There the sap is boiled in a kettle or pan over a wood fire, until most of the water has gone off as steam, and only a thick, sweet syrup is left. Sometimes this is sent to market as syrup; sometimes it is boiled a little more, until it hardens as cakes of sugar. These are frequently used as candy. In rough fields and woods where the land cannot be plowed, many sugar maple trees can grow. The province of New Brunswick has much land of this sort, as have our northeastern states and the southeastern part of Canada. Without their sugar money, many farmers would have to go out of business. It takes more work to make sugar from the maple of Canada and New England than it does to make it from the cane of Cuba and the Philippines, or the beet of Utah; but the tree sugar tastes better and sells for a higher price.
235. Abandoned farms. — There are abandoned farms in eastern Canada, just as there are in New England, and for just the same reasons. (Re-read Sec. 224.) Many farmers from the eastern provinces have gone to the western provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, because there one can get a farm for noth ing. The Canadian Government still gives away farms that are half a mile square and contain 160 acres. They are given to any men who will live on them, cultivate them, and grow up with the country.
236. Free Uncle Andrew took one of these free farms in Saskatche wan. It is in the midst of a great level plain. There is nothing but flatness and grass as far as one can see. You could walk for days and never see a hill. This treeless, level country of western Canada reaches from Winnipeg to the Rockies, and from Montana to Edmonton. Is your state as long as this, and as wide? This is the Canadian wheat country which we read about before (Sec. 78). White men have not lived very long in western Canada, and new railroads are still being built, so that people can go there and make farms. Since settlers had taken up all the land near the railroads, Mr. McDonald had to take a farm thirty miles to the north of the station.' Therefore, he did not build a very large house or barn. He had to haul his lumber thirty miles from the railway, and his wheat thirty miles back to the station. Hauling takes so much time that no one wants to raise wheat any farther than thirty miles from the station; so there were only cattle ranches to the north of McDonald's house until another railroad came through ten miles to the north of it. After that every train brought new settlers, and their frame shanties and sod houses could be seen springing up in every direction. So many people went
there to live that in a few years big grain elevators had to be built at stations on the railroad, to take care of the thousands of bushels of wheat, oats, and flaxseed which are hauled to the station each season. What becomes of this grain? (Sec. 78.) 237. The dairy industry. — Scott's cousin, Alfred, lives on a farm in the St. Lawrence Valley, near Montreal. His father does not want to go to the West Canada wheat country. He would rather live where the wind does not blow so hard, where he knows his neighbors, and where there are good schools. He likes his Ontario farm, though it is rougher and smaller than the farms that are being given away on the cold western plain. To make a living here, Alfred's father keeps cows. Cows give milk, which brings much money; but keeping cows for milk makes a great deal of work.
Every morning before going to school, and every evening, Alfred helps with the milk ing. All the farmers in that neighborhood keep cows, and every day their milk wagons meet at a creamery, owned by all the farmers together (a cooperative creamery). Thus all do what each could not do alone.
At thecreamery there is a little machine, called a separator, which whirls the milk around, running the cream off into one can and the skimmed milk into another. (Fig. 246.) Then the cream is put into a big churn or tub, which dashes it around until lumps of butter form in it. Some of the milk is made into cheese.
Canada has several thousand of these creameries and cheese factories. The but ter and cheese are wrapped in neat pack ages and sent down to Montreal, to Halifax in Nova Scotia, or to Portland, Maine. Then they are loaded into steam ships and carried to England. The English people are very fond of bread and butter and cheese, and import cheese and butter, as well as wheat to make their bread.
Some of the farmers in West Canada who once produced only wheat and oats are now also keeping cows. They too have cooperative creameries, and send butter to England. This industry gives the wheat farmer something to do in the winter season, when the ground is frozen.
238. Dairy industry suits distant places. —A few pounds of butter or cheese bring more money than many pounds of grain and hay. That makes it easy for a farmer who lives a great way from the market to sell. butter rather than grain. For this reason the dairy industry often grows up in places that are a long, long way from the market. For many years before the World War the people of England got butter from Siberia, Australia, and New Zealand.