Canadian Agriculture. 
235» 
The nutritive value of the prairie grasses is not only due to 
their abundant foliage, but in some cases to the production of 
grain also ; and Professor Macoun attributes their eminent 
feeding properties, not so much to the inherent value of the 
species themselves, as to the soil and climate in which thej are 
grown. It must not be forgotten that for many centuries the 
prairie, in the production of buffalo beef, has been simply 
grazed ; how its herbage will submit to the new order of things, 
in which large tracts are to be mown year after year, remains to 
be seen. iVumerous species of grass, which on the Canadian 
prairies grow tall enough to be cut for hay, in the drier country 
south of the political boundary seldom attain a greater height 
than a few inches. I was told everywhere that during the 
months of May and June, when most of the plants are in 
flower, the prairie presents a most lovely sight ; nor was 
it difficult to imagine this after seeing the floral stragglers 
which still decked the plain in September. As to the life- 
sustaining capability of the prairie in the winter, I cannot do 
better than quote the following words,* merely remarking that 
La Belle Prairie, where Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle 
wintered in 1862-3, is west of Carlton and somewhat north 
of Battleford, on the Aorth Saskatchewan River, and adding 
that Dr. Cheadle, in whose company I had the pleasure of 
travelling across the prairie, has lost none of his enthusiasm 
with regard to the future of the vast territory which he did so 
much to make known to his countrymen twenty years ago : — 
"We now prepared to leave our -winter quarters, as soon as the snow had 
disappeared sufficiently to admit of travelling with carts. The first thing to- 
do was to find the horses, which had been turned loose at the commencement 
of the winter. "We had seen them or their tracks from time to time, and 
knew in what direction they had wandered. La Ronde followed their trail 
without difficulty, and discovered them about eight or ten miles away. AVe 
were very much astonished at their fine condition when he drove them back 
to La Belle Prairie. Although ver}' thin when the snow began to fall, and 
two of them had been used for sleigh work in the early part of the winter, 
they were now perfect balls of fat, and as wild and full of spirit as if fed on 
corn — a most unusual condition for Indian horses. The pasture is so 
nutritions that animals fatten rapidly even in winter — when they have to 
scratch away the snow to feed — if they find woods to shelter them from the 
piercing winds. No horses are more hardy or enduring than those of this 
country, yet their only food is the grass of the prairies and the vetches of the 
copses. The milch cows and draught oxen at Red River, and in Minnesota, 
feeding on grass alone, were generally in nearly as fine condition as the stall- 
fed cattle of the Baker Street show." 
As the political boundary between the Canadian and the 
American prairies is of an entirely arbitrary character, being 
determined simply by the 49th parallel, it is evident that many 
* 'The North-west Passage by Land.' Bv Visconnt Milton, M.P., and W. B- 
Cheadle, M.D. ; Cassell and Co., p. 168. 
