so that any man ought to make a very large profit, the land originally costing him nothing, and, excepting in hay or harvest time, very little labour required.

Oats are cut very green and stacked for winter fodder.

These fertile valleys are very limited in number, and as the consumption must be on the increase, mines being discovered and opened out, some time must elapse and the railway come nearer, ere competition reduces the prices, or the farmer's profits are lessened.

The people round are most kind and friendly, and would be more so had they received the slightest encouragement; but Mr. W---- gave out we wanted to know no one, that we were not to be in Ouray, and that all our time was to be taken up seeing the country.

We went one day up Bear Creek, as Mr. W---- was asked to see a mine, and dined with the manager and his wife.

They gave us a sumptuous repast, and tried to persuade E---- and I to remain the night, though we were only about four miles from home; but even we two are not enough un-Englishified as yet not to object to sleeping with two other people.

They had only one room for kitchen, bed, sitting-room, &c. ; and it is curious how little one now thinks of the bed standing in one corner, the washing-stand in another, whilst kitchen-stove, and scullery fill up a third.

I suggested that when strangers did sleep there they gave them the adjoining cabin; but was told that a trussel bed put alongside of the host's "took no room whatsoever."

Mr. W---- tells a funny story of a picnic party in the mountains in an old cabin of his, which only contained one room, and where five women and six men had to sleep the night, the women occupying the bunks, the men (after promenading outside whilst the women were getting into bed) sleeping on the floor.

They all laughed and talked so much that daylight almost appeared before any of them got to sleep, and there was a regular stampede under the blankets among the ladies when a match was struck, one of the men objecting to his neighbour lying alongside of him with all his clothes on.

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