A Lady's Life on a Farm in ManitobaHall, M. G. C. (Mary Georgina Caroline)
History
A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba
Hall, M. G. C. (Mary Georgina Caroline)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Manitoba; Manitoba -- Description and travel
A waggon is going into town to-morrow to fetch a sulky and a gang-
plough, and some potatoes for seeding; and we hope a few also of
the latter for eating, as hitherto our only vegetables have been
white beans and rice. You may be wondering what these ploughs are:
a sulky is a single-furrowed sixteen inch plough, to which are
harnessed three horses, a man riding on a small seat and driving
them instead of walking; and a "gang" is a two-furrowed twelve-
inch plough, and drawn by four to six horses, and which will break
over four acres a day; the sulky about three. A---- has had one
for some time, but as yet only the deep ploughing or backsetting
of last year's breaking has been going on, and until the seeding
and harrowing is finished, which ought to have been done before
now, but this year has been delayed by the lateness of the spring,
and the snow being so long in melting, no fresh breaking has been
begun.
There are still about two hundred and eighty acres to break, or, more
properly speaking, two hundred and forty, as forty acres are in marsh,
in which water stands so deep no cultivation would be possible,
though, later on, the marshes yield beautiful crops of hay; rather
coarse-looking stuff, but undeniably nutritious, and not distasteful
to either horses or beast. It has often been speculated as to whether
there was any means of draining the marshes, but, owing to the extreme
level character of the country, you could get no fall, and tiles would
not do on account of the severity of the frosts, which penetrate
deeper into the ground than the drains could be carried. The
Government have cut good-sized ditches at right angles to the river,
and they are found to be the only practical drainage which is
feasible, and, when once cut and the water set running, have no
tendency to fill up, but gradually wear deeper and broader, so that in
time they almost become small rivers. We have one running through our
west marsh, and on a bye-day we sometimes fish in it for pike; not
that any of our party have been successful, but some of our neighbours
catch fish, and very fair-sized ones.
The land is wonderfully rich and good. A black loam (which colour is
no doubt due, partly, to the gradual accumulation of the charred
grasses left by prairie fires), of about two feet in depth, with a
clay and sandy sub-soil, and in which, they say, they will be able to
grow cereals for the next twenty years, without manure or its
deteriorating; though if there was only time to do it before the snow
falls, it seems a pity not to put the manure on to the land instead of
burning it, as they do at the present moment. Perhaps when all the
land is broken, which they hope will be by the end of next summer,
they won't be so pushed for work as they are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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