Horse and Stock Raising 



top of the spirit was not much above forty below, 

 and such temperatures made us reahze that we 

 were best indoors. If one stepped outside the 

 shack on such occasions in cloth clothes and 

 there happened to be a wind, it seemed to reach 

 the skin like a touch of ice. 



One evening in late February, during a some- 

 what less cold spell, we were sitting round the 

 stove in the comfortable little house of our friends 

 the three cousins, when Bob remarked : " Well, 

 after last season I am more than ever convinced 

 that we want more stock as a set-off to these 

 crop failures." 



" But," said Harry, " how is a settler about 

 here to get stock to make a start ? If he starts 

 in to grow grain he can get implements on credit, 

 and one or two good crops make him all right ; 

 but to get a decent herd of stock together is a 

 very different proposition." 



" That," replied Bob, " is just where a lot of 

 fellows have made the mistake. They get a 

 little money together somehow, get on a home- 

 stead, and start in on the wheat proposition, and 

 with a harvest or two like the last they are in 

 * Queer Street,' what with their debts and the 

 [high interest. Now, suppose, instead of buying 

 [oxen or horses and running into debt for im- 

 )lements, they had put their money into eight or 



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