404 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



strength of a chain is in its weakest link. To 

 command complete and uninterrupted success for 

 an agricultural experiment on the Canadian prairie 

 or anywhere else, a certain amount of training in 

 the theory and practice of agriculture is necessary, 

 and also some knowledge of stock-raising, capital 

 in adequate relation to one's proposition whether it 

 is to be worked out on five or five hundred acres of 

 land, a commercial instinct and a true vocation for 

 life on the land, an innate love and understanding 

 of animal and vegetable life. I had no training, 

 inadequate capital, and my commercial instinct, 

 though strong in theory, is weak in practice — I fail 

 to hold my own in buying or selling, and should 

 never discuss price except on paper. But in spite 

 of this, and the fact that I am still behind my 

 conviction that three hundred and twenty acres of 

 good land in Canada can be worked to produce a 

 net profit of £500 per annum to its owner, my 

 weak link is very much stronger than at the time I 

 set out for Ottawa to claim the right of women to 

 their share in the homestead land of Canada. 



On my way from the West I gathered news and 

 considerable encouragement from the press-women 

 of Winnipeg and Fort William. At Winnipeg I 

 met Miss Cora Hine, who is the editor of the 

 commercial page of the most powerful organ of 

 Western Canada — the Manitoba Free Press. To 

 her is entrusted the responsibility of first voice in 

 the opinion, and report and publication of informa- 

 tion which concerns the agricultural side of the 

 industrial development of that section of the British 

 Empire which attracts the interest of the world. 

 It is hardly necessary to add that she has no parlia- 



