The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1905-09-26
Letter from the West.

Nelson Burr Gaskill, son of Judge Jo-
seph H. Gaskill, who is on trip through
the West, wrote the following letter, which
will doubtless be interesting to many
Burlington county people. He says:
II wrote you last week from Winnipeg.
To-day | am writing from Harry Lam
sons farm, some 300 miles farther to the
northwest Mr.. Lamson is foreman for
Scott Logan, formerly of this county
The post Office is Rokeby, Assiniboa,
Canada, and is some four miles from the
farm, across the prairie, where its two red
elevators stick up like the Smithville
tower. The nearest neighbor is a mile
away. Out to the west runs an oat field.
sea of shocks mile or more in length,
587 acres in single field To the east is
field of wheat, nearly all cut, about
half as large as the other. This is Uncle
SCOTS section 16. North and south the
prairie is unbroken except for little bunch
es of scrub and the very few houses which
stick up four square out of the hatness.
The world seems very wide up here.
1t was Wednesday that spent in Win
nipeg. On Thursday | came up here
over the Canadian Pacific, leaving Winni
peg at 45 in the morning. The train
was crowded and the all day journey was
from sitting down so much. The country
would have been very uninteresting ex-
cept for the fact that the tremendous crops
appeared everywhere and also because
ducks flew out of every slough we came
to, and prairie chickens flew away from
the tracks as the train went by. / wanted
to get out and have a shoot. Then cattle
were always getting on the tracks and
the engineers would have to slow down
and toot the whistle like mad to scare
them away. / wondered what it must
have been like when the buffalo were so
thick
One of the men in the seat with me had
been a homesteader up here and described
at length the tough job of breaking up the
new land but they all to seem to think
the winter here is fine. 1t gets and stays
cold, dry, MINDLESS cold, that is not ac-
companied by much snow. The worst
of it is the same as the Floridans say
of the summer-the length. They have
bad little frost already and are expecting
the first snow any time Then the weather
will settle into an Indian summer until
October. The air is magnificent, the most
|invigorating climate | have ever expert
enced, cold at night and sometimes even
all day, although to-day has been I'M
COMFORTABLY WdTm Will 4cdNy ClOlutS.
You know what the prairie town is like,
and Yorkton is just like hundreds of 9TH
ers. l spent the night at very funny
and very bad hotel and droYe out here,
fifteen miles, the next morning. Lamson
gave me good welcome. He is in the
midst of harvesting on a scale that is new
to me. Eight or ten men, II horses and
four eight feet binders. One of the men
is Hungarian, two Norwegian, one Scotch,
the rest Galicians. The hired girl is Hun
garian, also. Such a lot of food l never
saw cooked and eaten. 1t is simply enor-
nous. l went out to shock up yesterday
and made quite hit by sticking to it all
morning. The men all expected to see
me quit. 1t is mighty good for the appe-
tite. The amount ate is simply shameful.
Aud the cold nights make splendid sleep
ing.
In the afternoon took the driving horse
and an old buggy and went shooting
The prairie is dotted with ponds and they
each have good number of ducks and
geese / got lot of ducks, but the geese
are too good for me. The bird dog runs
along and hunts grouse between the
sloughs. There seem to be lot of these
birds. and they make splendid targets
1t is quite the best hunting l ever saw
and it will spoil me for anything poorer.
am having the time of my life aud am
making the most of it. My ticket runs
out on the Goth, SO l must leave here on
the oath. won't want to go at all.
Yours, NELSON BURR GAsKILL.