Masters of the Wheat-Lands by Harold Bindloss

Agatha had spent a month with Mrs. Hastings. When they were driving over to Wyllard's homestead one afternoon, the older woman pulled up her team while they were still some little distance away from their destination, and looked about her with evident interest. On the one hand, a vast breadth of torn-up loam ran back across the prairie, which was now faintly flecked with green. On the other, plowing teams were scattered here and there across the tussocky sod, and long lines of clods that flashed where the sunlight struck their facets trailed out behind them. The great sweep of grasses that rustled joyously before a glorious warm wind, gleamed luminously, and overhead hung a vault of blue without a cloud in it. Trailing out across it, flocks of birds moved up from the south.

"Harry is sowing a very big crop this year, and most of it on fall back-set," she observed. "He has, however, horses enough to do that kind of thing, and, of course, he does it thoroughly. " She glanced toward the place where the teams were hauling unusually heavy plows through the grassy sod. "This is virgin prairie that he's breaking, and he'll probably put oats on it. They ripen quicker. He ought to be a rich man after harvest unless the frost comes, or the market goes against him. Some of his neighbors, including my husband, would have sown a little less and held a reserve in hand."