THE EAR 387 



but Dave Chambers he would have been all right 

 if he hadn't been late getting in his seed. His 

 nephews came out from the Old Country. I guess 

 he put them on the seeder before they had time 

 to know much, and he was a bit short-handed and 

 nigh three weeks behind in getting it in. The frost 

 has knocked one or two about, but we were in 

 good and early, and I guess you're all right." 



I could only remember that in the preceding year 

 a neighbour in Springbrook and the son of an old- 

 timer had cut his wheat absolutely green three days 

 before the fatal frost. He had built it into huge 

 stooks and let it ripen in the sheaf. It graded No. 2 

 Northern, and sold at seventy-five cents when all 

 the wheat in the neighbourhood was fetching 

 between twenty-five and thirty-five cents. Every 

 night the thermometer fell almost to freezing- 

 point. The anxiety was too keen. I resolved to cut, 

 and cut about four days too soon, and undoubtedly 

 lost some bushels by weight in so doing. The crop 

 of 1908 was altogether a different problem from the 

 crop of 1907. Frost hardly touches harvest-ripe 

 grain, but for every grain that it stands on the near 

 side of harvest-ripe so much the nearer it is to the 

 destroying power of the frost, and in an average year 

 three parts of the battle with the frost may be 

 fought in early seeding. Here the service of Roddy 

 McMahon stood by me so strongly. " None is 

 perfect I guess," was one of his most frequent 

 sayings, but truly at seed-time and harvest and 

 threshing this man of the land would be hard to beat. 

 Strength and speed were his strong points, and 

 at all times and seasons he was full of resource. 

 Much ill-fortune I might have avoided had he 



