“Began ploughing April 11; sowed first wheat April 15; ice broke up April 20; river cleared April 26; commenced harvesting August 20; cut wheat August 27; about nineteen acres under grain, total yield six hundred and ninety-eight bushels.
WHEAT TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUSHELS ON SIX ACRES;
oats two hundred bushels, barley two hundred and twenty-six bushels. After all the grain was removed he raked the field and got twenty-two bushels of grain from the rakings. He sowed two varieties of wheat, Ladoga, and wheat he got in Manitoba, which he thinks is Red Fife, but is not sure; both are beautiful specimens of grain. He has some two-rowed barley which he procured while in England in 1888, when he obtained one pound. The yield in 1891 was six hundred pounds of as fine, clean, bright and plump grain as could be seen elsewhere.
“His Ladoga wheat was sown April 21 and harvested August 24, but he allowed it to over-ripen, and thinks he lost at least four or five bushels while harvesting. He sowed ninety pounds and threshed one thousand five hundred. He obtained a sample of black Norway oats from Webb and Company, England, which he sowed on five-eighths of an acre of ground, last year. When harvesting it was all drawn off the field in one wagon load, and when threshed it turned out sixty-four bushels of first-class grain. Last year he tried Indian corn; it did not ripen, but yielded excellent green corn; cucumbers were grown successfully, but did not ripen. Yet I saw as good pumpkins fully developed both here and at Dunvegan as one would wish for.
“Mr. Brick has about forty head of cattle, and several horses; last fall on my arrival there he had about forty pigs, but killed some during my stay, and only intended to winter about twenty-five. He employs a good deal of local labour, and pays for it with food to a very large extent; in fact it is the only way it could be paid for in the country. The hay for wintering the cattle and horses is cut on the plateau about seven miles from the farm. He generally allows his cattle to run out until Christmas, the grass on the meadows being enough for them to feed on it after the early snows have fallen. The horses not kept in for use are wintered out. The Hudson’s Bay Company at Dunvegan have about one hundred and fifty wild horses, and the Roman Catholic mission and the Indians also have many which always winter out on the plains north of the Post, which affords them both food and shelter, as the country between Dunvegan and Smoky river, crossing on the north side, is particularly park-like prairie to a distance of twelve to twenty miles back from the river. The woods afford them shelter and on the prairies the rich grasses grow. There are also large areas