The ground here requires a great deal of cultivation. It is first of all broken with a fourteen or sixteen inch plough, so shaped that it turns the sod over as flat as possible, generally from the depth of two to two-and-a-half inches deep, the shallower the better, and then left to rot with the sun and rain for two months and a half. It has often been tried, and with very good results, to put in a crop of oats on the first breaking, sowing broadcast and turning a very thin sod over them; and the sod pulverizes and decomposes under the influence of a growing crop quite as effectually as if only turned over and left to itself. There are also fewer weeds, which is of importance, as it often happens that the weeds which grow soon after the breaking are as difficult to subdue as the sod. If the soil is nice and soft a man and team of horses will break an acre and a half a day, and average throughout the season an acre. The breaking goes on until the middle of July, and the end of August the "backsetting" begins, which is ploughing the same ground over again about two inches deeper. The following spring the harrows (which are "disc" of a peculiar shape, twelve to eighteen razor-wheels on an axle, and in going round cut through and break any sods), are run over repeatedly both before and after the seeding; the ground is also rolled and then left, and for the two-and-a-half bushels of oats or two bushels of wheat-seed per acre, hopes for a grand return being always entertained. By some experts late autumn sowing is strongly advocated, as, during the fall, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere, there is scarcely any growth; so that the grain sown late cannot germinate, nor can it absorb water or rain enough to rot it, the winters being so dry. And when the first days of spring come the snow melts, the starch of the seed has changed to grape-sugar, and begins to germinate; so that the young plants will in no way be damaged by subsequent droughts, nor by the frosts which sometimes come after heavy rains in August and much injure the crops. At the present moment we are craving for rain, and should the crops not be as plentiful this year as expected, on account of the drought, I should feel much inclined to try autumn sowing. Before the prairie is broken, the turf is very tough, and requires a great deal of force to break it; but when once turned the subsequent ploughings are easy. Our chief difficulty and trouble are the stones; they generally lie just beneath the surface, differing very much in size. Some are huge and have to be regularly trenched round and horses harnessed to a chain put round them to raise them out of the ground; when they are put on to the stone-boat and conveyed to the boundary fence. It generally falls to E----'s and my special lot to drive the stone-boat or the waggons, whilst the men with crowbars and spades go before the ploughs clearing them all away, for fear they may blunt the shares and throw them out of the furrow.