Horse and Stock Raising 



sion) he feared it might be Uable to early frost, 

 and so preferred seeding it to oats rather than 

 wheat. The eastern part, however, was rather 

 higher and sloped to the west, and here he was 

 able to strike out his field in furrows of nearly 

 half a mile long, running north and south. This 

 piece of land was fortunately fairly free from 

 both stone and scrub, so with a good team of 

 four oxen it did not take him more than about 

 two weeks to prepare it, including ploughing 

 and discing. 



The following season he had a splendid crop 

 of *' Banner " oats, going about eighty bushels to 

 the acre, the straw of which in some places was 

 nearly six feet high. 



His parents, however, were living on Van- 

 couver Island, and as he desired to join them, 

 he sold the homestead, after obtaining the patent, 

 to an English gentleman who happened to be 

 visiting the neighbourhood, and who gave him 

 a thousand dollars for it. 



Now it does seem to me that, with butter selling 

 at from twenty to thirty cents a pound in a railway 

 town only fourteen miles away, two capable women 

 or a young couple, with six or eight milking cows, 

 on such a place, would have an assured livelihood, 

 or at least one much more assured than if merely 

 dependent on a successful grain crop. More- 



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