Farmer's Glory

by A G Street

  One part of a bank manager’s job was to go shooting in the fall. By this means, as he drove from farm to farm, he got a pretty accurate idea of whether the particular farmer was working his land or not. This was important, as the whole country was run on credit. A young bachelor, who had worked steadily in the district for a year or two, might purchase a chunk of prairie for from ten to fifteen dollars an acre, paying one dollar per acre down, and leaving the remainder of the purchase price over a period of ten years at six per cent, paying off an annual instalment of the loan. His horses and implements might be purchased on the same basis over three years. It was very necessary for the bank, which financed this sort of thing, with the character of the young man as the only security, to know whether he was getting down to it, and breaking the prairie.

  English banks have to me an almost church-like atmosphere. One enters them reverently. One is ushered into the manager’s office as into the holy of holies, and personally, I always associate an English bank manager with striped trousers, spats, and a grave seriousness of manner like a doctor.

  His Canadian counterpart was very different, in speech, in dress, and in habit of mind. The Beaver Lake manager drove up one day about eleven o’clock, and found us busy getting a load of hay from a hayrick. ‘Say,’ he drawled, ‘what time do you boys have grub?’ We told him at twelve o’clock. ‘Guess I’ll shoot around a spell, and feed with you.’ He arrived at the shanty before we did, and when we went in to dinner, he had the stove going, the kettle on, and a pan of potatoes on the fire.

  At that date horses were the only means of transport, and I learnt to ride as a matter of course, and to ride well. I do not mean that I had a good seat on a horse or anything like that, but I could stick on anything, and make it go where I wanted, which was the main thing. In seeding time one year, the only horse not hard at work was an unbroken two-year-old, and I rode him round the settlement that summer with no saddle, and only a rope round his neck. Anything was preferable to walking.

  One of our neighbours to the south of us, Billy Page, had three wolfhounds, and we used to go wolf-hunting in the winter. We had to choose the right day, or the hounds had no chance. When the snow was hard enough to carry both hound and wolf, or when it was soft enough to let them both through as they ran, were the only possible opportunities. Most of the time the hounds would go through, while a wolf could run lightly over the top, and laugh at their efforts to catch him.

  I do not think that we were very popular when engaged in this sport, as we carried wire-cutters, but we always went back and repaired any damage the following day. Billy was a harum-scarum individual, who would take any risk. Once we ran a wolf to ground into a short badger hole. We dismounted, peered down the hole, and could see the wolf’s head—he had turned round—about eighteen inches down. To dig was impossible, as the soil was frozen hard for two feet down, and as we were miles from any house we could not get any tools.

  ‘No go, Billy,’ I said. ‘Guess the blighter’s done us.’

  ‘See him in hell first. If that God damn son of a bitch thinks he can get away with that, he’s got another guess coming. You mind the horses and watch he stays put, and I’ll fix him.’

  I stayed by the hole with the three hounds scratching and yowling at its mouth, while Billy disappeared into a bluff near by. Presently he came back with a piece of straight willow, about two feet long and as thick as a man’s wrist. He lay down over the hole, and worked the stick into the wolf’s jaws as a gag. Then he reached into the hole with both hands, keeping the stick tight up against his chest, gripped the two ears of the wolf, drew him out, and tossed him to the waiting hounds. I would not have risked it for all the gold in the Klondyke.

  On occasions Billy would go to Beaver Lake, and return home rather merry. He always got home all right, as Blacky, his horse, would stick to the trail unattended. His road home ran through our farm, and one summer we fenced across it, and opened an alternative route in a different place. We were fencing a new horse pasture, and one of its corners came near the old trail.

  Billy had gone to Beaver Lake that morning by a different route, and had attempted to return through our place. I was alone that night, and about twelve o’clock, I was awakened by Billy blundering into the shanty.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘Doh know,’ he mourned. ‘Comin’ home from the Lake, shtruck wire. Turned west, shtruck wire. Turned south, shtruck wire. Bloody well fenced in.’

  I laughed and lit the lamp. ‘We’ve altered the trail,’ I said. ‘Wait a bit while I get some clothes on.’ But Billy was asleep on the floor, so I covered him up with a horse blanket, and went out to find Blacky tied to our new fence. I drove the buggy home, put Blacky in our stable, and returned to the shanty to find Billy still snoring. He was too heavy for me to get him into bed, so I left him there until next morning.

  Deer-shooting was a very short season, only about a fortnight in December. Four of us, the best number for a party, went in a sleigh one season up to the bush in the Riding Mountains some twenty miles north of Beaver Lake. This was the only occasion when I made good use of my white tennis trousers and sweater. You had to wear white in the bush for two reasons. One was that it gives you a better chance to get near your quarry, as you always have a white background of snow, and the other was that if you wore any dark colour some silly ass would very likely shoot at you in mistake for a moose. It was also best to take a pair of white horses for the same reason. One man took up a grey and a bay one season, and as he was watering them at a muskeg hole one morning, someone shot the bay for him. When we got up to the bush we bagged a log hut made by some previous hunters. We were lucky to do this, as otherwise we should have had to build one ourselves.

  This log hut was large enough to accommodate all of us and our team of horses. As a general rule we took it in turns to stay in camp and cook, whilst the other three hunted in the surrounding bush, using a pocket compass as a help to find their way back to camp. Usually we hunted in singles, but as I was a new hand at the game I went with Billy Page, or I should probably have lost myself. Once we returned to camp empty-handed to find that Haines, who had been cooking in camp that day, had shot a moose, which had walked through the camp clearing. I was told that this was not an uncommon thing to happen, as the hunting of the other three in the country around the camp disturbs the deer, who may then walk near the camp.

  Deer shooting was fifty per cent luck, and fifty per cent refraining from smoking. There is rarely any shooting skill required. The two deer I shot were both killed at about fifty yards range. We scouted around until we found a fresh track, which we followed in hope. As our white togs rendered us almost invisible, we were able sometimes to spot the deer before they spotted us, but if we had smoked we should never have got near to anything. It was necessary to take our rifles to pieces and wipe all the oil off the locks and striking mechanism. If you omit doing this when you pull the trigger nothing happens. The oil will have frozen up, and the striker cannot fall.

  There were dense swamps of tamarack trees in the bush, the trunks being so close together that a moose had a difficulty in getting through them owing to the width of his antlers. As it was absolutely still, if you stood quietly, you could sometimes hear the ‘tap tap’ of the deer’s antlers against the tree trunks as he wound his way through them perhaps half a mile away.

  During the day’s hunting you might see one of your companions working his way through the bush following a track. If you placed yourself in his line of advance, and stood perfectly still, he would in all probability blunder right into you before he saw you, more especially if you held your rifle behind you. Apart from your face, your white clothing made you a part of the landscape.

  There was only the one room in a bush hu’, which did duty as kitchen, dining-room, bedroom, and stable for the horses. In the evenings we played bridge with the horses contentedly munching hay near by. In one seat at the table you had your back to the horses’ heads, and they would often
cease their munching to gaze tranquilly at our gambling. When I cut that seat I always thought that they were mildly astonished at some of my calls, as doubtless was my long-suffering partner. In after years I have many times wished a human spectator of my card play into a warmish region, but I never minded the horses’ sweet-smelling hay-scented breath behind my shoulder.

  There were both moose and elk in the bush and we got specimens of each. The law allowed only bulls to be killed, and the Game Warden examined all sleighs as they returned from the bush. I never considered that it was a good law, and certainly it did not have the desired effect, as it led to cows being killed just the same. Bulls were tough eating, but of course carried the desired head, so you killed the first cow you saw, and trusted to luck to get a bull later on, so as to have his head to put with the cow meat.

  I cannot remember any other definite form of pleasure, but we always seemed to be having fun of some kind or another. I suppose that when one is young and fit, one does not require many outside aids to merry-making. The joy of life is in you, and finds expression no matter where you may be. Very certainly, I was never so carefree before I went to Canada—boarding-school is a serious business—and I can truthfully say that I have never been so free from care since that time. Everything was funny. You were funny. So were your neighbours, your horses, and your other animals. In summer the mosquitoes were funny, and in winter the cold was funny. Anyway, that was the best way to look at it.

  We kept a small pig in the stable one winter, having railed off a two-horse stall as a sty for him. At one point in the outside wall of his quarters there was a crack in the boards. This was the piglet’s first and only experience of a Canadian winter, and he was rash enough to sleep one night with his tail against the boards near this crack. Next morning his tail was frozen to the side of the stable, and we found him running round the pen in great indignation with a red dot where his tail should have been. This never healed over, no matter what ointment we used, but glowed like a rear light until he came to his appointed end.

  Of course, part of this carefree feeling of which I have written was due to the fact that the average bachelor was responsible to no one. The country was sparsely populated, and as a general rule one’s actions only affected oneself. You did not worry about what other people might think. If you wanted to do a thing you did it, and humped the consequences. And I do not remember that any of us thought about consequences at all. Whatever happened you could only let yourself down, family considerations being non-existent.

  One fall after threshing was over, Billy Page and I drove about fourteen miles west to a farm where the farmer was selling his turkeys and pigs, by means of sweepstakes on pigeon-shooting and target competitions. There was a large crowd and we did pretty well. Billy won a pig, and we got nine turkeys between us. There was very little room in the buggy for us by the time we had got all our spoils aboard, all alive-o, but we squeezed in, and set off for home about 11 p.m.

  About half-way home the trail ran close by a stable belonging to a friend of ours named Ernest Hudson. It must have been nearly one o’clock and I was nearly asleep, when Billy pulled up.

  ‘Say, can you get hold of the rifle? Hudson’s turkey’s roosting on the stable roof.’

  ‘Don’t be a damn fool, we can’t haul any more. ’Sides, Ernie’s quite likely to loose off at us if he wakes up.’

  ‘Gimme the rifle. Ernie’ll never know who did it till we tell him.’

  I fished out the rifle, and took the reins. I had a job to get Blacky to stand still, as it was coldish and he wanted to be home, but presently the rifle went off, and so did he at full gallop.

  When I got him steadied down, I asked Billy if he had hit the turkey. ‘Bet your sweet life. Plumb centre. Hark at Ernie’s dog. I guess we’ll slide.’

  We slid.

  Two or three days afterwards we received a bill from Hudson through the post. It ran like this:

  Messrs. Page and Blanchard.

  Dr. to

  Ernest Hudson.

  To shooting one turkey 3 dollars

  To shooting same without permission 30 —

  To waking me up 300 —

  To penalty if you do not come over on Friday and help eat the said turkey 3000 —

  —————

  This can be spread over 33 years at 33 per cent 3333 dollars

  —————

  We went over on the Friday, and took him two live turkeys and a bottle of White Horse whisky.

  All this sort of thing may seem childish, but at the time it was jolly good fun.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Although I do not want to make this book in any way a technical one, I think that some description of the system of farming in North-west Manitoba should be given. Unlike most types of farming, it is possible in this instance to begin at the actual beginning, that is, at the virgin prairie.

  The first year this was ploughed, and disked in the summer, and left in that state all the winter. The follow-spring it was harrowed to a fine tilth, and then drilled to corn, usually oats. Towards the end of my stay wheat was becoming more popular for new breaking in our district, as the new variety, ‘Marquis’, was coming into fashion. This matured a week to ten days earlier than ‘Red Fife’, which was the general Canadian variety.

  This earlier maturing made all the difference, as we were far enough north to make the growing of Red Fife a chancy business. If frost occurs before wheat is cut, it yields only a poor sample of chicken feed, which is valueless for milling. I should imagine that the Marquis variety widened the wheat belt twenty miles farther north for a considerable distance across Canada.

  Generally speaking, the rotation was Prairie, Breaking, Wheat, Oats, Oats, Oats, Barley, then Summer Fallow, and repeat the six corn crops again. There was some land in our district which had been cropped under this rotation for thirty years, and still grew good crops. The summer fallow was necessary every seventh year, not only as a rest for the land during which time it could regain fertility, but in order to destroy weeds.

  The wild oat was the chief bane of the farmer. As in this country, it was shed out of the head on to the ground before the tame oats were ripe enough to cut, and in the fall it would not germinate, but lay hidden quite safely under the snow all the winter and came up with the corn crop the following spring. The only way to reduce them was to summer fallow. In July, the last year’s stubble set aside for fallowing was waist high with wheat, tame oats, wild oats, and pigweed. This made a good green manuring when ploughed in.

  Although grain formed the bulk of the farming, poultry, pigs, and dairying were increasing amongst the married farmers. The lack of these was the one great advantage in working for a bachelor, as all the work in connection with these other branches of farming was extra to the grain farmer’s day. On a married man’s farm you worked the usual hours in the field from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., doing this other work in the very early morning and after supper. Besides, these things had to be done on Sundays as well. I have seen Henderson’s hired men, after a day’s ploughing until 7 p.m., go out after supper to get the cows in from the pasture. After milking, the milk was carried up to the house and separated. The skim milk was then carried back to the yard and then the pigs and calves had to be fed. Presumably they had the remainder of the day for recreation. The cream was sold to a creamery in Beaver Lake, being sent in about three times weekly. Of course, one got better grub with a married farmer, but against that one was rather more definitely the ‘hired man’. It was impossible to preserve that relationship between two bachelors living in a one-roomed shanty.

  Pigs and poultry went together always. Hens laid eggs all right in the spring and summer without much attention to feeding, but the great difficulty was to keep them warm in the winter. Accordingly, the fowl house was usually a loft immediately above the pigsties. In the sties you put as many pigs as would go in and then a few extra, pursuing the same stocking policy with the poultry. This may sound unhealthy for both, but it was very neces
sary. Of course, I am writing of pre-war conditions, and possibly some better means has been devised by now. Anyway, if a hen stayed outside the house at night in the winter, and roosted on a bush, her feet would freeze before the morning.

  Work was king, men being of secondary consideration. Machines and horses cost money, and must be kept in repair or rested in due season, as otherwise they would break down. But men’s powers were presumably elastic, and their endurance could be strained indefinitely, the only limit being when the job was done. And the men never broke down or gave up. A man who did so would have been considered a ‘poor tool’, and we were all too proud to acquire that reputation.

  Nearly all the farmers were owner occupiers. It is true that many of them were not the absolute owners, but were paying for the land in yearly instalments, with the fairly certain prospect of owning their farms in due course with average luck. There were few tenant farmers, and these rarely paid a cash rent, but rented ‘on shares’ with their landlord. In such cases the landlord took one-third of the grain crop as rent, the amount being determined on the thresherman’s tally of bushels. Any other return from dairying, pig-keeping and the like was the sole property of the tenant.

  Threshing from the field cost per bushel: five cents for oats, six cents for barley, and seven cents for wheat. For this charge the thresher owner provided the pitchers, the wagon teams, and threshed the grain into the farmer’s wagons or granaries. All the grain passed through a Government stamped weigher, which mechanically recorded the number of bushels before they left the machine.