damaged by subsequent droughts, nor by the frosts which sometimes
come after heavy rains in August and much injure the crops. At the
present moment we are craving for rain, and should the crops not
be as plentiful this year as expected, on account of the drought,
I should feel much inclined to try autumn sowing.

Before the prairie is broken, the turf is very tough, and requires
a great deal of force to break it; but when once turned the
subsequent ploughings are easy.

Our chief difficulty and trouble are the stones; they generally
lie just beneath the surface, differing very much in size. Some
are huge and have to be regularly trenched round and horses
harnessed to a chain put round them to raise them out of the
ground; when they are put on to the stone-boat and conveyed to the
boundary fence. It generally falls to E----'s and my special lot
to drive the stone-boat or the waggons, whilst the men with
crowbars and spades go before the ploughs clearing them all away,
for fear they may blunt the shares and throw them out of the
furrow.

The last two or three days, when not stone-picking, A---- and Mr.
B---- have been stretching the barb-wire with which they are
enclosing the property; and there has been great chaff about our
"Jehuship." The wooden posts along which the wire is run are put
in the ground, and they then have to be rammed down with a
fearfully heavy wooden mallet, which I can hardly lift. To get
purchase on the mallet A---- mounts into the waggon, which
accordingly has to be driven quite close up to the post without
touching it.