Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1907-10-30
WOMEN AS FARMERS.

Success OF Some Who Have Taken
Claims in the Northwest.
In The great Canadian Northwest,
whsre the erstwhile wilderness is
waving with golden grain and towns
ara springing up overnight, not lew
women have gone to seek their fort
unes alone. A homestead grant OF
160 acres is free, and any "head OF
family, man or woman, may secure it
upon application to the Canadian gov
ernmsnt, Usually, OF course, the ap-
plicant is man, but occasionally
woman essays to make her fortune on
\ the praries without masculine aid.
KS Miss Marie Gilroy, of Saskatchewan,
is one OF the most famous woman set
Tiers {. uAe west She put her last
shilling into prarie farm and spent
seven years in a hand-to-hand tussle
without fortune, sitting on her own
Hinder, cutting her own grain, hand
ling the plough in the burroughs and
Going stable duty. In 1906 her hold
Ing excited the admiration Of a young
E1gllshman and Miss Gilroy was in
tiaced to hand over lock, stock and
Barrel to him for the round sum OF
s15,Ce0 Today Miss Gilroy is touring
Europe on the proceeds Of her original
s2.oee.
Mrs McGilvray, who came to the
Canadian West twenty years ago with
six small children, is another promi-
rant woman farmer Of Saskatchewan.
Beginning almost penniTess her 160
acres of homestead have now grown to
IA eight hundred acre estate and her
children are settled round her In COM
sort and affluence
Salome Wertman came with her nus
hand and ibtle family from Russia and
coon she, too, was a widow. She still
Kept on .ttlying to earn bread" as she
Gays, and sixteen years after her abb
solutely penniless start she stands as
one OF the successful land owners Of
Saskatchewan.
Mrs. Ferris is known as the woman
farmer" Of the Portage Plains. Left
with a family ds young children, she
has managed her farm most success
fully since the death of her husband.
She comes from Belfast. Ireland, and
when she arrived in Western Canada
VIII Der husband thirty-two years ago
hhey had no capital at all. She now
lbs an estate of 76O acres and her two
sons settled near at hand, each the
owner OF a section and half Of land
about I've hundred acres.
Mrs. Grant has a beautiful farm on
the banks cif the Canadian Killarney,
IN Southern Manitoba Three years
ago she went there from Scotland,
with her SON, young man just out
OF college, and her daughter. A year
ago, Just as they were preparing for
spring. seeding, the son was stricken
down with appendicitis and in twenty
-four hours was dead. Filled with
hatred for the place, she decided to
leave it, but the morning after her
sens funeral, when she was packing
up, der daughter called to her, Moth
er, come her, quick!" She looked and
saw that men, teams and pIoughs
quietly and without a word OF explain
alton were beginning work on the
farm The neighbors had decided TO
5prt In the seasons crop for the two
bereayed women. They actually
p,oughed, narrowed, seeded and reap
ed the entire crop. After that Mrs.
Grant talked no more of going
home Her farm by the shores Of
she Canadias Killarney was home to
her.
Many women teachers, too, are
fcand on the Canadian praries, but
they never remain long in the schools,
though they do not leave the prairies