Deep Furrows | Page 9

frontier than wheat began
to trickle steadily upon the market, to flow with increased volume, then
to pour in by train-loads. Sacks were discarded for quicker shipment in
bulk; barns and warehouses filled and spilled till adequate storage
facilities became the vital problem and, the need mothering invention,
F. H. Peavey came forward with an idea--an endless chain of metal
cups for elevating grain. From this the huge modern elevator evolved to
take its place as the grain's own particular storehouse. With the

establishment of exchanges for conducting international buying and
selling the universalizing of wheat was complete.
These things had come to pass while that great region which is now
Western Canada was still known as a Great Lone Land. Pioneer settlers,
however, were beginning to venture westward to the newly organized
Province of Manitoba and beyond. The nearest railroad was at St. Paul,
Minnesota, from which point a "prairie schooner" trail led north for 450
miles to Winnipeg at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers; the
alternative to this overland tented-wagon route was a tedious trip by
Red River steamer. It was not until 1878 that a railway was built north
into Manitoba from St. Paul; but it was followed shortly after by the
projection of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which reached Vancouver
in 1886.
Then began what has been called the greatest wheat-rush ever known.
Land, land without end, to be had for the asking--rich land that would
grow wheat, forty bushels to the acre, millions of acres of it! Fabulous
tales, winging east and south, brought settlers pouring into the new
country. They came to grow wheat and they grew it, the finest wheat in
the world. They grew it in ever increasing volume.
Successful operation of new railroads--even ordinary railroads--is not
all glistening varnish and bright new signal flags. The Canadian Pacific
was no ordinary railway. It was a young giant, reaching for the western
skyline with temerity, and it knew Trouble as it knew sun and wind and
snow. The very grain which was its life-blood gorged the embryo
system till it choked. The few elevators and other facilities provided
could not begin to handle the crop, even of 1887, the heavy yield
upsetting all calculations. The season for harvesting and marketing
being necessarily short, the railroad became the focus of a sudden belch
of wheat; it required to be rushed to the head of the lakes in a race with
the advancing cold which threatened to congeal the harbor waters about
the anxiously waiting grain boats before they could clear. With every
wheel turning night and day no ordinary rolling stock could cope with
the demands; for the grain was coming in over the trails to the shipping
points faster than it could be hauled out and the railroad was in a fix for

storage accommodation.
It was easy to see that such seasonal rushes would be a permanent
condition in Western Canada, vital but unavoidable; so the Canadian
Pacific Railway Company cast about for alleviations. They hit upon the
plan of increasing storage facilities rapidly by announcing that the
Company would make special concessions to anyone who would build
elevators along the line with a capacity of not less than 26,000 bushels
and equipped with cleaning machinery, steam or gasoline power--in
short, "standard" elevators. The special inducement offered was
nothing more nor less than an agreement that at points where such
elevators were erected the railway company would not allow cars to be
loaded with grain through flat warehouses, direct from farmers'
vehicles or in any other way than through such elevators; the only
"condition" was that the elevator owners would furnish storage and
shipping facilities, of course, for those wishing to store or ship grain.
At once the noise of hammer and saw resounded along the right-of-way.
Persons and corporations whose business it was to mill grain, to buy
and export it, were quick to take advantage of the opportunity; for the
protection offered by the railway meant that here was shipping control
of the grain handed out on a silver platter, garnished with all the
delectable prospects of satisfying the keenest money hunger.
On all sides protests arose from the few owners of ordinary warehouses
who found their buildings useless, once the overtopping elevator went
up alongside--from small buyers who found themselves being driven
out of the market with the flat warehouses. But these voices were
drowned in the swish of grain in the chutes and the staccato of the
elevator engines--lost in the larger exigencies of the wheat. The railway
company held to their promises and the tall grain boxes reared their
castor tops against the sky in increasing clusters.
To operate a standard elevator at a country point with profit it was
considered necessary in the early days