Agriculture -- Prairie Provinces; Northwest, Canadian -- Economic conditions
Take a supply of meat along, also lard, canned goods, and other things
for your cellar. One settler took a sugar barrel packed with canned
fruit, and had not a single can broken or frozen, wrapping each in a
whole newspaper and then packing in between with old rags, worn out
underwear, old vests, and such goods as might otherwise be thrown away.
Remember there is no old attic or store-room to go to on the new farm.
The same settler says: "Cooked goods are also good. In the cold weather
we kept and used beef that had been roasted two weeks before, and a
bushel of cookies lasted well into the summer, keeping fresh in a tin
box. Bring your cows and also your separator. The latter will not sell
for much at the sale and is useful here, as you have no place to store
quantities of milk. Bring at least your two best cows with you on the
journey. We had milk all along the road and furnished the dining car
cooks (we had a diner on our freight train) for favors they extended.
Then when we landed we found that milk and cream were scarce, and butter
of the farm variety out of range.
"We packed two one-gallon jars before we moved and also some to use on
the way. This lasted fresh and sweet until it was all used and saved us
the trouble of churning or saving cream, hence we lived high on cream
for the first few weeks. It came in handy making corn starch, as well as
on our fruit and in a dozen other ways. We also had a nice big box of
groceries handy and all selected for emergency. Corn starch, tapioca and
similar packages are easy to handle while moving, and a big box of such
things made cooking easy for the first few weeks.
"Do not sell anything that can be used in your new farming. Old belts,
singletrees, doubletrees, and such goods are worth far more away out on
the prairies than on the old improved farm, and they will cost more
here. We even brought our best big rugs and every carpet, even having
more carpets than we had rooms. Your new home may not be as warm as the
old one. We laid down a carpet and put a big rug right on top of that on
the floor, and then we were comfortable in our rough house. Bring all
sorts of tools and wagon gears with you; you will save money by doing
so, anvil, drills, old bolts, and screws, etc., come in handy. We
brought pieces of hardwood for doubletrees and unexpected uses.
"Bring your stock remedies. You will be far from a veterinarian. Boracic
acid comes in handy, so does a medicine cabinet for the household, with
carbolic salve, liniments, etc.
"One of the first things you will need is a hayrack, and you will not
have time to build one before it is needed, so take the old one or build
a new one and take it with you. It can be used for crating and for
partitions and other purposes in loading the car. Make the sides of the
rack quite close and have a solid bottom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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