CHAPTER XIII
NORTH AMERICA, 1895
The principal object of my third trip to the United States was to visit and report upon the assets of the Canadian Agricultural Company, in which a friend of mine was heavily interested, but which he was unable to inspect in person.
I left England at the end of April, 1895, and passed through New York to Montreal without stopping. A sudden burst of heat, such as often occurs in Canada in spring, had brought out the foliage with great rapidity and the journey through New England to Montreal was a very pleasant one. I had to enquire as to the rates and facilities which the Canadian Pacific Company afforded for conveying live-stock to the coast for ship¬ ment, and to transact other business. When this was done I went on to Ottawa to see the Government Experimental Farm, which was ably managed by the late Mr. Saunders, who gave me some useful information as to the prospects of agriculture in Alberta, where most of the Canadian Agricultural Company’s farms were situated. This company was formed in England when the Canadian Pacific Railway was first opened to take up land for agriculture and stock-breeding in the Far West; and after various vicissitudes, caused by reckless extravagance, mismanagement, and the conditions of the soil and climate, had succeeded after eight or nine years in getting through a very large capital and into debt as well. In May, 1895, there was a mortgage on the stock to the extent of 80,000 dollars which would be foreclosed in a month or so if the money was not found to pay it off. On paper it looked as if the value of the property was immensely in excess of the mortgage, and what I had to do was to form an opinion and report on the actual value of the stock and plant. There was no time to be lost; so I started next day for Swift Current, a station west of Regina, and arrived there about two days later. This was the principal sheep station belonging to the company, and was one of eleven blocks of land of 10,000 acres each, which had been taken up by the company at various points on the line between Brandon and Calgary* I was met at the depot by a fine old Northumbrian, Mr. Rutherford, who was manager of the station and perhaps at that time the man who knew most about sheep in the whole of the North-West Territory. He drove me to his house and arranged to show me as much as possible of the land and stock. Most of the flock, which consisted of about 8,000 ewes and about 12,000 hoggs and wethers, were descended from inferior ewes of merino type imported from Montana and crossed with English rams of many breeds, amongst which Cheviots and Cotswolds seemed to have been the most successful. The first cross was in most cases a very fair mutton sheep, but many of the second crosses were of a very mongrel character. The extreme severity of the winter climate entailed the necessity of providing fodder at times when the snow was too deep to allow the sheep to get at the grass, and the number of coyotes and wolves
made it necessary to have the sheep folded at night in wooden sheds
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