354 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



spring. I cleared thirty-five cents net a bushel for 

 my wheat at Fort William after paying for my car. 

 My neighbours the Collinsons had less than a 

 thousand bushels, and were forced to sell on the 

 street at South Qu'Appelle. It was practically the 

 same sample as mine, and they had to take anything 

 between twenty-five and thirty cents net. For 

 wheat of practically the same grade, certainly not 

 varying more than one degree, John McLeay 

 obtained from sixty to seventy cents a bushel in the 

 following spring. 



I have said that bank loans were practically 

 unobtainable. It is to be remembered that the 

 frozen harvest of 1907 occurred in the same moment 

 as the financial panic in the States, and although it 

 seemed unjust and unfair that in the time of dire 

 necessity the farmers, whose labour is the rock- 

 bottom of all Canadian values, could obtain little 

 or no aid from the banks of Canada, I found when 

 I reached the States that my friends had to give 

 considerable notice before they could withdraw 

 small sums of the money lying to their credit. 

 I complained bitterly to a wealthy neighbour that 

 when I came to the country and hadn't particularly 

 needed it money had been positively placed in my 

 way, and now that I would have offered almost 

 any reasonable price for it to settle outstanding 

 debts without the sacrifice of my grain crop, I 

 couldn't get a cent. 



" Hold on ! It will all come out in the wash," 

 was his advice ; but he told me that even he had 

 the same difficulty in obtaining money, and that 

 he had heard on excellent authority that the banks 

 had issued an order to all branches that no money 



