260 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the winter. As yet there has been no hay 

 cultivated, as the supply has been suffi- 

 ciently great to fill the demand. Should a 

 shortage occur the farmers have large hay 

 meadows in the mountains from which 

 could be taken enough hay to supply all 

 Eastern Assiniboia. On all lands belong- 

 ing to the Dominion government settler 

 is allowed to cut hay for his own use pro- 

 vided he takes out a permit at a cost of 

 ten cents per ton. 



The farmers of the district are among 

 the best to be found on the American con- 

 tinent and are in a good healthy state of 

 prosperity, as will be understood when it 

 is said that we have a very large number 

 who came in a few years ago without any 

 money, but with plenty of energy and 

 perseverance. Many of these are now in 

 easy circumstances, with rich farms and 

 good comfortable homes and plenty of 

 stock and other things which make life 

 pleasant on a farm. 



The Moose Mountain district has been 

 to a considerable extent under cultivation 

 for the past twenty years, yet it was not 

 until the fall of 1900 that the first train 

 began running in. The development of 

 the district has been marvelous. For the 

 season of 1901 up to the present time 

 there has been over 900,000 bushels of 

 wheat shipped out, besides several thou- 

 sand bushels of other grains. 



The principal crops raised in the dis- 

 trict are wheat, oats, barley and flax. The 

 wheat crop has averaged over twenty bush- 

 els to the acre for the past twenty years 

 and over saventy bushels of oats, and the 

 season just passed the wheat in several 

 cases has gone over forty bushels to the 

 acre and oats ninety bushels per acre. 

 These are big yields, but are not consid- 

 ered by the old settlers here to be beyond 

 what has been reaped in the past. The 

 soil is strong and rich and capable of bear- 

 ing still heavier crops when the proper 

 care is taken in the cultivation of the land. 

 Flax was not grown much until the past 



year, and in the only instance which came 

 to the writer's notice where flax alone was 

 grown the yield was twenty-one bushels to 







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the acre. In another case, that of Mr. 

 John Mears, an American who came in 

 here last year, he grew thirty-five acres of 

 wheat and flax mixed together on the same 



