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4: ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



some of the people who ciilti^'^ated for themselves had re- 

 turns of at least tiftv for potatoes." The turnips were " of 

 extraordinary size " ; but of the wheat, barley, and rye 

 there was nothing good to report, for " the grain was 

 choked up with weeds." ^ The choking of the grain with 

 weeds was probably due either to impure seed or to inex- 

 perienced labor. It is interesting to note that the weed 

 nuisance which the weed inspectors and farmers of Mani- 

 toba are to-day so vigorously combating, should have made 

 its appearance over a century ago as soon as the virgin 

 soil was turned into farm land. 



One of the settlers appears to have used his hoe to greator 

 advantage than his fellows, for the story goes that in 1813 

 from four quarts of seed-wheat obtained from Fort Alex- 

 ander, a trading post on the Winnipeg River, he reaped 

 twelve and a half bushels or an increase of one hundred- 

 fold.^ It is safe to say that an increase of one hundredfold 

 in wheat is unknown in the experience of the Manitoban 

 farmer at the present day, and it may be that the tradition 

 of the high yield of twelve and a half bushels from one- 

 eighth of a bushel contains an imaginary element. 



The first harvests stood in danger from the air, for each 

 autumn flocks of birds, including the now extinct Pas- 

 senger Pigeon, settled in the fields and considerably dimin- 

 ished even such small crops as had been produced.^ 



II. Troubles with the North-West Company 

 The Red River settlers, in the first few years of their 



7 lUd. 



8 A. Ross, The Red River Settlement, London, 1856, pp. 23-24. 

 This incident is said by Ross, who came to the colony in 1825, to 

 have happened in 1813 but this may be an error in chronology, for 

 Miles Macdonell (vide a previous footnote) deilnitely reported in 

 1813 that both the vi^inter and the spring wheat totally failed. 



9 Ibid., p. 24. Dr. C. N. Bell, who came to Winnipeg nearly fifty 



