134 Bird-Nestitig 



CHAPTER XVII. 



URING the night we passed the celebrated Bell 

 farm, embracing 100 square miles. At Indian 

 Head, near the centre of the farm, the headquar- 

 ters buildings may be seen on the right. This is a 

 veritable manufactory of wheat, where the work is 

 done with an almost military organization, ploughing 

 by brigades and reaping by divisions. Think of a farm where 

 the furrows are ordinarily four miles long, and of a country 

 where such a thing is possible to plough one furrow outward 

 and another returning is a half day's work for a man and a 

 team. There are neat stone cottages and ample barns for 

 miles around, and the collection of buildings about the head- 

 quarters make a respectable village. 



In other parts the fat lands of the North-West are being 

 rapidly taken up, and the rush of immigration to Canada pro- 

 mises to be greater than ever this year, and those coming are 

 of the right class, agriculturists with a capital of from i?500 

 to SI ,000 to begin upon. 



Ontario is also becoming alarmed at the number of fanners 

 who are leaving this spring for the North-West. Ontario can- 

 not afford to allow Manitojba to be populated at her expense, 

 although it is a fact that agriculturists can do much better in 

 tli> North -West than in Ontario. Here is a picture of what 

 is repeating itself every day: A group of families start from 

 the older provinces in early spring, because, though they may 

 hav<- to suffer peculiar hardships at that season, they are 

 anxious to put Up their buildings and gather a partial crop 

 from the upturned sod before the first winter comes. 



The farms consist, at the outset, of the vast stretch of un- 

 filled land that has waited long for the plough; the farm 

 house is the emigrant's wagon or "prairie schooner," the sta- 

 ble the sky, and their bed a waterproof or rug on the prairie. 



