The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1883-05-17
MANITOBA.
Some Facts About the Country by Per
son of Experience.

VI iApOiISuOCs
From a recent letter to the Chicago
Tribune we extract the following:
A farmer who goes TO Manitoba with
his wife and family and very limited
means, say co lple of hundred dollars.
will have very tough fight during the
ilrst two or three years. The great
majority of emigrant farmers cannot af-
ford TO hire help, so that they have to
break and seed their own land, haul
their logs, and put up some kind of a
rough shanty to live in as soon as they
get on the land. If they are too poor to
buy COW or few pigs the struggle for
existence is made all the harder by the
absence of milk, butter. and meat, all of
which are very dear to buy. If, howey-
er, the emigrating farmer can afford to
take his own implements, plows, har-
rows, ETC., and also can buy COW, all
well and good, although, if he has 10
purchase either yoke of cattle or
horses, this viii considerably reduce a
small capital. On the purchases of i'm
plements time can always be obtained
at fair interest. As soon as the spring
commences there is literally not mo-
the end of the fall. As much land is
broken as possible, so as to secure good
crop for the following year; and on the
breaking potatoes, turnips, cabbage and
oats, wheat and barley may be sown; so
that as little time may elapse as possi-
bic during which the farmer has to buy
food. SO quickly does the grain grow,
and the farmer is kept so busy with 9TH
er things, that seeding time seems hard
ly finished before it is harvest. OF
course, as the animals are stall-fed all
through the winter, it is a most import
ant matter to get sufficient hay cut, sc
that there will be no necessity to buy
it There is also the building of sta
Dle-a work which is generally COM
pleted about thrashing time, SO that the
straw can be thrown over it to form a
roof. Wood has to be hauled for the
winter, and happy is the man who is
within two or three miles of good dry
wood. If there is no dry wood green
must be hauled in the summer. and by
the time winter comes it will be fairly
dry. At the end of the fall, before the
ground is frozen, it is necessary to bank
up all around the shanty with mud, so
as to keep the frost out as much as pos
sible- Then comes seven months of
hard uncompromising winter. | have
seen statements that You don't feel the
cold in Manitoba, because it is so dry,
and because of the ozone in the air.
No doubt a man who has sufficient capi-
tai to put up a good frame house, fur
nished with box-stoves. and who can
afford to buy warm buffalo robes, and
who needn't 60 out unless he feels in
clined, having the advantage of being
able to hire labor, does not feel the cold
so much. But is not Manitoba put for
ward as a place, and the place, for poor
struggling farmers, more especially of
Great Britain, who can hardly make
both ends meet there, to 90 to? And can
such men afford to buy lumber and skin
coats and furs.
Not much. Therefore to such men /
say be careful how you read the state
ments put forward by the agents for
Manitoba, and do not be too ready to
believe everything contained in such
statements. When the thermometer
registers so and 60 degrees below zero.
it must indeed be particularly dry if YOU
don t feel the cold. Whether. therefore
it is worth a mans while to emgrate to
country where there is spring, sum-
mer and fall OF five short months, dur
ing which all blowing, seeding, haying,
harvesting and building has to be done,
and then to endure seven months of the
severest winter, with an average ther-
mometer Of 40 degrees below zero, while
there are other countries which offer
equal advantages rs to production of
grain or stock, without any of the ter
rible climatic drawbacks which are so
carefully shelved when Manitoba is put
forward as field for emigration, is a
question which seems to me to have on
ly one obvious answer