ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



CHAPTEK I 



The Eaelt Histoet of Wheat-<Geoiwing in Manitoba 



I. TTie First Wheat Crops in Western Canada 



The earliest attempts at the cultivation of wheat in 

 western Canada are associated with the vicissitudes of the 

 Selkirk settlers and date from the year 1812. This little 

 band of pioneers was sent out from Scotland by Lord Sel- 

 kirk, via York Factory, to colonize 116,000 square miles 

 of territory granted him by the Hudson's Bay Company. 

 An advanced party of twenty-two men under the direction 

 of Miles Macdonell arrived at the junction of the Red and 

 Assiniboine rivers on August 30, 1812 ; and there they 

 founded the Red Eiver Settlement.* To make provision 

 for the future, they at once began to turn up the sod ; and 

 part of the breaking was sowa. with winter wheat brought 

 from their native land. Some spring wheat having the 

 same origin was also sown early in 1813. In the fall of 

 that year, the settlers, whose numbers by this time had 

 increased to nearly one hundred, were dismayed to find 

 that the wheat harvest was a total failure.^ There was 



1 Gf. Chester Martin, Lord Selkirk's Work in Canada, Oxford, 1916, 

 p. 43. 



2 Governor Miles Macdonell in a letter to Lord Selkirk dated 

 July 17, 1813, states that: "Winter wheat being late-sown has 

 totally failed as also the summer wheat, pease, and English barley." 

 Selkirk Papers, p. 788. 



For this and the other references to the Selkirk Papers which 

 are unpublished and contained within the Archives Building at Ot- 



1 



