vim. In many instances the women and the girls join the men and the

boys in the fields. Nearly every man has his own harvesting machinery and the girls sometimes drive the binders that cut the grain. At the same time thousands of labourers are brought in from the United States, eastern Canada, and even from England. They are transported at reduced rates by the railroads and are sure of work at good wages until the grain has been loaded upon the cars that take it to the head of the Great Lakes.

Harvesting on the larger farms goes on from daybreak to dark, and sometimes even by twilight and moonlight. After the wheat reaches a certain point in ripening, it must be cut without delay. If it becomes wet it will deteriorate, and if left too long it will hull during the harvesting, or an untimely frost may ruin it. I have visited one farm near Dundurn where sixteen hundred acres of grain all became ripe overnight. The next morning the owner started a dozen harvesters at work, keeping the machines going until every stalk was cut. Horses were put on in relays every four hours and there was no stopping to rest at the end of the field. In Alberta there is a farm five times as large, where sixty binders, each pulled by a four-horse team, are used to cut the crop.

Riding through the country in the fall, one is seldom away from the sound of the threshing machine. Only a few farmers own these machines, most of the threshing being done by contractors and their crews who go from farm to farm.

Imagine yourself with me at threshing time, and let us see how the work is done. The wheatfield we choose contains one thousand acres and it is spotted with shocks, or stooks, as they are called here. Each stook consists of a number of sheaves stood upon end on the ground with others so arranged on top that it will shed rain. A half dozen teams are moving over the field gathering up the stooks. As soon as a wagon is loaded it is driven to the thresher, into whose greedy mouth the sheaves are poured continuously from sunrise to sunset. At the same time grain is flowing out of the thresher into the wagons or motor trucks that carry it away.

In the United States wheat is often held by the farmers for a favourable price. In Canada very few farms have their own granaries. The wheat goes from the threshing machine to the local elevator, or, if none is accessible, it is sent directly to the railroad and shipped to Fort William and Port Arthur. There are now elevators at fifteen hundred different places throughout the wheat region. Each of these stations has from one to nine elevators standing out on the landscape, indicating the productiveness of the surrounding country. The elevators of Canada have a total capacity of two hundred and thirty-eight million bushels. There are companies that have chains of such granaries. They will either store the wheat for the farmer, handle it on commission, or buy it from him directly at a price based on the current market value of that in storage at Fort William.

The wheat begins to come to the elevators about the first of September, and by the middle or latter part of October they are well filled. Each has a license, and is inspected regularly by the government. In order to maintain the high standard of western Canadian wheat, every shipment must be weighed and tested by a Dominion weigh-master.

Many of the country elevators are owned by milling companies. The flour industry is centred in Ontario, the largest mill in the Dominion being at Port Colborne at the western end of the Welland Canal. Flour is manufactured in large quantities also at Fort William, Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg. Smaller mills exist throughout Canada, and for many years the Hudson’s Bay Company operated one at Fort Vermilion, six hundred miles northwest of Winnipeg. Ten million barrels of flour are annually exported, almost half of which is taken by England.

What Canada gets for her wheat depends not only on her own crop and that of the United States, but on conditions all over the world. Wheat is raised in every part of the globe, and is harvested in one place or another each month of the year. Therefore, a drought in Australia, a frost in Argentina, monsoons in India, new tariff laws in a given country, or a host of other reasons, may cause a drop or a rise in the prices here. In any event, though the price in Canada may be no higher than that paid in the United States, it represents a larger return on the original investment. The Canadian farmer has the advantage of raising his wheat on land that has cost him perhaps only a third of what has been paid by his neighbour across the border.