 Preface and Letter I of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba, by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Preface These letters were never intended for publication, and were only the details written to our family of an everyday life, and now put in the same shape and composition, not as a literary work, but in hopes that the various experiences we underwent may be useful to future colonists intending to immigrate and farm, either in Manitoba or Colorado. M-G-C-H Letter I Queenstown, April 14th What joy! Four hours in harbor given us to recruit our emaciated forms and write you a few lines of our experiences and trials. You wished us to keep a diary with every detail, which we will try our best to do, beginning by telling of the cheerless journey to Liverpool in rain, the elements even seeming to lament our departure. The bad weather has lasted more or less ever since, just one gleam of sunshine brightening us up on leaving the wharf, but we saw nothing of the mercy or the surroundings. The only thing that struck us most forcibly was the smallness of our ship, though it was six thousand tons. It has just been redocked and overhauled, and still smells horribly of paint and full of workmen, whom, however, we drop here in exchange for twelve hundred immigrants. These with about sixty first-class passengers and a hold full of potatoes form our cargo. We began life bravely last night, enjoying a very good dinner, and after playing a rubber of wist, retired to our births congratulating ourselves on what excellent sailors we were going to be. But alas, dressing this morning was too difficult. The ship rolled fearfully. Even the friends who came with us thus far and consider themselves first-class sailors think that it would be more prudent to go by train through Ireland home instead of waiting for the return boat of the same line, which calls here on Sunday, and is to take them to Liverpool. We almost wish we could turn tail. The prospect of ten days more of the briny ocean is not what at this moment we most fancy. However, in the short time we have been in Harbour, we have been recruiting to start afresh, and hope for better weather. End of Letter One. Read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Two of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Mid-Atlantic. Dearest M. I sadly fear I must have contributed more paving stones for a certain region, for many good resolutions I did make in starting, and not one of them has been kept, not even so much as writing daily a portion of a letter to be sent home from New York. And now my long story will have to be cut short, and the doings of the last fifteen days will have to be crowded into a very limited space, for we are inside of land and our excitement can only be compared to that of schoolboys the last day of the term. The joy of landing will not be unmingled with regrets imparting from our fellow passengers, with whom we have become fast friends, and we are inclined mutually to believe in transmigration of souls, and that we must have known each other in some prior state. Some are going to Minnesota, three of them having bought thirteen thousand acres in the Red River Valley, which they are going to farm on a large scale, and hope in four years to have made fortunes. Another owns mines in Colorado, having been one of the first pioneers of the San Juan district. He is an affair way to a princely fortune. I fear golden apples will not be strewn on our paths, even though we are bound the farthest west. Fifteen days we have been out of sight of land, two days out from Queenstown we broke a piston rod, which obliged us to lay two in a fearfully rough sea for five hours. Next day one of our four boilers burst, and again another piston rod, which accidents, combined with contrary winds and heavy seas, reduced our speed to nearly half for the remainder of the journey. Our spirits have not flagged, as thanks to various small games such as pitch and toss, running races when the ship was rolling, coys and cards, we have not found time unbearably long. The last few days we have had big sweepstakes on the run of the ship, but unfortunately none of our party have won them. One evening we had a concert, but you may imagine the talent on board was not great when they had to call upon one of us to accompany the prima donna, and the other to sing a second in a duet. And another evening we danced, or rather tried to, our band consisting of a concertina and a flute, played by two of the steerage passengers, but the vessel rolled so persistently that we often lost our equilibrium and reeled like drunken men and women. I must stop, curiosity bids me go on deck. We shall shortly be in the quarantine harbor, the entrance of which is said to be very fine, though I very much doubt are being able to see anything. As in spite of being in this much boasted climate of the new world, it is raining and is dull enough to rejoice the hearts of true John Bulls like your daughters. End of letter two. Read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter number three of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Navy Yard, New York, April 30th. I hope you will have got our letters sent off by the ship's boat the night before we were allowed to land. As though we arrived in the quarantine harbor at seven o'clock, it was too late for the Custom House and medical officers to inspect us. We therefore had to lay to and only moved up to the wharf about eight o'clock the next morning. We were greeted by a most kind letter of welcome. And the first thing we saw as we got to the dock was the Navy Yard tug with the Commodore and daughters on board to receive us. And thanks to them, we had no difficulties or bothers. The Custom Housemen went through the form of opening two of our boxes and inquiring into the age of our saddle, which had been used but looked terribly new, hardly as if it had been in wear six months, which is the given period for things to pass in free of duty. We then steamed round New York through much shipping and under a most marvelous new suspension bridge, which is to join New York and Brooklyn to the dockyard, where we had another most hearty reception from our hostess. They had all been in a fidget at our being so many days late. And directly the ship was telegraphed off Sandy Hook the last night in spite of the pouring rain. The Commodore had gone down in the tug to the quarantine harbor to try and get us off. Since our arrival, we have been doing New York and are woefully disappointed in the size of the streets. Fifth Avenue, I expected to find a Parisian boulevard with trees lining the sidewalks instead of houses of all shapes and sizes, which are good inside, judging by one of the large ones we went to see, but nothing much from the outside. Daylight in the streets is almost shut out in the city part of the town by the endless telegraph wires and advertisements hung across, to say nothing of the elevated railroads built on iron girders, which circulate round at the height of second floor windows. We have made a good deal of use of the railroad. It is pleasanter than our underground, the atmosphere being rather clearer, though at first it is startling to see the twists and curves the trains give to get around the corners of the streets and to watch the moving of objects at about 40 feet below you. I am not at all surprised people do not care to drive much as tramways pass through every street almost and are also badly paved that paint and springs would suffer. The ferry boats which ply between the cities, starting every five minutes from different wharves, astonished us most. Wagons, carriages, and etc., all drive on twenty at a time and three or four hundred foot passengers, the latter paying two cents per passage. On the whole I think we have seen almost everything that is to be seen. We spent an afternoon in the Central Park, lunched at both of Delmonico's restaurants, dined at the invitation of our banker at Pinnards where the roses were lovely, the center bouquet measuring two feet across, and each lady having different colored bunches on her serve yet. A play at Wallach's, theater both pretty and well ventilated, and a most splendid exit, the stalls on the same level as the street, the whole place seemed to empty itself in about five minutes, and a day's expedition to Staten Island, from which we had a lovely view of New York, its surroundings, and the whole harbor. Tomorrow we are to go for three nights to Washington, returning here to start westwards on Monday, though everybody tells us we are going too early in the year. The spring in Manitoba has been very late. A, riding on the 26th of April, says they are just starting work, but cannot do much at present on account of the water from the melted snow not having run off. The rivers have broken up, the Red River carried away one of the two bridges at Winnipeg. He happened to be in town at the time, and although he didn't see the bridge go, saw it afterwards and the jam. The ice was blocked for about a mile above, tumbling all over the place, making the river rise about ten feet an hour, washing out all the neighboring houses. It lasted about ten hours, then crash it all went, floating quietly down the stream, the water receding at the same time. There has been so much snow this year, which makes everything backward, but it is all gone in a week. It must be quite marvelous how quickly it disappears, as going from one farm to the other, distance about seven miles, starting at four o'clock a.m. with the thermometer showing twenty degrees of frost, when the sun got up it was so hot he, A, couldn't get back. Next morning, starting equally early, he only traveled two miles. The snow was so soft and the horses sank at every step above their knees. He was trying to take a sludge load of hay over to his buoyed farm. The cattle there, having run very short lately, they even had to take some of the thatching, which was of hay off the roof of the stable to feed the animals. We may have difficulty in getting up to Winnipeg, as the railroad is washed away within about eighty miles of the place, and the passengers are transferred to a steamer, which takes them twenty miles to another train. There was a fear of famine in Winnipeg, as no provisions could be got up. Lots of immigrants, when they saw the water, turned back. Good night. We have packing to do to be off early in the tug, which takes us over to Jersey City to catch our train to Washington at ten o'clock on the Pennsylvania Railway. The Commodore's son, who is home on leave, goes with us, and we have many introductions. We are bidden to a reception at the White House and have been vainly endeavoring to get into some of our hostesses' smart gowns, but alas, they are all too short, so we shall have to be content with our own black failures. End of Letter Three. Read by Cibela Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Four of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Riggs House, Washington, May 2nd. We had our first experience of drawing room cars coming down here with very comfortable armchairs, and one seems to do the journey of two hundred miles easily in about six hours through very pretty country. I never saw such people as Americans for advertising all along the line on every available post or rail. You see chew globe tobacco, sun stove polish, and et cetera. We enjoyed the reception at the White House. Our invitation was from eight to ten o'clock p.m. We arrived before the doors were open and had to wait some few minutes in the entrance, which is glazed in and where the drums of our ears were sorely tried by a noisy military band, which when you get into the rooms and at a distance sounded well, but not just alongside. After depositing our cloaks, we filed by, two and two past the President, shaking hands with him and the wife of the Secretary of State, who receives when there is no Mrs. President, and then wandered through the six remaining rooms, being introduced to several people as Mrs. H. of England and Ms. W. of England, which we thought would not convey much to their minds, accepting that we were two very unsmart English women, though we were much consoled about our clothes, which did not look so peculiar, every sort of costume being worn, even to bonnets. No refreshments were given, so that we were glad that supper was included in the menu du jour at our hotel. I shall not pretend to describe Washington to you. Any guidebook would give a more satisfactory account, but it is much more my idea of a city of the new world. The streets are well paved, are nice and broad. Then the houses are generally standing in their own grounds with trees and flowers. All together it may be called an elegant city. The people were most kind and civil to us. One afternoon we made two cabinet calls on ministers, but the other afternoon we went for a drive across the Potomac to Arlington, the ancestral place of the Lees, which was confiscated after the war and is now a soldier's burying ground. It has an exquisite view across the river. The only thing that distressed us was the bearing reins on the nice little pair of chestnuts in the buggy. The reins are crossed over their nose, passed between the ears, and fastened tight to the saddle, which forces the head right back and nearly saws the mouth in two. We never rested until we had loosened them, which was supposed to be the reason why the horses broke in their trot afterwards, as they were supposed to require a support. The weather has been quite delightful, bright, sunny days, but not hot, and if only the houses and hotels were not kept at such a suffocating temperature, we should be very happy both in and out of doors. The artificial heat has completely knocked us up in Brooklyn. We had a lovely big room with a large bay window beside another window, where we often retired for a blow of fresh air. The result has been that we both have had bad, crying colds. End of Letter Four, read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Letter Five of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Chicago, May 11th. We are now halfway to Manitoba and have really done the journey thus far so easily that it seems nothing of a drag, and if it wasn't for the Atlantic, A would not seem to be at the end of the world, which we fancied whilst in England. We left Brooklyn on Wednesday morning, very sorry to part from the Commodore and his family, who have been most kind and friendly, trying their best to make us feel at home. Unfortunately, having only just got the appointment and lately taken up their residence at the Navy Yard, they could do no entertaining. Anyhow, we have had a very pleasant insight into the home life of America, which differs in small ways a good deal from ours, and in character, habits, and everything, there is a wildish gulf between the two races. Our train here was a splendid one, stopping only about sixteen times and doing the nine hundred miles in thirty-six hours. We had a section in the Pullman, which makes a double seat facing each other by day, and at night the two seats are converted into a bed, with the second bed being pulled down from the roof, on which mattresses, blankets, and sheets are all arranged with a projecting board at the head and foot, and a curtain in front, so that one is quite private, and we slept like tops. We also had a dining car on, where every luxury of the season, two strawberries and cream, were served by the blackest of ends in the widest of garments, for the sum of a dollar ahead per meal. Only fancy our delight, after leaving Harrisburg at about three o'clock in the afternoon, to find friends in the train, people from an adjoining county in England who knew all our friends, and with whom we had much in common. I need hardly tell you that we did chin it until our ways parted at this station, they going to the Grand Pacific, we to the Tremont, which had just been recommended to us, as being a quieter hotel for ladies alone. Men make these hotels their clubs, where they smoke and lounge all day, but as there is a second door for ladies, one is not bothered in any way, unless you want to go to the office for information. We are astonished at the enormous piles of buildings in this city, land one would think must be cheap. All the shops cover an equally large area, though in many several offices are on one floor. It is too marvellous to think, when one looks at this place, that three and a half square miles in the center of the town, which is now in regular, handsome, broad streets, the fire of eleven years ago should have so completely burnt everything to the ground, though now not a vestige of the conflagration is left. The houses have even had time to get quite blackened with the smoke of the soft cold they use, which is found in great quantities all through Pennsylvania, the mines and furnaces we passed on our way up. The country the whole way was very pretty. We crossed the Susquehanna River, which is grand in width and scenery, and started the Juanita through a chain of mountains, turning in and out with every bend of the river, so that one felt always on the slant and could generally see either end of the train. Unfortunately, it poured with rain the whole way, so any distant views or tops of mountains were invisible. Some of the country is like England, undulating, rolling, well-cultivated fields, enclosed with palings which overlap each other and would be awkwardish obstacles in a hunting country, but one misses, like abroad, the cattle. We saw one or two stray cows, but little else. Around Chicago it is a flat plain, and as there has been a good deal of rain lately, water is out everywhere. For the last hour of our journey we came through the suburbs, and as there is no protection whatsoever to the line, we had to come very slowly, about seven miles an hour, ringing a great bell attached to the engine to announce our arrival, as children, cows, fans, etc., go along the line in the most promiscuous way. It is extraordinary that more accidents do not happen. By law I believe the train ought to go very slowly, whenever lines cross each other, anyhow they must ring the bell, the result being that the bells seem going all day when you are anywhere near the station. We were given instructions to one or two people here, one gentleman putting himself at our disposal to show us around straightway, and we visited the principal shops, streets, park, which is land reclaimed from the lake, and the tramways, which are worked with a pulley from a center about six miles off. A Chinaman in San Francisco was once heard to describe the said tramways as no horsey, no steamy, go-hell-y. The weather has, unfortunately, been wet and much against sight-seeing. The streets, in consequence, are too indescribably dirty, mud inches deep, and everyone is so busy making money that they have not time to pull up those who are responsible and insist on the streets being cleaned, though the money is yearly voted by the municipality and generally supposed to be pocketed by the authorities. We leave this tonight for St. Paul, much impressed on the whole with Chicago. There are one or two more sites I should like to have seen, such as the two tunnels under the river, but I fancy one leaks and the other is unusable for some reason. I should even have liked to have been to one of the Negro's revival meetings, but not to the port manufacturing, where pigs go in alive, are killed and cured ready for exploitation in less than twenty minutes. Our friends went there this morning, and the descriptions they gave were not particularly inviting. The lady hadn't been able to touch a mouthful of food all day afterward, and declared it would be years before she could eat pork. I also have been dying to see a house on the move, but had to content myself with looking at a large brick house, which not three years ago had been moved back one hundred and fifty yards bodily. Chicago is getting too old a city and ground is too expensive for people to be able to change the sites of their houses when the fancy takes them. In St. Paul or Winnipeg we may have the satisfaction of meeting one coming down the street. End of letter five read by Cibella Denton. All LibriVox files are in the public domain. For more information please visit LibriVox.org. Letter six of A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Merchants Hotel St. Paul May 16th. We left Chicago Friday night for this place at about nine o'clock, and thanks to a letter of recommendation to the conductor two lower berths were assigned to us and we even have the privilege of not having the uppers pulled down. It is a curious regulation in the Pullman cars that should the upper not be teneted it must be opened or else paid for by the occupant of the lower. So unless one takes a whole section one is bound to have a great board just above one's head, which in nine cases out of ten prevents our sitting up in bed and one can never have much ventilation. We were awoke earlier on Saturday morning than we either of us quite appreciated to be in time for breakfast at La Crosse at seven o'clock. La Crosse is a large settlement of sawmills on the banks of the Mississippi for cutting up the wood brought down by the curiously flat bottom steamers worked by a paddle in stern the same width as the boat and which push innumerable rafts of wood before them. We saw several of these steamers and were detained for a long time on the bridge which crosses the Mississippi said to be about a mile and a quarter long whilst the farther end of it was drawn aside to allow of two steamers passing through. Our railroads girded the banks of the river and we were very excited at seeing an Indian and his squaw in a canoe going downstream. The conductor of the car conversed with us a good deal the whole way was most anxious to know all about our comings and goings and told us he would be glad to learn the train by which we returned as no ladies would ever be allowed to leave Manitoba. Unfortunately we took his advice about the hotels in this place and on arriving came to the wrong inn. This one is the most frequented being close to the station but certainly is not as pleasant either as regards company or situation as the other the Metropolitan. We found one of our fellow Atlantic passengers at the last named and I never saw anyone so genuinely glad to see friends. He is one of the three men we told you about who have invested in thirteen thousand acres in Minnesota. He is down here trying to hurry the contractors who are to build their houses and stables at Warren also to buy farming implements and lumber. His horses and mules he intends buying at St. Louis. He gives the most vivid account of all the roughing they have undergone. They are living in a small wayside inn nine men in one room with no furniture. One of them managed one night to get a hold of a stretcher in lieu of a bed and just as he was settling down to his first beauty sleep a carter came and told him to move on as the stretcher was his. He suggested that as we are to pass Warren we should pay them a visit on our way up that he would take up a tent in furniture besides provisions but I do not think it sounds inviting enough as though I do believe we should do the community of good turn besides the pleasure of our company they would have a tent and a few luxuries after our departure instead of feeding as they daily do on beans and bacon living in a filthy hotel and having had nothing to wash in until they bought themselves a bucket. Last night just after we had gone to bed a loud knock was made at our door and a man asked if we intended getting up tonight at which we were furious but he persisted in the most determined way in questioning us as to whether it wasn't Miss H's room and we had time to get more than angry before we recognized A's voice and simultaneously both jumped out of bed to receive him on the chabil it is very nice of him coming all this way four hundred miles to meet us he looks much the same as ever only as brown as a berry from the reflection of a fortnight sun on the snow he is wonderfully cheery seems glad to see us has so many questions to ask of you all and swears by the healthiness of the Canadian climate and the life they lead at the farm we are none of us ever going to be sick or sorry again we have been a long drive today starting at eleven o'clock and only back just in time to do our last packing send off this letter and dine before we go to Winnipeg at about seven o'clock we drove across the bridge on the Missouri to Fort Snellden a miniature alder shot with huts and tents and a beautiful stretch of grass for maneuvers or galloping on to the minnehaha falls where we stayed sometime gazing and admiring and even walking under the falls the volume of water falling seemed extraordinary but was completely eclipsed by the falls of st. Anthony at minneapolis which we saw later the ladder originally fell perpendicularly but to utilize them for the enormous sawmills built at the water's edge they have been under planked so that the water goes down in a slant we were most fascinated by the site and watched the torrent from various points of view minneapolis is much like other western towns we have seen semi detached houses standing in their own grounds the grass in many instances well kept but utterly destitute of flowers which one misses so much this place st. paul's is beautifully situated built on both sides of the river the banks of which are very steep good night in twenty four hours more we hope to be at our destination in the far northwest but we are not to go out immediately to the farm as we are arriving rather earlier than a expected and the men who have been living with him all the winter cannot turn out before friday to make room for us so we are to stay in winnipeg for a day or two end of letter six read by cibela dentin all libravox files are in the public domain for more information please visit libravox.org letter seven of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. cesil b hall read for libravox.org into the public domain winnipeg may eighteenth here we are and we do feel ourselves really landed in the far north after most preposterous journey the whole way we arrived quite on time last night rather an unusual thing with these trains particularly since the floods when the passengers were dependent on the steamer we saw yesterday as we passed high and dry on the prairie which had to convey them from one train to another across the floods close to st. vincent oh the prairie i cannot describe to you our first impression it's vastness dreariness and loneliness is appalling very little is under cultivation between this and st. paul so that only a house here and there breaks the line of horizon there are a few cotton and aspen trees along the red river valley but with that exception the landscape for the last fifteen hours traveling has been like the sea on a very smooth day without a beginning or an end we were met at the station here by one of a's friends who drove us out about a mile and a half from the town across the ascinoboyne over suspension bridge built exactly opposite the old fort gary and somewhere close to the spot where our first english pioneers must have landed from the river steamer some twelve years ago to a very comfortable house belonging to another mutual friend a dear, kind old gentleman whose wife and daughter being away has placed the whole house at our disposal until we can get out to the farm which we find is sixteen miles off it will be very difficult to describe everything to you to begin with the depot or station presented a curious appearance such crowds of men loafing about with apparently no other object but to watch the new arrivals so different to english stations where everyone seems in a hurry either coming or going and then the roads we had to drive along to find description the inches no other word of mud and the holes which nearly capsized one at every turn even down main street the roads are not stoned or paved in any way we bumped a good deal in our carriage and for consolation at any worse bumping than usual we were told this is nothing wait until you get stuck in a mud hole out west then our route thanks to the floods which have been very bad this year and are still out enormously the upper floors of two-storied houses only being visible in many places was most intricate we had to be pioneered over a ditch into a wood supposed to be cleared with the stumps of trees left sticking about six inches out of the ground for your wheels to pass over onto a track and then through a potato garden to the house we were quite ready for our supper it being about eight o'clock when we got there and the food at Glendon where we stopped twenty minutes in the middle of the day to put away the contents of sixteen dishes of some various mess or another had not been of the most inviting of meals and though the chops here were the size of a small leg of mutton and had the longest bones I ever saw hunger was the best of appetizers and we did credit to our meal which had been cooked by our host this morning we were awoken by the same kind of person depositing a can of water at our door for our baths he gets up very early as he has to fetch the water, milk the cow, feed the calf, etc all before breakfast and starting off for his office there is a man-servant here who gets five to six pounds a month apparently to do nothing as he is the only one on the premises who can afford to be idle and smoke his pipe of peace but servants are so difficult to get in this country and our host being on the move having got a better government appointment at Perth is anxious not to change now so like everybody else he puts up with anything the last servant they had in this house was the son of a carnal in the English army who was described as a nice boy but very lazy but this man-servant hasn't even the recommendation of being nice he was out at the farm working for his board in lodging and no wages for some months but A could not stand his idleness we all had to cook our breakfast this morning and as everyone was, by way of helping, either making toast, poaching the eggs cooking hunks of bacon or mending up the fire the stove was pronounced much too small the moment we had finished our meal we had to retire upstairs and make the beds and tidy up a little a half-breed woman living about a half mile off is supposed to come in for an hour and wash up and clean the house but if it is bad weather she is unable to get through the mud therefore when the ladies of the establishment are away the house is left a good deal to its own devices the dust and cobwebs not often disturbed end of letter seven read by Cibela Denton all LibriVox files are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org letter eight of a ladies life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for LibriVox.org into the public domain see farm may twenty-first our last letter to you was written with the first impression of our colonists life whilst in Winnipeg where we had a very good insight of the way English people will rough it when they come out it would horrify our farmers to have to do what gentlemen do out here they are all their own servants that lazy servant in Winnipeg we were told gave notice to leave because one night he was requested to keep the kitchen fire in so that we might have a kettle of hot water when we went to bed we spent as little time as we could at our suburban residence so as to save him any extra trouble always lunching and sometimes dining in Winnipeg and though all the restaurants are bad still the food was almost as good as what we cooked ourselves our chief mistake for our first meals was that we put everything on the fire at the same time and funnily enough our fish boiled quicker than the sausages and they again much quicker than the pudding once there was a bread and butter one about which there has been a good deal of chaff as it was supposed to be first cousin to bread and milk the weather was very bad constant rain and we had a fair specimen of Winnipeg mud to these buckboards which is a buggy with the board behind for luggage or to any of the carriages there are no wings to protect one from the mud so that we always came in bespattered all over a great trial to our clothes but in spite of the rain and bad weather we were all determined to come out here on Friday we hired a Democrat a light wagon with two seats and started during the afternoon in the rain hoping it might clear which it eventually did when we were about a third of our way it was awfully cold and the dolting of the carriage over the prairie so fearful that our wraps were always falling off I had always understood the prairie was so beautifully smooth to drive over but found it much resembling an English arable field thrown out of cultivation with innumerable molehills and badger holes and natural cracks about an inch wide which drain the water off into the marshes if your carriage is heavily weighted it runs pretty easy but woe betide you if driving by yourself you bump up and down like a pea on a shovel we nearly upset shortly after leaving Winnipeg as a house was on the move or more properly speaking had been as it was stuck in a mud hole a load of hay trying to get around it had stuck as well and the only place given us to pass was fearfully on the slant down to a deepish dyke into which a buggy had already capsized we caught the first glimpse of our future home eight miles off the house and stables looking like three small specks on the horizon it is very difficult to judge distances on the prairie and the nearer we seem to get to our destination the further the houses were removed the farm had an imposing appearance as we drove up to it Mr. B. who met us at the gate was most anxious that on arrival we should be driven to the front door and not to the kitchen one which being the nearest is the handiest he poor man has given up his bed and dressing room to us and we find ourselves very comfortable end of letter eight read by Cibela Denton all LibriVox files are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org letter nine of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by Mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for LibriVox.org into the public domain C farm may twenty-fourth the two young men Messers H and L who inhabit a tent about two miles from here and who are building themselves a stable are going into Winnipeg tomorrow for more lumber and as I don't know when I shall have another opportunity of sending letters in I send you a few lines these two men have been living with A. all the winter and only turned out for us the day we arrived it was such bad weather they hoped and speculated on our not coming so that when we were seen in the distance there was a general stampede to clear out I must say I should have been very loath to turn out during this cold weather of a comfortable house into a tent and had I been they I should have wished us somewhere we have already had a taste of the cold in these regions Friday when we drove out here was bad enough but on Saturday when E. and A. went into town again to take our carriage back they were nearly frozen with the biting wind and sleet they had to face the whole of the sixteen miles home on Sunday the thermometer was down to twenty-two or ten degrees of frost with a bitter northwest wind and we had an inch of snow on the ground and though the sun melted most of it the thermometer at night went down again to twenty-four I don't think I ever felt so cold in bed in spite of a ton weight of clothes luckily the stoves are still up in the house in summer they are generally put away in the warehouse to give them room so that we have been able to make a light both night and day we are told the weather is most unusual anyhow it is mighty cold those poor men in the tent have suffered a good deal one night the pegs to the windward gave and the snow drifted against their beds as high as their pillows they luckily have got a stove but are obliged to leave their door open to allow the pipe going out unfortunately they have no extra tin or iron to put on the canvas around the pipe which is the usual way to prevent it catching fire to describe our life here will take some doing and after the novelty is worn off it will not amuse us quite so much nor shall we be so keen of helping our Abigail who is the wife of the carpenter and made of all work in everything accepting that she must always have a great deal to do for a large household like ours consisting of four men and our two selves and we shall always want employment and i don't think we shall either of us care to ride or drive much we have fallen into it the life wonderfully quickly completely sunk the lady and becomes sort of maids of all work our day begins soon after six o'clock by laying the breakfast skimming the cream whilst our woman is frying bacon and making the porridge for the breakfast at six thirty mister b and a are out by five o'clock in order to water feed and harness their horses all ready to go out at seven o'clock when we get rid of all the men we then make the beds helping the washing up clean the knives and this morning i undertook the dinner and washed out some of the clothes as we have not been able to find a towel duster or glass cloth whilst mrs g cleaned out the dining room the dirt of the house is to our minds appalling but as mrs g only arrived a few days before we did and all the winter the four men were what is called in this country batching it from bachelor namely having to do everything for themselves it is perhaps not surprising that the floors are rather dirty and that there is a little dust the weather is much against our cleaning as the mud sticks to the boots and do what you will it is almost impossible to get it off not that the men seemed to have thought much about it as until we arrived and suggested it there was no scraper to either door poor mister b was rather hurt in his feelings this morning on expressing some lamented the late sharp frosts that all his cabbages would be killed when we said that it was a pity he had sewn them out of doors as he might almost have grown them on the dining room carpet he amuses us by lamenting that he did so much cleaning and washed the floor so often he might just as well have left it until we arrived our time is well filled up until dinner at twelve thirty at which we have such ravenous appetites we are told no profits made on the farm will pay our keep at half past one when the men turn out again we generally go out with them and some outdoor occupation is found for us either driving the wagons or any other odd jobs there is a lot of hay littered about and that has to be stacked also the waste straw or rubbish which is burnt and the fires have to be made up three quarters of an hour before either dinner or supper the latter meal is about half past six a flag the union jack is hoisted at the end of the farther stable if neither a nor mister b is about we undertake to do it to call the men in and they declare the horses see the flag as soon as they do and stop directly the class of horse here is certainly not remarkable for its good looks but they are hard plucky little beasts and curiously quiet the long winter makes them as well as all the other animals feel a dependence upon man and they become unusually tame the cows cats and everything follow the men about everywhere they used to have to keep the kitchen door shut to prevent one of the cows walking in a has got a jolly old cat who follows him like a dog sleeps on his bed and sits next to him at meals mister b has a dear collie with him he carries on long conversations particularly on the subject of the coolness of the morning and the water in his bath so you see we have plenty of animal life about the men at the tent have a black water spaniel which greatly prefers our fair and warm house to the tent so is nearly always here and a flutter nine read by cibela dentin all libra vox files are in the public domain for more information please visit libra vox dot org letter ten of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs fiesel b hall read for libra vox dot org into the public domain may twenty-fifth we overslept ourselves this morning it being a dull day and no sunday wake us up so that it was past six before any of us made our appearance the way we work here would rejoice uncle f's heart and amaze some of our farmers wives and daughters my advice to all immigrants is to leave their pride to the care of their families at home before they start and like ourselves put their hand to everything we've had some funny experiences but for all our hard work we get no kudos or praise it is all taken as a matter of course i would not live in such a place for worlds but while it lasted is great fun and i think we have done good by coming out if only to mend up all the old rags belonging to these four men we were much in want of dusters etc the first days and we're told that when the three months wash which was in winnipeg returned we should find everything we wanted instead of which there was a fine display of torn under linen and stockings by the dozens which we have been doing our best to patch up and darn but no house linen we shall do as much washing as we can possibly manage at home i expect as the prices are so fearful to say nothing of the inconvenience of being ages without ones linen i will just quote a few of the prices from our bill of the winnipeg steam laundry shirts fifteen cents night ditto ten cents vests and pants twenty five to fifty cents blankets fifty cents counterpains thirty five cents tablecloths fifteen to thirty five cents sheets ten cents pillow slips five to fifteen cents night dresses fifteen cents to one dollar petticoats thirty cents to one dollar everything in proportion we thought one dollar per dozen all around was exorbitant but when hardly anything is less than eight pence as a cent according to the exchange is more than a half penny it seems ruinous we get four dollars eighty cents only for the sovereign here being ten pence short of the five dollars end of letter ten letter eleven of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. Cecil b hall read for Libra box dot org into the public domain may twenty eight our weather is improving today has been lovely but alas with the warm have come the mosquitoes i don't believe you will ever see us again they the mosquitoes bites so fearfully even in the daytime that they will devour us up entirely a is having wire coverings made for the doors and windows but unfortunately owing to the floods after the melting of the snow all the stores which ought to have arrived in winnipeg a month ago have been delayed and the shops are very short of goods of all sorts and kinds there are said to be four thousand cars with provisions etc between this and st paul a and i spent an afternoon at the other farm boyd which he rents of a mister boyd three thousand acres for forty pounds a year it is covered with low brushwood with a few trees here and there and a good deal of marsh and therefore unfit for cultivation so they keep it entirely for their cattle and for the cutting of hay and summer it is a much prettier place than this the house being surrounded by trees whereas here we haven't one within seven miles though last year they did their best and planted nearly five hundred round the house as avenues to the drive but only a few survived the drought of last autumn and severe cold of the winter the rest are represented by dead sticks we tried to see the cattle at boys but they were always feeding on the marsh and could only be looked at from a distance as we neither of us felt inclined to run the chance of being bogged or of wetting our feet incoming home we called at the tent and i was surprised to find how quickly messers h and l were building their stable which is to be large enough to hold two stalls and a room beyond which when they have a house will make a good loose box but for the time being they intend to live in it either sleeping in the loft or tent to build a house or stable is not very difficult but with no carpenter or experienced man to help it wants a certain amount of ingenuity you lay out your foundation by putting thick pieces of oak called sills on the ground in the shape of your house in town these sills are nailed to posts which have been driven eight feet into the ground but on the prairie they are simply laid on the flat onto the sills come the joists planks two by six placed on edge across two feet apart then the uprights which stand on the sills two feet apart form the walls to these you nail rough boards on each side with a layer of tar paper in between if building a stable if a dwelling house on the inside you put against your rough board laid and then plaster on the outside the tar paper and siding the floor is made by nailing rough boards on the joists then tar paper and on top of that tongueed and grooved wood fitting into each other to make it airtight the roofs which are almost always pointed on account of the snow are composed of rafter two by four two or three feet apart with rough boards across then tar paper and shingles the latter are thin flat pieces of wood laid on to overlap each other we send you a small sketch of our buildings which will give you a better idea of these frame houses than any description they can be bought ready made at chicago and are sent up with every piece numbered so that you have no difficulty in putting them together again our own house is twenty four feet square with a lean to as a kitchen the dining and drawing rooms are each twelve feet square separated by sliding doors a's bedroom the entrance hall and staircase dividing the remainder of the house our front door is not quite in the center but thanks to the veranda one does not perceive it above looking due south we have a bedroom dressing room and large cupboard for our clothes there are two other rooms at the back for the men the other houses for the laborers of whom there are eleven with a woman is cook the wife of one of them it is also for a warehouse where all the spare implements and stores are kept besides these houses we have two good stables one holding fourteen horses the other the remaining six also the cows pigs and chickens during the winter piggeries and at last but not least my chicken house a has presented me with a dozen hens for which he had to pay thirteen dollars which with the seven old ones are my special charge and are an immense amusement and occupation his farm here as he has other land elsewhere besides the void farm consists of four hundred eighty acres half of one section and a fourth of another all the surveyed country in the northwest territory has been divided into townships thirty six square miles and they again into sections of a mile square which are marked out by the sarayers with earth mounds thrown up at the four corners in the form of right angle pyramids with a post about three feet high stuck in the center the mounds are six feet square with a square hole on each side to the marking of sections a similar mound is erected only of smaller dimensions the sections are numbered as shown by the following diagram southeast is number one southwest is number six northeast is number thirty six northwest is number thirty one the townships are numbered in regular order northerly from the international boundary line or forty ninth parallel of latitude and lion range is numbered east and west from a certain meridian line drawn northerly from the said forty ninth parallel from a point ten miles or thereabouts westward of pembina when the government took over the territory from the hudson bay company in eighteen seventy two entire sections in every fifth township and one in three quarters in every other were signed to the company as compensation there were also two sections reserved as endowment to public education and are called school lands and held by the minister of the interior and can only be sold by public auction the same was done for the half-breeds two hundred and forty acres were allotted to them in every parish their farms are mostly on the rivers along the banks of which all the early settlers congregated and to give each claim in his iota the farms had to be cut up into long strips of four miles long by four hundred yards wide on every section line running north and south and to every alternate running east and west nine feet or one chain is left for roads our farm buildings are not quite in the center of the estate on account of having to make the drive up to the house beyond the marsh on the eastern boundary i have drawn you a plan of the farm the spaces covered with the little dots are the marshes the one on the west extends for miles and has a creek or dyke dug out by the government to carry off the water from the drawing it looks as if there was much more surround us but this bit of ground was the driest that could be found not already taken up as it was a purchased it of a man who has some more land near winnipeg giving him five dollars per acre the numbers thirty and thirty one mean the section of the townships for immigrants wishing to secure a homestead which is a grant of one hundred and sixty acres given by the government free with the exception of an office fee amounting to ten dollars on all the even numbered sections of the township he will now have to travel much further west as every acre around winnipeg is already secured and has in the last two years risen most considerably in value the canadian pacific railroad company which was given by government twenty five million acres besides the twenty five million dollars to make the line across the country from thunder bay on lake superior to the rockies sell their land which is on odd numbered sections of every township for twenty four miles on each side of the track with the exception of the two sections eleven and twenty nine reserved for school lands for two dollars fifty cents or ten shillings per acre to be paid in installments giving a rebate of one dollar twenty five cents or five shillings per acre if the land is brought into cultivation within the three or five years after purchase a man occupying a homestead is exempt from seizure for debt also his ordinary furniture tools and farm implements in use one cow two oxen one horse four sheep two pigs and food for the same for thirty days and his land cultivated provided it is not more than the one hundred and sixty acres also his house stables barns and fences so that if a man has bad luck he has a chance of recovering his misfortunes in one of your letters you ask if a poor man coming out as a laborer and perhaps eventually taking up land as a homestead or otherwise would encounter many difficulties i fancy not as both the english and canadian governments are affording every facility to immigrants who can get through tickets from liverpool london or ireland at even a lower rate than the ordinary steerage passenger they can have themselves and their families booked all the way the fairs varying from nine pounds five to the twenty eight pounds paid by the saloon on board ship the steerage have to find their own bedding and certain utensils for use otherwise everything is provided and i'm told the food is both good and plenty of it regular authorized officers of the dominion government are stationed at all the principal places in canada to furnish information on arrival they will also receive and forward money in letters and everyone should be warned and put on their guard against the fictitious agents and rogues that infest every place who tried to persuade the newcomers into purchase of lands or higher rates of wage we heard the other day of an english gentleman being taken by one of these scoundrels and giving a lot of money for land which on examination proved to be worthless luckily for him there was some flaunt his agreement and his purchase was canceled men who intend buying land should be in no great hurry about their investments the banks give a fair percentage on deposits and it is always so much more satisfactory to look around before settling as she has to cart all her own sods to make a foundation and then heaps soil onto them but having brought a quantity of seeds from england she feels bound to sew them and hopes they will make a grand show later on and the place quite gay you should have seen the beam of delight which shown on the countenance of a stranger who had come out from winnipeg for the night when on arrival he was immediately pressed into ease service to carry water for these said seeds the temperature is now at sixty four degrees and as things grow as if by magic we hope they will soon put in an appearance oats planted only a week ago are now an inch above the ground we have had a nice breeze the last two or three days so that the mosquitoes have not worried us so much the prettiest things to see here are the prairie fires at night the grass is burnt in spring and autumn so as to kill off the old tufts and allow the new shoots for growing hay the fires look like one long streak of quivering flame the forked tips of which flash and quiver in the horizon magnified by refraction and on a dark night are lovely in the daytime one sees only volumes of smoke which break the monotony of the landscape though i don't know that it is picturesque with a slight breeze the fire spread in a marvelous way even at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour the other day a and mister age whilst putting up their tent did not perceive how near a fire they themselves had lighted at some distance was getting until it was upon them they then had to seize hold of everything pull up the tent pegs as best they could and make a rush through the flames singeing their clothes and boots a good deal the pastures on the burnt prairie are good the whole summer and animals will always select them in preference to any other the wild ponies be the snow and winter ever so deep by calling it away subsist on these young shoots and leaves of grasses which are very nutritious and apparently suffer a little by the frost which only kills the upper leaves but does not injure what is below the mirage is also very curious the air is so clear that one often sees reflected some way above the horizon objects like the river trees and even the town of winnipeg which we could not otherwise see we could actually one evening at sunset distinguish the gas lights and of letter eleven read by sebella dentin all the bravox files are in the public domain for more information please visit the bravox dot org letter twelve of the ladies life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. Cecil b hall read for the bravox dot org into the public domain sunday this is a real day of rest and the men really do deserve it we all have a respite as regards breakfast it being at nine o'clock instead of six thirty and do we not appreciate the extra forty weeks the whole day is spent more or less in loafing we having no regular church dear than winnipeg sixteen miles though an occasional service is given at headingly eight miles off the men lie stretched on the straw heaps in the yard basking and snoozing in the sun we generally have some stray men out from winnipeg and are much struck with the coolness of their ways colonial manners somehow jar a good deal on one they take it as quite a matter of course that we ladies should wait on them at table and attend to their bodily comforts on the other hand they never seem to object to any accommodation they get and are perfectly satisfied with the drawing room sofa for a bed even with sheets taken out of the dirty linen bag which has been once or twice the case when our supply has run short i don't object to their coming only that our sunday dinners have to be in proportion and as all our provisions come out from winnipeg it is rather difficult catering we have no outside larder or anywhere to keep our meat and butter so have instituted a lovely one by putting all our things down the well which is nearly dry and is under the kitchen floor in winter there is never any need of a larder as the meat is frozen so hard that it has to be twelve hours in the kitchen before they can attempt to cook it our food is very good and we have the best of all recipes ravenous appetites for every meal our breakfast consists of porridge bacon and any cold meat jam and any quantity of excellent butter and bread dinner a hot joint and a pudding of some sort finishing up with coffee supper much the same we have coffee for every meal and as the pot is always on the hob anybody can have a cup when they like the men have about two cups a piece before breakfast when they first get up we never mind any amount of coffee but wage war against the cocktails taken before meals as appetizers a cocktail is a horrid concoction of whisky bitters sugar and water which are all mixed together with a swittle stick which stick is always on the wander and for which a search has to be made nipping is too much in vogue in this country but we are told that a lot of support is wanted the air is so rarefied and the water has so much alcohol in it and therefore not supposed to be healthy but it is most beautifully clear and delightfully cold to drink it certainly does disagree with the horses and cattle when first imported into the district end of letter 12 read by cibela dentin all libra voxpiles are in the public domain for more information please visit libravox.org letter 13 of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for libravox.org into the public domain june 3rd if you happen to know of anybody coming out here and so many do and if you would like to give a a present i wish you would kindly send him a few tablecloths dusters towels and pairs of sheets in short any linen would be most acceptable as we are so short how these men managed when the linen went into winnipeg to be washed and was sometimes kept a month ere it came home is a mystery these extra men living in the house have none they facetiously describe their ideas of dirt by saying if the tablecloth however filthy it might look when flung against the wall didn't stick it went on for another week if it stuck was then and there consigned to the dirty linen bag since we have been here we have instituted a weekly wash every monday and tuesday e and mrs g preside at the tub all day and even then our sheets and towels often run short every colonist ought to provide himself with two pairs of sheets half a dozen towels two tablecloths and a few dusters and as those things and his wearing apparel if in use six months previously are allowed into the country free of duty they might as well bring them over as everything of that sort in winnipeg is so fearfully dear i do not like buying anything there we sent for some unleashed calico the other day worth two pence half penny was charged twelve cents or six pence a yard besides the four yards of calico there were ten of bed ticking also ten of american cloth and the bill was six dollars seventy cents nearly seven and twenty shillings everything is equally dear the demand is so much greater than the supply beef is ten pence to thirteen pence of pound mutton about the same bacon ten pence pork ten pence chickens four and two pence each we use a good deal of tinned corn beef and very good it is it makes into such excellent hashes and curries and is so good for breakfast a also wants a pair of long porpoise hide waterproof boots sending out they are quite an essential as after the heavy rains water stands inches deep in our yards and he has so much walking into the marshes in the spring when the snow is melted the slaws are mud holes along all the tracks and across the prairie are so deep that horses and wagons are repeatedly stuck in them and the men have to go in often up to their waste to help the poor animals out the only way sometimes to get wagons out is to unhitch the horses getting them onto firm ground and by means of a long chain or ropes fast into the poles pull the wagons out which as a rule have previously had to be unloaded the clothes these men wear are indescribable a at the present moment is in a blue flannel shirt a waist kit the back of which we are always threatening to renew inexpressible sometimes spotty darned and torn and thanks to one or two washings have shrunk displaying a pair of boots which have not seen a blackening brush since the day they left England coats are put on for meals to do honor to the ladies but seldom worn otherwise the coarser and stronger the clothes are the better a straw hat is also very lovely it serves periodically for a mark to shoot at with the rifle on Sunday mornings or when company come out from town we both of us feel much like our old nurse when we are doing mendings cutting up one set of old rags to patch another but thanks to ammonia and hot irons we flatter ourselves we make them almost look respectable again there is a half-breed called l'espérance who lives about eight miles from here on the banks of the Assiniboine and one of our neighbors telling us the other day he had several buffalo robes to sell we drove over to inspect them and saw some real beauties for ten or twelve dollars at the Hudson base doors in town they ask sixteen for them l'espérance himself wasn't at home when we got there but his wife a fine tall woman speaking a peculiar French patois showed us around also the Pemison which is buffalo meat pounded dried and pressed into bags of skins it keeping good for years in that way it looked nasty but the children were chewing it apparently with great relish whilst in the shanty we heard a great noise and running out found our horse which had either taken right or been stung by some fly tearing past us with the buggy through the old lady's potato field into the bush he tore after it and in a few hundred yards came up to the horse standing trembling and gazing at the shattered remains of our poor vehicle he had tried to turn the corner when the whole thing capsized topsy-turvy and he had almost freed himself of all the harness luckily he was considerate enough not to have given that one more struggle which would have indeed settled the whole question and obliged us to foot it on our ten toes home curiously enough the shafts were not broken but the splinter bar was there was quite a procession back to the shanty the half breed woman and one girl dragging the buggy one child carrying the cushion the other the whip and wraps and E leading the horse we set to work to make good the damage as best we could with thin strips of buffalo hide and started homewards but without buying our robes not daring to add to our weight the men at the ferry boat gave us an extra binding up and by going cautiously we got home though we feared every moment would be our last as regards driving as the bound up parts creaked most ominously all the way and we fully expected it every rough bit to go in half the horse is generally so quiet that we never mind where we leave him standing I luckily have just given a new carriage which will come in very handy it is to be a democrat double seats and one long enough to be able to carry luggage these small buggies are beautifully light but will carry next to nothing and we always have difficulty in accommodating all our parcels every time we come out of Winnipeg end of letter 13 read by Sibelenton all LibriVox files are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org letter 14 of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for LibriVox.org into the public domain June 6th a wagon is going into town tomorrow to fetch a sulkie and a gang plow and some potatoes for seating and we hope a few also of the latter for eating as hither to our only vegetables have been white beans and rice you may be wondering what these plows are a sulkie is a single furred 16 inch plow 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 12 inch plow and drawn by four to six horses and which will break over four acres a day the sulkie about three a has had one for some time but as yet only the deep plowing or back setting of last year's breaking has been going on and until the seating 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 and melting no fresh breaking has been begun there are still about 280 acres to break or more properly speaking 240 as 40 acres are in March 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 size ditches at right ankles to the river and they are found to be the only practical drainage which is feasible and when once cut in 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 march and on a by day we sometimes fish in it for pike not that any of our party have been successful but some of our neighbors catch fish and very fair sized ones the land is wonderfully rich and good a black loam which color 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 subsoil and in which they say they will be able to grow cereals for the next 20 years without manure or it's deteriorating though if there was only time to do it before the snow falls it seems a pity not to put the manure onto 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 the ground here requires a great deal of cultivation it is first of all broken with a 14 or 16 inch plow so shaped that it turns the sod over as flat as possible generally from the depth of one 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 in 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 effectively 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 and acre the breaking goes on until the middle of july and the end of august the back setting begins which is plowing the same ground over again about two inches deeper the following spring the harrows which are a disc of a peculiar shape 12 to 18 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 grains sown late cannot germinate nor can it absorb water or rain enough to rot it the winter's 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 would 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 plowings 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 harness to a chain put round them to raise them out of the ground when they are put onto the stone boat and conveyed to the boundary fence it generally falls to ease and my special lot to drive the stone boat or the wagons whilst the men with crowbars and spades go before the plows clearing them all away for fear they may blunt the shares and throw them out of the furrow the last two or three days when not stone picking a and mr b have been stretching the barbed wire with which they are enclosing the property and there has been a great chaff about our jehu ship the wooden posts along which the wires run are put in the ground and they then have to be rammed down with a fearfully heavy wooden mallet which i can hardly lift to get purchase on the mallet a mounts into the wagon which accordingly has to be driven quite close up to the post without touching it the two old mayors we drive are more than difficult to turn or stop to a nicety the result being that once i went to near and broke off a piece of the wagon another time after a corner post had been driven in most securely with props e drove up against it taking the whole concern away bodily the weather is quite delightful no mosquitoes as yet to speak of but the two big marshes on either side of the farm harbor them dreadfully wild duck also abound in these marches there are thousands about and we have found many nests and have been reveling in the eggs a delightful change to our regular menu the nests are very difficult to find we too went one afternoon in the buggy to look for some and the men declare we looked in the marshes themselves for them which was not certainly the fact though after driving round all the outsides and not having been warned that the marsh on the eastern boundary of the farm was very deep we came home that way not at all liking the water coming up to the axle trees and the horse floundering about at every step to turn back was as bad as to go on and as we saw wheel tracks along the fence we stuck to them thanking our stars when we got through safely end of letter 14 read by cibela dentin all LibriVox files are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org letter 15 of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for LibriVox.org into the public domain June 12th we have had a real visitor lately I mean one who has brought a change and a toothbrush and for the auspicious event we rigged him up a stretcher bed the most comfortable of things canvas stretched onto a wooden frame with a mattress on the top you could not wish for anything softer he was one of our ocean companions his nickname of Mike still sticks to him on getting to win a peg at night he had great difficulty in finding our whereabouts even at the club he was told the only W known kept a store in main street luckily from the club he went to A's livery staple which is exactly behind it where a man offered to drive him out forthwith having driven another man here only four days ago but he preferred waiting until the morning getting here somewhere about nine o'clock when he was set down immediately to work to stone the raisins for a plum cake and when tired of that had to help A planting potatoes he declares he never will come here with his best clothes and a boiled shirt on again as we have worked him so hard the accounts he gives in an exaggerated irish brogue of his experiences in minnesota have kept us in fits of laughter the description of their first drive when both he and his companions were all bogged and how that 27 mules and 28 horses bought at st louis all arrived one night at the station about five o'clock after 60 hours traveling with no food or water had to be unloaded from the cars and they hadn't a halter or even a rope to do it with eventually they got all the poor beasts into a yard with wooden pailing round but something startling them they made a rush the fence gave way for which damage the proprietor charged them 10 pounds and all galloped straight onto the prairie and it took the men all night getting them together again one pair of horses disappeared altogether but were brought back when a reward of 30 dollars was offered they had wandered 19 miles mike slept in a's room they talked so much and told so many funny stories that we despaired of ever getting them down to breakfast mike declaring he would like to bring his bed along with him as he hadn't slept in one or been between sheets since leaving new york six weeks previously we drove him over one afternoon to fish in the creek about two and a half miles off but as we had to go in a light wagon and with only one spring seat both mike and a had to hang on behind with a plank as seat which was always slipping and landing them on their backs at the bottom of the wagon when we were about half a mile from home e made a wager that she would get through the wire fence and home across the prairie before we could get round and the horses be in their stable we had a most exciting race the gates which are only poles run from one end of the wire to another were a great impediment and i believe it really was a dead heat through all the laborers entering into the joke and rushing to unhitch the horses which were disappearing into the stable as e was at the kitchen door i fancy that on the whole in spite of his hard work mike enjoyed his visit not only for the pleasure of our society but as he had never seen a piece of meat nor anything but pork and beans and bad coffee at warren nor had a bed to lie on nor as much water as could be held in a teacup to wash in he must have felt he had dropped into a land of goshen by some happy mistake to give you a clearer insight into our daily life and as i have nothing really to write about this week i think i cannot do better than copy out our journals which we try to keep regularly though in our monotonous everyday life it is sometimes difficult to find incidents to chronicle monday wash and cook all the morning e and a plant willows in the marsh during the afternoon i wonder about the prairie in search of a ducks nest i saw yesterday and thought i had marked but the tracks stones and ridges on the prairie are so alike that it is almost impossible to remember any place anyhow i cannot find the nest i could not take it yesterday as i was riding and the animal will not stand still to let you mount and had i had to scramble up on her i should certainly have broken all the eggs i took an exhausting day with hot wind blowing we are craving for rain and thankful for the slight showers that fell during last night it is marvelous how quickly vegetation will grow some sample wheat planted in the garden of which there was no sign yesterday thanks to the rain and sun has grown quite an inch by six o'clock this evening the grass is beginning to look so green and nice tuesday e and mrs g finished their wash which they could not get through yesterday i go up to the tent with mr h to drive his wagon and help him unlumber the wood he brought out yesterday from winnipeg riding on these wagons loaded and without a spring seat is anything but pleasant over the prairie but mr h is so accustomed to it now that he can stretch himself on the top and sleep soundly and once or twice coming out from town has found himself in quite the wrong direction by allowing the horses to go their own way e and i spend our afternoon cleaning up the tent wednesday a and i drive into winnipeg we have had various commissions to do and a had to attend a meeting at the club mr w h has most amably put his house consisting of two rooms and a kitchen below at our disposal whenever we want to rest so i spent my whole afternoon there nominally reading the saint james's gazette but i fancy indulging in forty wings whilst waiting for a we afterward dined with the judge in his very nice pretty house called the willows driving home later the cold was so great that a who had brought no great coat was forced to run behind the buggy some way to get warm and produce circulation the prairie fires quite lovely on all sides quivering high flames for miles and the night being dark they looked very bright thursday was so tired after my day in town that i breakfasted in bed disgraceful by the time i get down the family have all dispersed to their various works after dinner e and i drive a wagon over to the buoyed farm to fetch oats for mr h the students who haven't much to do are enlisted into the filling and loading of the sacks rather glad we fancy of some occupation on our return we found a friend of mr b's who having heard of our proximity he living it headingly has come over to dine and sleep our parlor sofa as usual is called into requisition it will soon be worn out so many sleep on it i think last week it was occupied nearly every night friday we have had very smart company today as the judge his wife niece and another man came over we hoped they would stay to dinner and had killed fatted calf but i fancy the ladies dreaded the prairie by night and insisted upon returning we could hardly persuade them to take a cup of tea fearing that they might be benighted saturday hard at work cleaning all the morning mr b's friend leaves after dinner and i drive the mares in the wagons whilst the men stretch the wire fencing e rides to the tent with letters we sustained rather a shock to our nerves today about twelve o'clock a buggy was seen coming towards the house just as we were sitting down to dinner and as our food was scanty we did not know how we possibly could feed three extra men luckily they only came to inquire their route to the tent and it was a relief when they drove on though we felt we ought to have given them some food as the tent could only provide bacon and biscuits sunday mrs g our fact totem has holiday and goes over with some of the other laborers to spend the day at the other farm e and i have to undertake the menage for the whole day our mutton a leg was very nicely done also our vegetables rice and beans but the evaporated apples which we use much required boiling previous to being put in a tart which we neither of us knew therefore they were not done and the crust was all burnt the men from the tent who generally spend their sundays here were allowed some dinner on condition that they washed up afterwards and a flutter fifteen read by cibella dentin all libra vox files are in the public domain for more information please visit libra vox dot org letter sixteen of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs cecil b hall read for libra vox dot org into the public domain june eighteenth i'm afraid our letters will not be so interesting as the novelty wears off the monotony of our life may begin to fall upon us we hardly ever go two miles beyond the farm to take our neighbors at the tent their letters or parcels brought out from town is about the limit to our wanderings we did drive one of the wagons to our neighbor mr boil to fetch home some oats the other night and we also have been into town to pay our respects to the governor and his wife we happily don't want much outside attraction for we have so much to do on the farm the men work us pretty hard i can tell you as besides all our indoor work we have had three afternoons cutting potatoes for seed until our hands are too awful to look at and the water is so hard that we shall never get them a decent color again some white elephant potatoes planted three weeks ago thirty in number we cut into four hundred and twenty pieces already make a great show and will want banking up next week about ten acres of ground close to the house have been reserved and are called the garden in which have been planted turnips flax beetroot lettuce tomatoes and potatoes in short all the luxuries of the season but i am afraid none will be ready before we leave if we carry out our idea of going to colorado early in august we have been craving for rain and at last luckily had a delightful shower a few days ago which has freshened us up and will make things grow there is no grass as yet above four inches in height and this time last year they were hay making the men are beginning to fear there will be none but with a little warm weather and a certain amount of rain everything grows as if by magic so we may still hope to have a good season only very few of the garden seeds have made their appearance which is disappointing after all the trouble they were but the wildflowers are beginning to come out on the prairie small bushes of wild rose are all over there are also very pretty sunflowers a tree maiden hair several different vetches sisters yellow daisies etc many we cannot name indigenous to this country we conclude end of letter 16 read by sablea dentin all libra box files are in the public domain for more information please visit libravox.org letter 17 of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for libravox.org into the public domain June 26th we quite feel as if we had been here years instead of about five weeks and though it was prophesied before we left england that after turning the house upside down and making the men very uncomfortable with our cleanings we should then go on strike it has not been altogether fulfilled we certainly did try to clean up a bit but we still help in housework and have to do as the servants at home if we expect visitors or on a sunday put on a tidy gown otherwise we generally live in the oldest of frocks which are more or less stained with either mud or the red paint with which we have been painting the roofs of both the stable and the laborer's house very big aprons sleeves to match and our sunbonnets e has concocted for herself a thin blue and white shirt and as she generally lives with her sleeves tucked up her arms are getting quite brown and sunburnt our boots are the only things we do not much like cleaning they get so soon dirty again and we have come to the happy conclusion that unblackened boots have a cachet that black boots have not when we first arrived the men promised to do them for us every sunday which promises like so many have partake in of the nature of pie crusts we are both delighted to have come the whole experience is so new and what we couldn't have realized in england and i am sure in spite of the boulevardement of the bachelor regime it is a great pleasure to the men we are here our winnipeg acquaintances tell us that a is quite a changed man so cheery and even and that everything is now what we do at the farm it is all very well however in the summer if obliged to say through the winter it would be quite another pair of shoes the thermometer often registers 40 degrees of frost though the effects of this extreme temperature in the dry exhilarating atmosphere is not so unpleasant as might be imagined but the loneliness and dreariness of the prairie with two or three feet of snow would be appalling the cold is so great that you have to put on a buffalo coat cap and gloves before you can touch the stove to light the fire and not withstanding the coal stove which is always kept going in the hall to warm the upstairs room through which the pipe is carried the water in buckets standing alongside gets frozen then the blizzards which are storms of sleet and snow driven with a fierce wind and so thick that it is quite impossible to get out of doors or see it all would be too trying even to get across the yard to the further stable the men have to have a rope stretched as a guide so as not to lose their way and these storms sometimes as they did last year continue for three weeks consecutively the snow on the prairie is never very deep but it drifts a good deal and was to the depth of 12 feet on the west side of the house no work can be done much in the winter on account of the cold and snow so that from the middle of april when the snow begins to go until the beginning of october everything has to be rushed through and as many hands put on as they can possibly get who are all discharged at the end of the summer and only two or three kept to look after the animals after threshing these men have little or nothing to do digging out the well to water the horses teeming hay into the town on slays and fetching timber over from the other farm is about their only outdoor occupation all the animals in the shape of horses cows pigs and chickens are huddled together in the stables for warmth end of letter 17 read by sabella dentin all LibriVox files are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org letter 18 of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. Cecil B. Hall read for LibriVox.org into the public domain July 5th we have received our letters most unexpectedly today two of our gentlemen coming out last night from town brought sundry parcels newspapers etc but never thought of turning round to see if all was safe in back of carriage declaring it was such rough driving they could only think of how to hang on and not be jolted out so that by the time they got home letters a horse collar spare cushions etc were all gone it was too late to send after them but one of the men started back at 3 30 this morning finding most of the lost things strewn broadcast over the prairie even to within a short distance of Winnipeg he went on to feed and bait his horses at the same time inquiring for letters finding hours just come in and which would have lain there until our next opportunity our variety today has been the absence of our cook and we are again left in charge and we flatter ourselves the dinner was immense stewed beef rice mushrooms of which some were rather burnt others not quite done enough but that is a trifle Yorkshire pudding baking powder making an excellent substitute for eggs and an apple tart what more could you want we are quite ambitious now and have curries risoles etc a used to say he hoped we should not expect either him or his friends to eat our dishes as they would have to go to bed afterwards for at least three or four hours but they very much appreciate any change made in the menu we are longing to make bread which takes up a great deal of our fact totems time as it has to be set overnight and needed three or four times the following day but our beg to defer that amusement until within a few days of our departure as it would so entirely upset our American trip if we had to attend a's obsequies the bread is perfectly delicious so light and so white in color the flour is excellent it is not made with brewers yeast but with a yeast gem dissolved in warm water to which is added a handful of dried hops boiled beforehand for about 10 minutes and strained to that is added a cup full of flour a teaspoon of salt and one of sugar and the whole is put into a warm place to ferment when fermented which takes about 12 hours into a cool place where it will remain good and sweet sometime a recipe for bread making put 10 large spoonfuls of flour in a bread pan and add enough warm water to make it into a thin batter add half a pint of yeast mix well and having covered the bread pan with a cloth put it in a warm place near the stove overnight during the night it should rise and settle again in the morning add enough flour to make it into a thick dough and knead it on a bread board for 10 minutes put it back into the pan for two hours and let it rise again grease your baking tins knead your dough again and then fill the tins half full put them close to the stove to rise and when they have risen thoroughly grease the tops of your loaves with a little butter preventing the crust breaking and giving it a nice brown color and put them into the oven and bake for an hour to an hour and a quarter as e had not mrs g to wash up with her she enlisted one of the men and it was very funny to see him in a hat three times too big for his head a pipe in his mouth sleeves turned up drying the dishes and putting a polish on them talking of hats e has at last got one and a half it literally covers even her shoulders and at midday she declares she is as much in shade as under a Japanese umbrella for trimming a rope is poiled round the crown the only way to make it stay on the head of her gloves there is only the traditional one left the other is among the various articles we have left on the prairie bumped out of the buggy one day when she took them off to take care of them in a shower of rain that driving on the prairie is loathsome but if we want to get about it all we must do it as we don't like the riding horses at the present moment we have got one of the plow animals which is rideable the poor beast was frightened one night three weeks ago during a fearful storm of thunder and lightning and ran into the barb wire wounding itself horribly on the shoulders and neck the skin had to be sewn up and it cannot wear a collar for the present so we have it to ride if we like it is not a slug like the other two the thunderstorms here are frightful they are also very grand to watch as we can see them generally for miles before they come up we luckily have about 10 lightning conductors on the houses and stables so that we feel safe a thunderbolt fell pretty near the other day destroying about six posts and the wire of our north fence thanks to the rain we have lately had and the warm sun we find such quantities of mushrooms all over the prairie they grow to such a size we measured two one was 21 and one half inches around the other 21 very sweet and good and as pink underneath as possible the laborers have been so pleased with them that last sunday they began picking and cooking them early in the morning going on with relays more or less all day so that by the evening they couldn't look another in the face and it will be some time before they touch them again we have them for every meal our diaries here are more or less public property and as we have been nowhere or seen anything at all exciting since we last wrote i am going to copy down from the journals the incidents if any of the last week you seem to appreciate it the last time we sent you home a copy but you must forgive if it is somewhat of a repetition to our numerous letters the weather for one thing is daily chronicled as it takes up so much of our thoughts so much in the future depending on its being propitious just at this time of year when the seeds are all sown and the hay almost ready to cut tuesday beautiful day so warm and nice without being hot everything growing too marvelously even the seeds in the garden which we began to despair of are coming up the men have been very low on account of the scarcity of rain but we have had one or two thunderstorms lately which have done good and in this climate i do not think one ought ever to give up hopes e has been painting wildflowers which at this moment are in great profusion and variety all over the prairie most of the day varying her work by painting the doors of the room which were such an ugly color a pale yellow green that they have offended our artistic eyes ever since we have been here i am said to have wasted my whole morning watching my two days old chickens supposed to be the acme of intelligence and percosity the afternoon was spent in shingling the henhouse it was only rooved over with tar paper laid onto the rafters which answers well if the wind doesn't blow the paper about or that it has not had any holes but as the henhouse is only a lean to of the stable the roof of which we have been very busily painting it has been trodden upon a good deal in getting on and off the roof and in consequence the paper is much like a sponge letting any rain in and drenching the poor sitting fouls but with the shingles overlapping each other on the tar paper the roof will be quite watertight Wednesday our fact totem has gone into town and we are left in charge e parlor made Mr. B. Scullery made and I cook we have heaps of mushrooms at every meal a most agreeable change to the rice and white beans we have only hitherto had Thursday hot day a went into town to some meeting at the club we have been dreadfully tormented with mosquitoes today also the big bulldog fly which whenever the kitchen door was left a jar came into the house in myriads but we find that Keating's powder most effectually destroys them and in a very few seconds we have been busy making a mattress and pillow for Mr. H. really one does not realize how clever one is until our genius is put to the test in an establishment like this E and I drove up to the tent after supper with our handiwork and had great pleasure in seeing it filled with hay our drive was not the most enviable we had a wagon with no spring seat only a board which was always moving to sit upon one horse would tear along the other not pull an ounce in spite of applying the whip a good deal and we were nearly smothered with mosquitoes I never saw such clouds of them and on our return home there was a general rush for the bottle of ammonia which is the only thing that allays the irritation Friday excitements have been crowding in upon us today Bob one of the laborers who went into Winnipeg yesterday only arrived home at three a.m. this morning he left town at six but the night being dark he lost his way and finding himself on the edge of a marsh having a feed of oats with him wisely unhitched his horses tied them to the wheels and waited patiently for daylight just as we were sitting down to dinner three men who have been surveying the government ditch near here came and begged to be fed luckily we had soup and plenty of cold meat but our pudding the less said about that the better we always have the evaporated apples as stand by and they are delicious so with quantities of butter and milk we never need starve then in the evening when Mr. B. was going to the stable to serve out the oats for the horses he came in for the finish of an exciting race between two of the plow horses the jockeys or riders were told forthwith that a wagon was going into town the following morning and that their services would be dispensed with in future just as we were going to bed we heard a coming in and with him a stranger who turned out to be our cousin only fifteen days out from England via Canada he looks very delicate Saturday we had made no preparation for E.P. last night so he had to occupy the parlor sofa and says he slept like a top doubtlessly did not require much rocking as he had traveled through almost without stopping we were busy all this morning writing letters for the discharged miscreants to take into town it has been very hot and close all day I rode up to the tent and hurried home seeing a thunderstorm coming up which was grand and it was very lucky that I got home as it began to rain at three o'clock and is still pouring in perfect torrents at ten o'clock p.m. Sunday the yard is in such a fearful state of dirt and the water standing inches deep that it has been nearly impossible to move beyond the door I put on A's long waterproof boots and managed to get as far as my henhouse and found two of my chickens dead another sitting hen has been a source of great anxiety as she will peck her chicks to death as they hatch and out of a sitting of eleven eggs we have only been able to save five birds a wet Sunday hangs very heavily on our hands here as there is nothing to be done Monday big wash as usual all the morning and just as E. and I were to drive a wagon over to Mr. Boyle for some oats which required fetching we had quite a scare a lady and a gentleman were seen to be riding up we both of us rushed upstairs to put on some clean aprons to do honor to our guests who with another man also out from town remained the whole afternoon we have never dined as many as nine people in our vast departments before but we managed very nicely we have had heavy showers with high wind and the thermometer down to fifty all the afternoon we tried to persuade our lady visitor to stay the night a offering to give up his room but she persisted in going back and I am afraid will have got very wet in spite of E. lending her waterproof jacket Tuesday the household had a long turn in bed this morning Mr. B. only getting down at about seven fifteen when various things were offered him to prop open his eyelids when he did appear the weather has been slightly better than yesterday but the wind has been very high and it was really quite cold buried by slight showers of rain in the morning in the afternoon we all made hay I worked my rake until my horse beat me by refusing to move in any direction except home words and I had to call a who was stone getting to my rescue he with judicious chastisement in the shape of a kick or so made the horse work E. and E. P. loaded hay thanks to the late rains the marshes were heavy and they very nearly struck once or twice in going through them there were no mosquitoes which was a blessing but one is never troubled with them in high wind end of letter eighteen read by Cibella Denton all Librivox files are in the public domain for more information please visit Librivox.org letter nineteen of a lady's life on a farm in Manitoba by missus Cecil B. Hall read for Librivox.org into the public domain July nine you should have seen A. and his equipage start into Winnipeg two days ago he and the men from the tent had to go in and bring out a wagon and the new Cortland wagon my present and they had to take in the broken buggy to be mended so they started with a foreign hand to their cart the broken buggy tied on behind and another pair of horses behind that again the buggy they say very nearly capsized going over the bridge of the creek when near Winnipeg otherwise they got on beautifully but it was a funny arrangement altogether and they seem to cover a quarter of a mile of ground as they left here Winnipeg grows in a most astonishing way every time we go in a new avenue or street seems to have started up immigrants they say are coming in at the rate of a hundred a day a few years ago the population was about five thousand in eighteen seventy eight about ten now over forty thousand a fourth of whom are living under canvas it was estimated last winter that the building operations this season would amount to four million dollars but double that amount is nearer the mark and many are obliged to abandon the idea of building on account of the difficulty of getting timber and bricks every house or shanty is leased almost before it is finished Winnipeg as you know was formerly known as Fort Gary and one of the chief trading stations of the Hudson Bay Company of the old fort i am sorry to say there is very little left and that is shortly to be swept away for the continuation of main street the governor now occupying the old house is to have a splendid building which with the houses of legislature are in the course of construction rather farther away from the river the town is built at the confluence of two great rivers the red and the Cinnabon the former rising in minnesota and flowing into Lake Winnipeg one hundred and fifty miles north navigable for four hundred miles the Cinnabon has many steamers on it but the navigation being more difficult the steamers often sticking on the rapids it is not much in vogue with immigrants going west particularly now that the railway takes them so much more rapidly there is a large suburb of the town on the other side of the red river called st. Boniface the sea of a roman catholic archbishop possessing a beautiful cathedral and a great educational school for young ladies for some reason or other we never managed to get over there to see it though the cathedral is a grand landmark for a great distance the railway traffic is also enormous during the flood four thousand freight wagons were delayed at st. Vincent now they are coming in at the rate of four thousand per week and still people cannot get their implements stores etc fast enough we have asked several times for some turpentine at one of the shops and the answer always given is it is at the depot but not unloaded we have been wanting turpentine to mix with the brown paint with which we are painting the dining room floors but first of all the paint fails and then the turpentine and i fully expect our beautiful work of art will not be finished before we leave end of letter 19 read by sabella dentin all libravox files are in the public domain for more information please visit libravox.org letter 20 of a lady's life on a farm in manitoba by mrs. Cecil b hall read for libravox.org into the public domain july 12th it is very certain that no gentleman ought to come out to this country or when here can expect to prosper unless he has some capital heaps of energy and brains or is quite prepared to sink the gentleman and work as a common laborer the latter command the most wonderful wages there is such a demand for them that one can hardly pick and choose a plow boy gets from four to six pounds a month an experienced man from eight to ten pounds besides their board and lodging a mechanic or artisan from fourteen to sixteen shillings a day women's servants are very scarce they get from four to six pounds a month we were so astonished at the wages in new york the head gardener in the navy yard was receiving one hundred and fifty pounds a year his underlings seventy five pounds the groom one hundred pounds it is surprising to me that the whole of the poor classes in england and ireland hearing of these wages do not immigrate particularly when nowadays the steerage in the passenger ships seems to be so comfortable and that for about six pounds they can be landed on this side of the atlantic we have nine britishers and two canadians on this farm and the amount of ground broken up does everyone great credit considering that the whole place is only of a year and a half's growth since we arrived we can mark rapid and visible strides towards completion the house has been banked up and grassed a fence put to enclose all the yard and we have actually had the audacity to talk about a tennis ground which would take an immense deal of making from the unevenness of the soil the water having no real outflow makes itself little gullies everywhere which would be very difficult to fill up level but i don't know that until we are acclimatized to the mosquitoes said to be the happy result of a second year's residence that we should feel inclined to play tennis as we could only indulge in that diversion of an evening when work was ended and that is just the worst time for these pests they spoil all enjoyment we can never sit out under the veranda after supper which we should so like to do these warm evenings they bite through everything and the present fashion of tight sleeves to our gowns is a trial as no stuffs not even thin dogskin are proof against them and our faces arms and just above our boots are deplorable sights ammonia is the only remedy to allay the irritation i am not drawing a long bow when i say that in places the air is black with them the poor horses and cows are nearly maddened with them if turned out to graze and the moment the poles across the rotor withdrawn they gallop back to their stables the mosquitoes are great big yellow insects about half an inch long the house and country at boyd's farm is much prettier than this from the lot of trees around it and the ground not being so flat but we wouldn't change for all the world it is so stuffy and the flies and mosquitoes are much worse there than here where we catch the slightest breeze of wind which always drives them away we were dreading making the hay in the marshes on account of them i do not think we shall suffer much from the heat as nearly always even in the hottest part of the day there is a breeze and as yet the nights are deliciously cool we have never found one blanket too much covering we talk of going an expedition up west next week taking the carriage and horses and driving as far as fort ellis i don't know that we either of us look forward to the expedition very much as we fear we shall have to rough it too greatly but on the other hand it seems a pity not to see something more of the country there are hardly any ends or resting places the accommodations may be fearful we hear that about 14 people are lodged in one room as an ordinary rule a has gone into winnipeg to make arrangements and if he finds we cannot depend on the ends we shall take a tent and camp by the towns going in for our meals to restaurants end of letter 20 read by sabella dentin all libra vox files are in the public don't