As These Men, Mike Having Two Partners, Are Farming Thirteen
Thousand Acres, They Are On A Much Larger Scale As Regards
Buildings, Numbers Of Horses, Etc., To Anything We Have Seen
Before.
Their living-houses are about double the size of C - -
Farm; they have also huge stables, which A - - fancies will be cold
in winter, but have a most imposing appearance, as have also their
implement house, sheds, etc.
The land seemed much the same as
ours, a rich black loam, but very much wetter, marshes everywhere.
They have broken two thousand acres since the beginning of June,
and were busy, whilst we were there, cutting hay, Mike hoping he
had already got over five hundred ton up!
We drove one day to see a neighbouring farm which is said to be
the "boss" one in all the country, belonging to a man who has been
out five years. He was just starting to cut his two square miles
of wheat, and we watched the seven self-binding machines with
great interest. They seem as light as a reaper, and the machinery
comparatively not intricate.
We were driven through some standing corn, which was rather
agonizing to our British ideas, but he thought nothing of it. The
straw was four and a half feet high, and he hopes to get forty-two
bushels to the acre. His farm being on the Snake River, and having
many creeks running through as drainage, is a great advantage. His
vats were pronounced no better, if so good, as ours at C - - Farm.
We remained at Warren a day longer than we had intended, as we got
to the station just in time to see our train move off. We accused
Mike's Irish groom, who is quite a character, of bringing round
the carriage too late on purpose. If he did, I think all the party
forgave him; we were very happy, it gave us another night of
A - - 's society. Mike was low at our going. Poor man! one cannot
be much surprised at his liking to keep us, as, besides the
fascinations of ladies' society, he has no neighbours whatsoever,
and, excepting the two men he has in the house, there is not a
gentleman nearer than Winnipeg. He offered me seventy-two dollars
a month to be his housekeeper. E - - was to have two dollars a
week as parlour-maid, which she considers an insult; or she might
have seventy-five cents a day if she would drive the ploughs.
Servants and labourers get higher wages there than in Manitoba,
all the men were averaging thirty-five to forty dollars a month
and their keep. They were all Swedes and Germans, of whom there is
an enormous colony in the state.
We are now trying to spend our day at Council Bluff, a large
junction of the Grand Pacific Railway, having come in here at 8
o'clock this morning, and our train to Denver not leaving till 7
o'clock this evening.
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