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A Trip to Manitoba by Mary FitzGibbon
page 41 of 160 (25%)

Before navigation had quite ceased, a provincial exhibition of the
agricultural and other products of the country was held in the town-hall.
Many of the vegetables were so large, that a description of them was
treated with incredulity until some specimens were sent to Ottawa, to
be modelled for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. One Swedish
turnip weighed over thirty-six pounds; some potatoes (early roses and
white) measured nine inches long and seven in circumference; radishes
were a foot and a half long and four inches 'round; kail branched out to
the size of a currant bush; cabbages, hard, white, and good, grew to a
foot and a half in diameter, and there were cauliflowers as large.
Neither Indian corn, melons, nor tomatos were exhibited, chiefly because
most of the farmers in Manitoba have cultivated wheat-growing rather than
market-gardening, as the former brings in the largest returns for the
least labour.

Corn is grown in Manitoba larger and far taller than any I saw in
Ontario. Tomatos will grow in profusion in a dry spot, especially where,
as in Kuwatin, a hundred miles from Winnipeg, a southern exposure on
sandy soil can be found; the same may he said of melons. Fruit trees are
most difficult to cultivate, the frosts being so severe. Yet with care
that obstacle may be overcome, and a few apples, grown and ripened in Mr.
Bannatyne's garden, in Winnipeg, were exhibited. Every other kind of
garden and farm produce was shown in abundance. The prairie soil is so
rich that it yields a hundredfold, and the absence of the great
preliminary labour of "clearing," which the early settlers in Ontario had
to contend with, renders it a most advantageous country for emigrants.
The chief difficulty is the scarcity of labour. All men not going out to
take up land for themselves are employed on the railway; and women either
are married and obliged to work on the farms with their husbands, or get
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