The Opelousas courier., 1899-02-18
WORLDS LARGEST FARM,
SITUATED IN CANADA AND CON.
TAlNs 100 SQUARE MILES,

A1o Al ~
the public, though we'll understood to
the grain trade Of the Northwest. that
IN the new and far Canadian North.
west, IN a province whose very name
is a synonym for desolation, in Assini-
hola, 1000 miles to the north and
west from the head Of Lake SUPERIOR.
are situate some of the largest and
most successful wheat farms in the
world. One Of them, the Bell Farm.
Is without much doubt, the largest
connected block of land devoted TO
the raising Of wheat to be found on the
globe. This farm is owned by a syn
dlcate of Englishmen, who have made
1t q sort of ~staking-out ground for
thelr younger sons, III so far as they
havepeen able, and have subsequent
~ wondered why their profits were no
greater, though the yield Of grain was
SO large, forgetting that these same
younger sons had to be provided for
and that salary lists mounted up.
1t IS named after Major Bell, the
military manager Of the estate. and
mas an aree Of ten miles aquare, or 100
square miles, of which 45, 900 acres,
or ABOUT three-quarters. is under cul-
t1vatlon. This farm is in a country
which d few years ago was the last
stalking ground of the buffalo. AMI
where the relics Of butfaloes and of
Indian battles are still thick on the
ground. A few miles southerly from
Regina is an alkali plain. sixty miles
across, that is covered with the bones
of butfaloes and Indians, the latter
from the results of the last fierce bat
tie OF the Grows and Blackfeet, not
many years ago. All through this
country piles Of buffalo bones, some of
them 300 to 1000 feet long, and per
haps 100 feet wide, and as high as a
man could reach, have been gathered
together and shipped east to fertiliz-
ing works.
In tAis district, where for hundreds
of miles the train passes ne houses
nor titled soil, where there are millions
and millions Of acres apparently as
good as those that are yielding thirty
to forty bushels of wheat to the acre,
where these lands can be bought for
from 81 to 50 an acre, with the best Of
rail facilities, the Bell Farm people
have been able to sell thousands of
acres at 50 to $40 an acre. and in one
case the purchaser was subsequently
enabled to turn his purchase Of $40
acres at S25 All acre to an incoming
farmer. This latter price, though it
seems very high, when the vast
stretches OF arabic and nnoccupied
land all around are considered, is not
so high but that it permits good inter-
est on the investment, year after year,
by wheat farming.
The problems Of farming in these
great plains that stretch northwesterly
300 miles from the head Of Lake Su-
perior, into a latitude that further
east is a region of cold SO intense that
scarcely any vegetation will grow,
have been long in solution, and have
ruined many a man who has struggled
against them. The soil is, generally
speaking, a heavy, black loan, and
the rainfall is very little, sometimes
amounting to but a few light showers
during an entire summer. It has been
found necessary to SO handle this soil
as to preserve the moisture and to
keep all the water that comes from
the melting SHOWS of the long, cold
winters, and to do this a new method
of soil culture has been inaugurated.
Fall blowing, SO common and SO much
desired in the prairies of the Dakotas
and Western Minnesota, is said to be
worse than no blowing at all, and
nothing is done to lands after harvest
A third Of the land under cult
walton is allowed to lie tallow all the
time, go that but two-thirds is in crop
in any M season. By such farming
methods Northwestern farmers are
able to raise crops of from thirty to
forty bushels OF hardScotch fife wheat
to the acre.
Such q farm as the Bell, with 49,
600 to so, 600 acres under cultivation,
and two-thirds of this immense land
in crop every year, yielding at the
rate of thirty bushels to the acre, gives
a crop of from 750, 200 to 900, 900
bushels Of grain. But this crop is
1000 miles from navigation on
Lake Superior, where the wheat Of
the Canadian lands in direct
competition for the export and East
ern markets with that of the North
western prairies of the United States.
Wheat is worth within six to seven
cents as much on these farms, 1000
beyond the jumping off place, as
is in Duluth, where buyers for the
worlds food are congregated. These
farmers are now getting actually
more money for their grain than are
those of the famed Red River Valley,
ESQ miles from N of the chief mar
kets of the world. The demand from
mills in Western Canada, those Of the
OgiIvies and others, and their success
in selling -four in both Europe and
the antipodes, has had much to do
with this condition.
In these hyperborean regions, along
the ffty-frst parallel, the cold is not
far different from that of the prairies
TO the south of the American line.
The thermometer sometimes gets to
forty and fifty degrees below zero, but
it does not stay there, and this cold
IS not felt more than the twenty to
thirty sometimes enjoyed in Mime
sofa. Cattle do not run out free all
but horses do, and come out
n the spring fat and hardy, having
ed through the cold months on the
Tried grasses of the prairies that they
nave been able to reach by paving off
he snow. These grasses seem to