No attempt is made to set forth the full details of the whole
Farmer's Movement in Western Canada in all its ramifications; for the
space limits of a single volume do not permit a task so ambitious.

The writer has endeavored merely to gather an authentic record of the
earlier activities of the Grain Growers' Associations in the three
Prairie Provinces--why and how they came to be organized, with what the
farmers had to contend and something of their remarkable achievements
in co-operative marketing during the past decade. It is a tale of
strife, limned by high lights and some shadows. It is a record worthy
of preservation and one which otherwise would pass in some of its
details with the fading memories of the pathfinders.

If from these pages the reader is able to glean something of interest,
something to broaden--be it ever so slightly--his understanding of the
Western Canadian farmers' past viewpoint and present outlook, the
undertaking will have found its justification and the long journeys and
many interviews their reward.

For, under the alchemy of the Great War, many things are changing and
in the wonderful days of reconstruction that lie ahead the Farmer is
destined to play an upstanding part in the new greatness of our
country. Because of this it behooves the humblest citizen of us to
seek better understanding, to meet half way the hand of fellowship
which he extends for a new conception of national life.

The writer is grateful to those farmers, grain men, government
officials and others who have assisted him so kindly in gathering and
verifying his material. Indebtedness is acknowledged also to sundry
Dominion Government records, to the researches of Herbert N. Casson and
to the press and various Provincial Departments of Agriculture for the
use of their files.

H.M.

WINNIPEG, March 1st, 1918.

DEEP FURROWS

CHAPTER I

THE MAN ON THE QU'APPELLE TRAIL

Among the lonely lakes I go no more,
For she who made their beauty is not there;
The paleface rears his tepee on the shore
And says the vale is fairest of the fair.
Full many years have vanished since, but still
The voyageurs beside the camp-fire tell
How, when the moon-rise tips the distant hill,
They hear strange voices through the silence swell.
--_E. Pauline Johnson._
_The Legend of Qu'Appelle._

To the rimming skyline, and beyond, the wheatlands of Assiniboia[1]
spread endlessl