Dairying offers splendid opportunities for profit. In the rapidly growing cities and towns there is a demand for milk, cream, and butter. Creameries and cheese factories are established at accessible points. The feeding of cattle is nominal.
Poultry Products can be readily marketed, and poultry raisers have done remarkably well. No one knows better than the farmer's wife the saving effected by having a flock of hens, some turkeys, geese and ducks, and the cost of feed is not noticed.
Hog Raising.—Hog-raising has equal advantages with grain growing. A large quantity of pork that should be supplied at home is now shipped in. Barley, the best staple for hog raising, is easily grown and yields heavily. Alfalfa can be grown with little trouble, and with two crops in a season, and three tons to the acre to a crop, it will play an important part in the hog industry of the future. The Canadian field pea and the rape, also are good feed and produce the very best of pork.
Chas. Reid, of Swift Current, who sold a thousand dollars' worth of pork last summer, and then had considerable on hand, has demonstrated that hogs pay better than straight grain raising. He has an income from his farm the whole year round.
A farmer near Moose Jaw sold some hogs for $130.00. To the question, "What did they cost?" he answered: "Really nothing. I bought one sow; I have kept two, and I have three to kill for my own use. Of course we had skim milk and buttermilk, and I fed some chop, but what is left is worth all I paid out. I call the $130.00 clear profit."
It is the same story in all parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. A little attention, plenty of such grain as would go to waste, some shelter, and that's all. Last year many farmers went into hog-raising extensively, and it saved many of them from financial embarrassment; for when money was not obtainable at the banks, farmers having marketable hogs sold them with handsome profit. Several made from $1.00 to $1.20 per bushel for wheat by feeding it to hogs.
Butter and Eggs.—Large sums are spent regularly in United States markets for butter and eggs to supply the cities and towns of Western Canada, and large quantities of butter are imported from New Zealand. Not only is the demand in the towns, but many wheat-raisers purchase these commodities when they might produce them on their own farms at trifling cost.
William Elliott, near Moose Jaw, has eight cows and eighty hens. In less than eight months, his butter and eggs sold for more than $500. All the groceries and the children's clothing and boots, are paid for with butter and egg money.
W. H. Johnston, five miles south of Moose Jaw, has thirty cows and milks an average of twenty-five. His gross receipts last summer were from $600 to $700 per month, of which $300 was profit. He grows his own feed, principally oats and hay, and has no worries over harvesting or grain prices.
Truck Gardening.—Long days of abundant sunshine from May to September, and adequate moisture in the spring and early summer permit of a wide variety of products. The soil is rich and warm, and easily worked. Close attention to cultivation has resulted in record yields of vegetables and small fruits, which bring good prices in the cities.