to either horses or beast. It has often been speculated as to whether
there was any means of draining the marshes, but, owing to the extreme
level character of the country, you could get no fall, and tiles would
not do on account of the severity of the frosts, which penetrate
deeper into the ground than the drains could be carried. The
Government have cut good-sized ditches at right angles to the river,
and they are found to be the only practical drainage which is
feasible, and, when once cut and the water set running, have no
tendency to fill up, but gradually wear deeper and broader, so that in
time they almost become small rivers. We have one running through our
west marsh, and on a bye-day we sometimes fish in it for pike; not
that any of our party have been successful, but some of our neighbours
catch fish, and very fair-sized ones.

The land is wonderfully rich and good. A black loam (which colour is
no doubt due, partly, to the gradual accumulation of the charred
grasses left by prairie fires), of about two feet in depth, with a
clay and sandy sub-soil, and in which, they say, they will be able to
grow cereals for the next twenty years, without manure or its
deteriorating; though if there was only time to do it before the snow
falls, it seems a pity not to put the manure on to the land instead of
burning it, as they do at the present moment. Perhaps when all the
land is broken, which they hope will be by the end of next summer,
they won't be so pushed for work as they are.

The ground here requires a great deal of cultivation. It is first
of all broken with a fourteen or sixteen inch plough, so shaped
that it turns the sod over as flat as possible, generally from the
depth of two to two-and-a-half inches deep, the shallower the
better, and then left to rot with the sun and rain for two months