EARLY HISTOEY OF WHEAT-GROWING 21 



" healthy and blooming," the " community of sentiments," 

 the " stacks and laden carts straining the eve in countless 

 succession," and to the " ensemble of landscape perhaps 

 nowhere to be equaled." " I beg to congratulate you and 

 all my employers," he ended, " on the prosperous state of 

 the Colony." '^^ 



XIII. The Bed River Flour 



Up to about the year 1831, the Hudson's Bay Company 

 could never rely upon the settlers for a sufficient supply 

 of flour for the needs of its servants scattered through 

 the West, and actually was obliged to import annually 

 from England, via the Hudson Bay, such articles of con- 

 sumption as it needed. To encourage agriculture, Gov- 

 ernor Simpson, the chief manager of the Company's affairs 1 1 

 throughout Rupert's Land, promised to take all the Com- ' ' 

 pany's supplies from the colony. This roused the settlers ' 

 to fresh activity and, for a time, all the wants of the 

 Company were adequately met. ]^o sooner was this done, 

 however, than prices fell, flour coming down from 16^. to 

 lis, (^d. per hundred weight, butter from Is. to 7d. per 

 pound, and cheese from C)d. to 4d. per pound. The market 

 was becoming overstocked, and the settlers found that the 

 extension of their farming operations had made them but 

 little better off. Just at this time, a great outcry was 

 raised throughout the country against the quality of the 

 produce: the flour was said to be " heated, sour, and alto- 

 gether of so very bad quality as to be only fit to poison 

 pigs," and the refinements of the English language were 

 inadequate to condemn sufficiently the butter and the 

 cheese.'*^ 



43 Chester Martin, loc. cit., p. 175. 



44 A. Ross, loc. cit., p. IIG. 



