THE LAND AND THE MAN 281 



steers and heifers grow into money so quickly, and 

 from two years old upward steers stand in emergency 

 for substantial and immediate contribution to the 

 imperative purchase of horses, or implements, or 

 hire of labour ; and these three occasions can be 

 at any unexpected moment absolutely essential for 

 the successful working of the land on which one's 

 net profit and ultimate prosperity depend. 



The cost of living on five acres or five hundred 

 is entirely a matter of choice, when the degree of 

 necessity is left behind. The degree of necessity 

 demanded from me in the winter of 1 906-1 907 an 

 expenditure of twenty-two dollars seventy from 

 November i to April 13. Incidentally, it in- 

 cluded flour, tea, coffee, sugar, lamp-oil, marma- 

 lade, raisins, currants, baking-powder, yeast-cakes, 

 matches, salt, tapioca, jam, and for other food 

 I had my turkey-like pork. After the middle of 

 February, too, I had a good supply of butter, 

 eggs, milk, and cream from the stock ; and also a 

 contribution from the sale of such produce to set 

 against my twenty-two dollars seventy. It is 

 wisdom to pay cash down for one's land, and to break 

 no more of it than one has capital to work ; but a 

 living can always be obtained in farming on the 

 prairie, and the life of a woman-farmer is very 

 different from the life of a farmer's wife on the 

 prairie. Some may prefer one, some the other ; 

 but the one is an entirely different proposition from 

 the other. 



Roddy McMahon was, I think, sorry to leave, 

 and might have also waived his objection to hiring 

 on without his team, but he had an offer to break 

 land near Lipton at the rate of five dollars an acre. 



