The Rural Voice, 1985-07, Page 231
salary in itself. Immediately after
the syrup harvest I would buy a
bunch of cattle. The pasture certainly
could carry 40 head which would eat
grass all summer and be sold as
feeders at the onset of winter.
Although the market would fluc-
tuate, I could produce probably 8,000
pounds of beef from my pasture to
add another $600 to $1,000 to my in-
come. During late summer, I would
put up my wood for my syrup opera-
tion and cut logs for sale. There I'd
be — set up with interesting and
varied work, none of it taking long
enough to be tedious.
Money -wise it looked good. The
only problem was that I didn't have
$4,000. I propositioned my father
and we drove to the property to look
it over. He turned me down flat —
not a cent for me. He thought I might
stick it out for a summer but I liked
company too much and drudgery too
little. I would tire of cooking my own
food and sitting by myself at nights.
That was back in August of 1931.
Looking back, I can see that he was
probably right. But the fact is that I
still sometimes wonder what would
have happened had I found myself
owning that property. I might have
been successful.
A few years ago, my wife, Edith,
and I drove up to look at it. The
buildings have rotted down. The
pasture is growing up with trees. The
pines have all been harvested. The
marble deposits were operated for a
few years and closed down again.
Nobody is making syrup from the
trees. The 100 -acre area adjoining the
property is just poor bush as far as I
can see and is being offered for sale at
$26,000. I suppose this is what one
calls 40 years of progress.
Having discarded the dream of the
Lanark enterprise I decided that with
$1,500 in the bank and no job in sight
I should probably try schoolteaching.
Now there was an occupation in
which one had time to follow per-
sonal inclinations. I would work from
Monday to Friday while everybody
else had to work from Monday till
Saturday noon or more. I'd have two
full months' holiday in summer and a
week each at Easter and Christmas.
The wage for secondary school
teachers was good by depression stan-
dards and for a period of say, five
years, it could be a good "out."
Possibly I would stick at it till I had
my acreage and my $10,000. I
therefore went to O.C.E., got a job at
Hagersville, and in 1936 I bought my
acreage. From then on, most of my
dreams have centered on the farm.
(Part II next month.)
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JULY 1935 21