A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by Hall, Cecil, Mrs.

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LONDON, December, 1882.

Since arriving in England I have received the following letter from my brother in Manitoba, and as I want this book to be a sort of guide to colonists I think it well to add it:--

C---- FARM, November 14th.

I am writing now to send you a kind of statement of our farm accounts; though it cannot be quite correct, this year's crop of oats not having been thrashed out, so that the calculation can only be approximate.

1st. _The Land_.--The cost of the land is taken as the first purchase-money and the amount it has cost to bring 410 acres under cultivation.

2nd. _The Buildings_.--They consist of two dwelling-houses and two stables; one of the houses, being for the men, is also used as a warehouse and granary.

The contract price was very low, and also the price of timber; now both gone up, but put down at the original cost.

3rd. _The Horses_.--Valued, I think, rather low at 250 dollars a team; 500 dollars for the stallion. The 4,326 dollars include their cost; the amount of oats and hay they have eaten.

_The Cows_.--Include their original cost, hay and percentage of keep. The price of cattle now is high; we sold two cows this summer at an average price of 75 dollars.

_Implements_ have been reduced about 35 per cent for their two years' wear.

_Carriages_ being new, we have taken nothing off them.

_Pigs_ have the cost of their feeding added; the young ones taken at an average of ten dollars.

_Furniture_.--A slight deduction for wear and tear.

_Oats_.--We are calculating 2,500 bushels off 181 acres.

_Hay_ is difficult to calculate; I do not think we have 400 tons. The price now is very low; 5 dollars a ton, and it would cost us three dollars to get it into Winnipeg.

_Potatoes_ are uncertain. They are worth one dollar a ton now, and if we can manage to keep them during the winter they will be worth a good deal more; but they are difficult to keep, although we have a good root-house; If the frost happens to get to them they will all spoil; and it is difficult to keep the frost out, going as it does twelve feet into the ground.

_The Fence_ is quite worth the money; so you see that putting most things at a low price, one has a certain profit, though not in hard cash; and it is satisfactory to find that one hasn't been working for two seasons for nothing. No one expects a farm to pay in this country during the first two years.