fi 



26 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



the settlers always had the better crops both in quantity and 

 quality. The model farmers mowed downa their fields of 

 grain with the scythe in place of cutting it with a sickle, 

 and gathered it with rakes instead of tying it into sheaves. 

 This practice, however, the settlers refused to follow. The 

 dairy served to keep the Governor s tea-table in milk ; but 

 his butter and cheese were furnished by the settlers. 

 After dragging out its existence for about ten years, the 

 farm ceased to operate, and, when its stock and implements 

 had been sold, the experimenters were losers by 5,500.^^ 

 The Dominion Experimental Farms system was founded 

 in 1888, and among the first branch farms to be established 

 was one at Brandon in Manitoba. This experimental 

 farm has been the scene of the carrying out of many im- 

 portant investigations both in respect to field crops and 

 live-stock, and has contributed in no small degree to the 

 progress of agriculture in the West. Lord Selkirk's be- 

 lief in the value of an experimental farm has therefore been 

 justified. 



XVI. The Bloody Flux 



In 1846, the Red River Settlement was terribly afflicted 

 by a disease known to the settlers as the bloody flux. 

 In January of that year the influenza raged, and in May 

 measles broke out; but neither of these maladies proved 

 very fatal. In June, however, the bloody flux began its 

 ravages among the Indians of the White Horse Plains 

 and soon spread with alarming rapidity and awful con- 

 sequences to the whites. At the Settlement " there was 

 not a smiling face in a summer's day," " hardly anything 

 to be seen but the dead on their way to their last home, 

 nothing to be heard but the tolling of bells, and nothing 



Bi A. Ross, loc. cit., pp. 211-219, 



