340 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1899. 
that this part of his establishment will probably pay better than anything else 
he has got. Another point worth remembering, either in connection with 
ordinary farming or fruit-growing, is this, that the manure carefully saved about 
a place enables a man to get from 5 acres what he probably would not get from 
10 otherwise. It pays to save up in this way, and the man who does not do it may 
be working very hard with one hand and wasting with the other. Another 
thing worthy of attention is the fact that manure heaps frequently get over- 
heated and dry. When this state of things threatens, just tip a few barrels of 
water into it, and after a little time turn the whole heap. Any settler who 
happens to be within reach of a slaughter-yard should get as much of the blood 
as he can, and work that into the heap. The results in the value of the manure 
will be found to be surprisingly good. 
THE PROFITS OF WHEAT FARMING IN CANADA. 
THE main factor to be remembered is that it costs about $5, or £1, to bring 
an acre of wheat to perfection. Whether the crop is poor or heavy, the cost 
of cultivation is almost identical. Ten bushels, with wheat at half-a-dollar, or 
2s., repays the cost: everything beyond this is profit; everything below it ig 
loss. The man who starts with a 160-acre lot on any of the estimates of first 
cost which have been given will either at once or in the following year exercise 
a right which is granted by the Government to pre-empt another quarter section ° 
of 160 acres adjoining his own, for which in the course of ten years he will 
have to pay at the rate of 10s. an acre or 1s. an acre per year. With a farm 
of 320 acres he should by the end of his fourth year of occupation have 200 
acres under crop, and, allowing 100 acres for summer fallow, should never fall 
below this acreage for profit. The value must be calculated according to weight 
of crop and price of Wheat, but in estimating the difference between the net 
profit of English farming and farming on the Canadian prairies it is not in these 
points that it will be found. 
As will have been observed in the estimate of crop given in a previous 
letter, the average yield of the good prairie farm is not higher than that of 
good English land. Itis hardly so high. The difference between a good prospect 
of prosperity in the one case and too frequent failure in the other would 
appear to be traceable mainly to three causes. The first of these is the difference 
in the capital value of the land, which dispenses with the necessity for a return 
in the form of either rent or interest; the second is the much cheaper 
production of the prairies, rendered possible by the system of working with 
improved machinery and the absence of any necessity for manuring the 
soil; the third is the greater facility for disposing of his crop which is given to 
the Canadian farmer by the commercial system of handling grain through the 
medium of local elevators. Thus, a man who possesses only £120 of capital 
can secure a freehold of 320 acres, with a prospect of keeping 200 acres 
continuously under crop. He will not expect a higher average yield than 80 
bushels an acre. The yield may even be something less ; but, instead of costing: 
from £3 to £4 an acre to cultivate, it will cost him £1 an acre, and what he 
has produced can be sold without difficulty at his door. The time and expense 
involved in dealing with outside markets are spared to him. He nets his return, 
if he so pleases, on the day on which he reaps his harvest. With a crop of 80 
bushels an acre—and this, it may be remembered, was the average of the 
whole of the Indian Head and other well-farmed districts this year—he may 
realise, at the low price of 2s. a bushel, a net profit of £2 an acre, or £400: 
a year. With wheat at 4s. a bushel, as it was last year, he may more than 
double this return. Jive bushels will then be enough to pay his cost of 
production, and 25 bushels are left for net profit. Twenty-five bushels at 4s. 
represent £5 an acre, which multiplied by 200 acres is £1,000. A relatively 
small return per acre, when multiplied by hundreds and not subject to deduction 
