306 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



could get to the place in time to stop the 

 catastrophe. 



Had I known more all would have been better ; 

 but, knowing very little, I was face to face with the 

 severest test in farming on the prairie knocking 

 out the wild oats. Had I retained the service of 

 Roddy McMahon that year I might have done 

 better in 1908 and got entirely rid of them more 

 quickly, although I should have learned less ; but the 

 wild oats were right in the land, and the only way to 

 get them out was to encourage them to grow out. 

 That the difficulty is not confined to the newcomer 

 or incompetent farmer I proved in the season of 

 1908 and 1909. One day, riding in the neighbour- 

 hood of Springbrook, I passed a very perfect seed- 

 bed. It ran, I think, over a hundred acres, and 

 was quite even, and as far as cultivation went it 

 might have been an immense market garden pre- 

 pared for an expensive system to be worked on a 

 colossal scale. I hadn't seen the implement the 

 farmer was using, so I rode over and learned that 

 it was a cultivator ; also that its owner, Mr. George 

 Robb, had been plagued and pauperized with wild 

 oats through more than one season, but he thought 

 he had knocked them safely out of his 1908 seed-bed. 

 " I shall go through once more with the cultivator," 

 he said, " that will make the fourth time ; then as 

 many more strokes of the harrows as I can get in 

 before freeze-up." I was not in Canada in 1909, 

 but in 1910 he was my neighbour at the hotel dinner- 

 table in South Qu'Appelle, and reminded me of our 

 meeting. 



" How did the crop on that field turn out ? " I 

 inquired. 



