which covers the plains
seemingly all in a day. One has not infrequently seen the water on the
low ground a foot deep in the morning and gone in the evening while in
another day or two the black alluvinm, which like the
blackened plate of glass, absorbs heat in seemingly enormous
quantities, is dry and powdery in the fields plowed in the autumn.
Seeding proceeds when the frost is not more than four inches out
of the ground. Then in a few days the prairie
is dotted with the spring flowers. Seldom is the spring
long, damp and cold. Spring comes, growth
is phenomenal, and the harvest of spring wheat
is ripened in the middle of August.
With such a soil, marvelous in the amount of its
plant foods, and with the long, bright, even
occasional¬ly hot summer day, the metabolism of the plant cells is so
rapid as only to be likened to the growth of plants
under grass. To the plodding, laboring, waiting husbandman
of England or Scotland it seems so unreal as
to be increditable that four, or at most five short
months should yield, for an area of 1,500,000 acres, some
30,000,000 bushels of wheat, and as much more of other
grains, to feed the toiling millions of
continental cities.
View of the Elevators,
Hilton, showing
part of the town.
Photo by F. Stevens
Cost of Farming: an Acre of Wheat.
A careful estimate of the cost growing an acre of wheat made by the
superintendent of Experimental Farm at Brandon. This was the result of
actual experi¬ment in a yield of twenty-nine bushels. The items of cost
are: Plowing once, $1.25; harrrowing twice, 20 cents; cul¬tivating
twice, 40 cents; seed (1 ½ bushels), 75 cents; drilling, 22
cents; binding. 33 cents ; cord 20 cents ; stock¬ing, 16 cents;
stacking, 60 cents; threshing $1.46; teaming to market, four miles, 29
cents; two years' rent, interest on land valued at $15 per acre, at 6
per cent, $1.80 wear and tear of implements, 20 cents. A total of $7.87,
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Open Winter
As a great many people have pictured Manitoba as a frozen, cold region
from the end of September or beginning of October until the following
April, it will afford a great deal of enlightenment for such to know
that on and up to the end of November, farmers all over the province
were plowing and harrowing their land. Wild fowl was plentiful, large
flocks of grey geese still feeding in this particular district.
TOWN OF HILTON
Argyle’s Eastern Burg
Hilton came to life iu the fall of 1889 with the advent of the Northern
Pacific railway but did not do much for a year or two; the Manitoba
Elevator company, built one elevator that winter, there being nothing
further done in the building line until the spring of 1892 when C.
Brown put in a lumber yard and Hardware store. Since that time the town
has grown steadily until it has reached its present prosperous
condition. The nature of the surrounding country is especially adapted
to wheat growing, frozen wheat being unknown in the vicinity. The land
is of rolling prairie dotted with bluffs, and affords the very best
facilities for stook raising, as is testified to by the prosperous
condition of the farmers in this locality. Although the town is not as
large as its sister towns it has one of the best markets in the
municipality, three elevators being situated at this place, name¬ly
the Northern Elevator with a capacity of 15,000 bushels, Dominion
Elevator 25000 bushels, and the Winnipeg Elevator total capacity of
85,000 bushels. There have been from 100,000 to 300, 000 bushels of
wheat marketed in a season according to the crops of the several years.
There are several lots of good land for sale in the neighborhood, held
by speculators, which would add greatly to our advancement if it were
bought up by the actual settler and put under cultivation.
The business firms in Hilton are as follows:
BROWN & SCOT, GENERAL MERCHANTS.
A. S, BAKER, GENERAL MERCHANT.
E.M. FREEMAN, GENERAL BLACKSMITH.
L. McFARLINS, GENERAL BLACKSMITH.
GEO. AGAR, LIVERY STABLES.
BROWN & SCOTT, IMPLEMENTS AND LUMBER.
Mr. Chris Brown, of the firm of Brown & Scott, Reeve of the
Municipality of Argyle, mayor of Hilton, an exceptionally successful
business men and probably the most popular resident of the
municipality, started in busi¬ness in Hilton in 1892, and has extended
his business to every branch of the general store line. A year ago he
opened a branch store at
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