This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ... crops of roots and oats can be grown with very crude cultivation, and that, even where the land in its natural state appears barren, maize and cereals prosper amazingly. The ranchers depend a great deal on the hay, which is self-curing--that is, on grass curing as it stands, to be consumed in situ; and it is a ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ... crops of roots and oats can be grown with very crude cultivation, and that, even where the land in its natural state appears barren, maize and cereals prosper amazingly. The ranchers depend a great deal on the hay, which is self-curing--that is, on grass curing as it stands, to be consumed in situ; and it is a peculiarity of the native grass that it should cure in this way, providing frosts do not cut it down before it has had time to do so. Generally speaking, the cattle subsist very well through the winter on this self-cured hay, for the winds as a rule blow it bare of the dry snow; but when it happens to be deeply buried in snow, and remains so until the snow is frozen so as to resist the wind, then the cattle are in danger of perishing for want of food; and here it is that a supply of forage is so necessary and beneficent. Dairy farming, in connection more or less direct with ranching, will probably open out in Alberta, where, it is asserted, and I think not unfairly so, that the country possesses all the natural conditions essential to that business. A young English rancher of two years' standing, informed me that he contemplated forming a herd of dairy cows to let out to a dairyman on the "half-sales" system. This, however, necessitates the fencing of land and a provision of buildings and forage, and so can hardly become general for a long time to come. It is an item of some significance, however, that such an idea should already be entertained in the neighbourhood of the Rockies, and it serves to illustrate the speed at which things are moving in that region since the advent of the railway. The North-West has very large deposits of coal, it is known, in places, there is reason to suppose there are many others awaiting discovery. In some of...
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