peg, to the chief loan-office, and tried my luck. $4000 cash was the highest bid for N, 21; or a $2000 mortgage, nine per cent., for three, five, or ten years. Now for the reason of this. Ever since I bought this place, which I think is one of the best in Manitoba as regards situation, I intended to put up a saw and grist mill (portable), but I had not intended putting one up for two years; reasons, lack of cash, and lack of custom. Now, if I can, I will put the saw-mill up at the end of October. People are flocking past my house every day, to take up the rough but well-wooded lands in 6, 11; 7, 8; 7, 9; 7, 10, and all north of me. Now the nearest mills are St. Leon, fourteen miles south. Norquay mill, 8, S.W., burnt down with very little hope of building up; so I should get all the trade north of me, and south of the Portage, and for eight miles south-east and west. Now is my chance. People are beginning to shingle (wooden slate) their buildings instead of thatch, and are putting

up frame houses instead of log.

Saw mill before the winter sets in.

Go gently. Hire a good

sawyer. Grist-mill, next summer, with the proceeds of the saw-mill. This is the plan I hatched a long time ago, but kept quiet; and this is the scheme I intend to carry out. If you can furnish me with £300 or £400, at seven per cent., payable half-yearly, by October of this year, either on my note of hand, or a mortgage, which you like, I can buy a 15-horse-power engine, and saw-carriage frame and rigging, by paying $1200 cash, and the rest on my note which I could pay during the winter. There you are. I have made my inquiry quietly, so that no one shall get a hint of what I am at, so, if you can't furnish me with the cash, I shall not have to bear the sneers people are so ready to heap on failure. Crops are looking splendid. My selfbinder has arrived, and I have got orders to cut 100 acres at $1 75 cents an acre. The wire costs fifty cents an acre, 12 cents per pound, so I shall

be able to pay off my first note with it. I am a little hard up for cash just at present, so I am sending one team out to Emmerson with a load, for which I get 60 cents per 100lb., and I take 2,500; and for the load I bring back I get $1 35 cents per 100lb.; and that's how I replenish my purse when it gets temporarily low. Work, and sleep, eat, and work, is the daily routine, on the dead run the whole time; and every now and then I look round and imagine I see a saw and grist mill looming up on the hill, at the border of the lake. You will all be coming out to have a look at me and mine some day. I am young and hopeful, but at the same time I think I can look at both sides of the question; and the earlier a man begins, the earlier he wins, and I am afraid some one else will get ahead of me if I don't look sharp; so, my dear mother, as usual I leave it to you. I know you know my weaknesses, but also my strong points: if I say that $2000 shall be paid back in full at the end of

three or five years, as you like, with seven per cent. in the interval, you know as well as I do that it shall be paid by hook or crook, even if everything went against me, which I don't think is likely. I should add a chopping machine for grain at once if you concur in my views, and hope to have the grist running by next July, and meditate enlisting Palmer's services, as he seems a nice fellow, and his wife is a nice quiet refined woman. Live-stock as follows

First team: grey mare "Jessie" and foal; cream, "Queenie." Two dogs, "Collie" and "Syndicate." Second team: bay, "Jack;" dark bay, "Bill." Setter, "Rover;" one cow, one cat, four sows, two barrows, one thoroughbred boar and one. thorough-bred sow. Total 19.

Roller, harrows, waggon. Dermont, two ploughs. McHorrwich's wire-binder. Two bob sleighs, two sets of harness, farm tools, household furniture, etc.

TO HIS GRANDMOTHER.

Beaconsfield Post Office.-I am afraid it is some time since I have written, but I hope you have seen some of my letters home, and thus know tolerably well how I am getting on; it is rather hard these busy times to squeeze in a letter. I suppose the summer climate of

Manitoba is almost unexcelled-at least I know England, France, Germany, and Ontario cannot compare with it,-not too hot, and always a wind. But the mosquitoes, they are indeed terrible in the evening; no rest for man or beast. We always keep a stove, full of straw and stuff, burning all night with the pipes off; and I have not come to any satisfactory conclusion yet, which is best, or rather worst, the mosquitoes or the smoke, I have had an addition to my household in the form of a young Englishman, aged sixteen. Poor fellow! he came out to a fellow near, and could not work