The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-11

OF the broad and Dlll0WeC prairie,
Where the warm chinook will tarry
While the birds are making merry In the west
Now the neds are growing golden in the west.
And baby bird is holding to his nest.
But 10 morrow he'll be trying
And the next day he'll be flying
Where the warm chinook Is signing In the west.
PRINCE ALBERT. N. W. T., Sept. Ito
lay ones crowned head on a pillow pray
ing God that the fort may not fall before
another day has dawned, to wait in the
White House for the click Of the key that
shall bring glad or sad news-these be
anxious hours for the King, crowned or I'M
crowned, but not more so than the summer
long vigil the Northwest farmer keeps
over his crop.
They are veritable gamblers, these North
west farmers. They risk whole years
work on wheat alone.
The wheat land is all prepared in the
autumn, and in the spring the farmer has
only to harrow it over and drill in his seed.
That done he begins ploughing his fallow
and watching the while the growing grain.
If he is on new land he will plough shallow
early in the summer then back-set deeper
in the fall. By the following spring this
sod will have rotted, and from these new
lands they get thirty and forty, and some
times as high as fifty, bushels OF wheat
to the acre-h the frost and hail hold of.
Insurance companies now insure crops
against hail, and by and by we shall see men
insuring against frost as well, for that would
be good risk. Each years cultivation
lessons the danger from frost, and when
land has been under ltivation for seven
years the danger disappears almost en-
tirely.
But the hail may fall at any time on
the just and the unjust.
One night was leaving Brandon, Mani
toba, Oh late train. The cars were crowded
full Of farmer folk and village people going
home from the farmers fair.
The day had been extremely hot, and
when we were half an hour out great
black cloud came out OF the south. The
approaching storm was hanking us. and as
1t rolled northward the women watched it
anxiously. One spoke OF the children,
wondering how Jim could manage to stay
with the little ones and meet her at the
station at the same time.
"Just my luckl' said a middle aged wo-
man. Lived here in thirty mile O. Brandon
seventeen year and this is the first time
ever see Brandon
For n quarter Of an hour the Lightning
PLAYED constantly upon the black blanket
that ourtained the southern sky. The
Imperial Limited, which had lost time in
the forest fires in British Columbia, raced
with the storm as II trying to slip by.
Suddenly the deluge came. Windows
were slammed down; the lightning crashed.
Women covered their faces, weeping for
their little ones left alone, many Of them
fnr Grat in their Evos RoQrdaH
men pressed their eager faces against the
wet windows, listening for the wind that
would lay the heavy grain fiat, or the patter
Of hail that would beat it into the ground.
An awful fash that seemed to hang and
hover over the flying train for half second
was followed by thunder clap that splin-
tered telegraph pole beside my window.
Old storm-scarred pioneers glanced at one
another, shaking their heads
One man walked out In the vestibule,
came back and as he strolled down the
aisle reported to the eager passengers the
progress OF the storm
Good rain" he commented. "Not much
wind, but"-He stopped short, gripping the
back of seat, for at that moment a shower
of hail began to rattle on the roof.
Five minutes later the fury of the storm
va. past The men were chatting women
laughing and children sneezing, for the
rain and hail had cooled the air greatly
How many times in a summer these peo-
pie pass through such anxious hours
And now at last the days Of dread are
over The harvest time is here
The golden grain is being gathered in a
thousand fields, and a month from now
millions of bushels of wheat, worth millions
of dollars, will be pouring into the granaries
and elevators. and new made money fresh
from Gods mine, old mother earth, will be
falling into and filing the vaults OF the
savings banks-and savings banks that are
safe
Verify, these are wealth producers, these
farmers who bring big punches of money
out of the earth. The Northwest Ia literally
alive with men who went West poor as a
church mouse, but who have in a single
decade made themselves and their fami-
lies comfortable.
At Gladstone on the Portage plains.
there dwells a farmer who used to carry
his carpenters tools across from Windsor
to Detroit and vice versa as he could
get employment. Twelve years ago he
came West, homesteading on the great
wheat plains.
He broke his raw land with oxen and got
good crop the second year. The second
harvest his third year in the West, grew
and grew beautifully.
Alas! the hail came one night, and the
next day dawned on utter desolation. His
fine wheat was threshed out, the very straw
was beaten into shreds, and the unhappy
homesteader was left with a farm nude
save for the 81, 100 mortgage that covered 1t
Did he despair? Oh, no! Pioneers never
quit.
At the end Of another three years he had
paid OF his mortgage and bought another
quarter, and three years later he added
another half. When met him and pumped
this story from him he was feeling about
In the wild grass west Of his farm.
He was, as learned later, feeling for the
stakes that had lately been set by the ngi-
neers who are pathfinding for the Grand
Trunk Pacific, which il to plough through
the centre OF Portage plains and up
the middle Of the great mesa immedi.
ately north OF fertile QuAppelle Valley
where the wheat this year will average not
hat Ill. - L..