616 THE GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 



farmer's work, since the crop ought to be secured as soon as it is ripe. 

 Delay permits much of the wheat to be shelled out of the heads and 

 scattered on the ground. There is also much liability to loss at this time 

 from the occuiTence of rainy weather, and hail may destroy or greatly 

 damage the crop at any time after it has attained a considerable height 

 until it is cut. 



Usually, if the season is favorable, the first crop from newly broken 

 pi'airie land is somewhat more bountiful than any to be obtained in the 

 following years, which range from 10 to 20 bushels of wheat on an 

 average per acre. The same fields have in many instances been successfully 

 cultivated in wheat ten to fifteen years or more in the Red River Valley 

 south of the international boundary, and twice as long in other parts of 

 Minnesota and in the Selkirk settlements of Manitoba, without the use 

 of any manure, and yet without exhibiting any noticeable impoverishment 

 of the soil. The time must come, however, after a few decades of such 

 unrequited cropping, when fertilizers will be needed to restore and sustain 

 the original productiveness. 



A rotation of crops and diversity of farming, with stock raising and 

 butter making, will doubtless be found more advantageous than the pro- 

 duction of the cereals only, when a long series of years is considered. The 

 growth of villages and towns in this district, affording near markets for 

 miscellaneous farm produce, and the tendency, with the increase of popu- 

 lation, toward subdivision of the large farms, and even of the ordinary 

 homesteads, into two or four farms in each quarter section, indicate for the 

 future an increasing diversification of agriculture. Wheat and other cereals 

 will probably continue to be the chief crops for exportation, but many other 

 crops will attain more importance than now, and there will be a greater 

 average expenditure of labor for each acre cultivated, with proportionally 

 enhanced profits. 



Comparatively few Indians were able to derive their subsistence by 

 hunting and fishing upon the area of Lake Agassiz or in any other region. 

 Probably their numbers living at any time upon the portion of this lake 

 area within the United States did not exceed 5,000. But now that the land 

 is occupied by white immigrants and is sown with wheat, the present yearly 

 product is about 285 bushels apiece for each man, woman, and child of the 



