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Canadian Life as I Found It
Chapter XXXI September, 1906


I HAVE been much occupied helping my Scotch friends get in their harvest ; two of them went off on the threshing gang, so the remaining one and I got in the crop. It was very hard work, but luckily we had fine weather.

I have had to come into town for stores and to buy a set of harrows, as I want to get my land worked up ready.

I was much amused at the letter you sent me. The cutting is taken out of a local paper; it has all got some truth in it as far as Saskatoon itself is concerned. The C.P.R. are going to make it their prairie centre, and have paid a very high price for lots in the middle of the town, only this will not, I am afraid, as your correspondent seems to think, make any great difference to the price of outlying lands. As to having a railway a mile from us, it may come about in time, only so far I have heard nothing to confirm such a rumour. Saskatoon is growing at a wonderful rate; every time I come I find some change, and it gets quite difficult to find the proper way in. The Grand Trunk Railway is laying rails 20 miles north of us, and the C.P.R. 18 miles west. Land my way now is worth 12 to 13 dollars an acre, bare prairie land; broken it is worth 15 to 20. I have had people round already wanting me to sell the whole place next year, but I certainly should not think of doing so. I have a place of my own, and I am creating a home that I hope will one day be a comfortable one. No, I do not believe in selling a home that you have made all yourself, not only by spending money on it, but by counting every stick about it with your own hands.

I do not think I could put up with life in England now, I should feel shut in. Here I have space around me, I can do as I like, and no one thinks the better or the worse of me, whether I am driving a buggy or a wagon, whether I am in working overalls or otherwise. Would it be the same in the old country? I shall give notice to Government next month that I mean to apply for a patent, and then I have to write again for it six months later, when the three years' occupation are completed, and the regulation duties are done.


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