EXPLANATORY NOTE 



In the following pages I have tried to picture, 

 from actual experience, something of the life 

 in its early stages of the settler on the Canadian 

 prairie. 



All the earlier chapters of the book, including 

 the remarks to the reader which follow this note, 

 were written prior to the fateful August 1914, 

 when the writing was soon dropped as being 

 inopportune. 



Recently, however, a Canadian farmer visit- 

 ing me, after reading what I had written, urged 

 me to complete the work, and I was further en- 

 couraged to do so by the thought that even now 

 there must be some whose views for the future 

 arc towards a home on the prairie, and that 

 when blessed peace comes again there will prob- 

 ably be a flood of emigration Westward, as was 

 the case after the Franco-German War of 1871. 



Events move rapidly in these days, and in 

 spite of the shadow of war I understand that 

 during the last three years changes for the better, 

 in the directions I ventured to suggest, have taken 



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