FARMING IN CANADA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144359, 25 March 1914, Page 8

FARMING IN CANADA.

NOTES BY AUSTRALIAN. Writing from Alberta, Canada, a New South Wales tanner, who has spent some months at agricultural work in the United States anti Canada-, says; ‘Tt is quite a holiday working over here, it e go about ,a mile to work and home to dinner after carting three or four loads each. We work as hard as we like, a.nd as slow as we like, sometimes sitting down lor half an hour whilo another feiiow throws oil his load. Occasionally we indulge in the luxury of a snow-tight in the lieid. It snows about twice a week, and there is snow as far as the eye can see, but - the men go on stacking just tho same. The snow is very dry, and the slightest shako will knock it off the sheaves. When snow is falling it is not as cold as one would imagine, but if there is a wind with, it, then conditions become fairly rigorous indeed. One lias to wear quite an Arctic rig out, such as a woollen cap. which conies clown well over the ears, woollen underwear, about three pairs oi trousers, sheepskin (mocassin) boots, made ol skins with an inch and a half of wool on the inside of them. These mocassins come up to your knees and then you wear a pair ot lOifc ovorboots with rubber soles; also a sheepskin coat. It gets very cold before starling to snow, and when tile snow begins to thaw, but it iho day should be sunny and no wind blowing it is quite pleasant to bo out oi doors. And, ol course, tho cold is nothing. They expect it to freeze up within a week or two (of November 281, and then it is the end ol the work lor the winter. The ground freezes up lo ,i depth of six and eight loot. ■ After tills starts work is suspended nmii April. -Most of tho workers save enough money to carry them through tho winter by living in the towns, while others work'for their board by feeding stock, etc. Canada is a grand place for young fellows who have a little monov and can stand the cold. Opportunities are better here than m Australia. One can take up land under homestead conditions—Kill acres for ton dollars (€2l. It is compulsory to lice on the land for six mouths in each year tor a period of three years, and to build a lint or make improvements to the value of SCO dollars (€OOI. The land becomes freehold at the end oi that limp.” Referring to hours of labour, unions, et/-.. the writer says: "Anything in the building line here is hemmed about by very strong unions. ft costs one thirty-five and twenty-live dollars respectively :.o loin the bricklayers or carpenters' union, and eonercio workers twenty-five dollars; and a man simply cannoc work without being a member of a union. There is no .arm labourers' union, nor any talk of one. but they are, nevertheless, a very independent lot. The place where 1 was working has good rooms for tho men, with linoleum on the lloq-'B, and everything up-to-date. Men in (be States or Canada will not sleep ’anywhere, as many do in Australia. Tho .pbirc-s where I have worked aro as good as homo. America is a groat place for the 1. -V.W. ; they are very strong over hero. The farmers, both in Canada and tho United States, always figure on getting ten hours in the field per day in tho harvest period, but, as a general thing, tho hours run from-eight to nine. -Men receive 10s per day for tho work in tho field, and perhaps half a dollar more for stacking. A ploughman gets 50'doijars a month (Tlit), and twenty-six days’ work is considered a month. Canadians have a lot to learn in the science of agriculture. They put in their crops under very rough conditions, and oven now you can see the sod front last year’s work. Their yokes for ploughing, working two and l wo or three twos, am no good at all. The Alberta Land Company does a good deal of their ploughing with a ■Caterpillar’—a motor tractor, ten Inrrowa. cutting a 1 t-inch sod. If never harrows down well. They certainly have a lot to learn in farming. 1 read the other day that America is fifty years Itehind "Europe in the matter of farming—this explains many of tho tilings one sees over here. Appliances and systems which had been cast aside in Europe years ago aro only being introduced in some pans of America now. .But they are certainly up-to-date with their machinery. There are on this farm six Bft.-cm hinders, 'and all tho binders are held up with a forecarriage, instead of the burden resting on the nocks of the horses. Tho very worst horses I have ever seen are in the United States, and the bent in New Zealand. /file Australian methods of farming are decidedly, ahead of those of Canada. The best farms tire further oast, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario States.

"In the matter ol handling grain, i hero is no such thing as ■ strippling here. All the crops are cut with hinders, and either threshed from thestooks or stacked. Bags are never used for grain in the western Stales of Canada or the United States, -with the exception of a few here and there. Farmers build granaries of weatherboard (timber,is so cheap) 12ft, by 15ft. and Bft, high. They bold about 1400 bushels each. They pull them about to wherever they may lie wanted. When the wheat is sold it is carried in a graintight wagon that holds ’ about lot) bushels. It is either shovelled into a truck or goes to a grain elevator. This elevator is built close to a railway line; trucks aro drawn np to it. a, trap door is opened, and the truck is filled without any difficulty. There is no shovelling out of the wagon. Tho teams drive on to a platform, and' the hack of the wagon is lowered enough to allow of tho grain running out.”