THE GREAT NORTHWEST 265 



ister here told us that the soil in places is fully fifteen 

 feet deep and of the richest black loam. The wheat 

 averages over thirty bushels to the acre and weighs 

 sixty-five to sixty-six pounds to the bushel. They 

 make no rotation in planting. It is wheat and wheat 

 year after year. We saw a field just harvested that 

 produced thirty-two bushels to the acre which had 

 been sown with wheat for twenty-three consecutive 

 years, and another field of forty acres that last year 

 had not been sown, but simply ploughed under, with 

 the previous year's stubble on it, that netted its owner 

 (a half-breed Indian) $700. Fruits, hops and vege- 

 tables are equally prolific. 



The climate is dry, with hot days, cold nights and 

 few sudden changes. September days are as hot as 

 those of July and the nights cold enough for Novem- 

 ber. The only doctor in the neighborhood told me he 

 never saw nor did he ever read of such a healthy dis- 

 trict. Children don't get sick. People eat well, sleep 

 well and live long, and the only business on which a 

 doctor can earn his living comes from accidents or 

 from practice incidental to the natural increase in the 

 population. 



One of England's Earls, at one time Governor-Gen- 

 eral of Canada, has a ranch four miles away, which 

 is managed by his brother-in-law, the Hon. Major 

 Majoribanks. He also has another ranch of several 

 thousand acres at Mission, a settlement at the other 



