SEEDING 147 



I did my best to persuade him to work for me 

 without the team, but he was firm on the point. 

 I was buying hay, and oats were almost at vanishing- 

 point. I foresaw an ever-increasing list of expenses 

 attached to the actual three dollars a day. 



I engaged him for the seeding and he arranged to 

 come the next day, and I rode away to Springbrook 

 to request that the new seeder might be sent over 

 at once. Then I went on to Strathcarrol post office 

 and had tea and poached eggs and maple syrup with 

 the Carrols, and Ella rode home with me. In the 

 distance the glow of prairie fires suggested care, but 

 I refused fresh worry out of simple gratitude that 

 my team was made up and a seeding-man secured, 

 and that night I slept the sleep of the truly thank- 

 ful. On the morrow there came no hired man. 

 However, the next day, on April 10, he arrived, 

 and, to borrow his own phrase, " got right on 

 the job." 



The first movement in the ceremony of seeding 

 was the ploughing of a fireguard in order that one 

 might fire the stubble of the eighty-acre field without 

 danger to the country-side. The law insists on a 

 thirty-foot guard all round the field, but the usual 

 plan is to burn with the wind and save oneself as 

 much trouble as possible. Prairie fires in those 

 days were very common, destroying whole districts ; 

 but with the more complete settlement of the 

 country the big patches of fallow land did much to 

 check the running sea of flame, and in my neighbour- 

 hood the danger from prairie fire is nothing in 

 comparison to what it was in 1906. 



When the guard was ploughed to the extent 

 governed by the conscience of Roddy McMahon, 



