164 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



charging any sale commission ; now like the majority 

 of traders they get as much as they can and give as 

 little as they need. I made my butter with cream 

 scalded and turned Devonshire fashion, and seemed 

 to obtain more in proportion to my milk than my 

 neighbours ; but it involved considerable care 

 and work in scalding the milk, and the only dairy 

 I had at my disposal was the unlined earthen 

 cellar of the cottage. Often I bitterly regretted 

 that the money spent on the veranda had not been 

 invested in a small stone dairy with a cemented 

 underground compartment where one's produce 

 could have been secure from summer and winter 

 temperature alike, for even in those days there was 

 money to be made in dairy-farming in the North- 

 West. 



The breaking went well. The five acres on the 

 west boundary were quickly turned, and this new 

 field I dedicated to the purpose of raising clean 

 seed. It was in settling the limit of this small 

 corner that the orthodox place of my western 

 boundary first invited discussion. At the time the 

 farm was bounded north, east, and west by unsettled 

 land, and I and all my neighbours made use of 

 each other's trails as a matter of course, so that there 

 was never the smallest difficulty in reaching the 

 winding, picturesque, untidy, and by no means 

 safe by-way known as the Touchwood Trail. But 

 the fundamental law that governs Western Canada's 

 most admirable plan of survey is that a road allow- 

 ance sixty-six yards wide shall be set aside every 

 mile north and south, and every two miles east and 

 west for the building up of the highway of the 

 country, which ensures egress to the national 



