The Joys of Prairie Farmers

We let Ontario farmers sing
About the joys the woods do bring,
But we in regions of Northwest
Do think prairie farms the best,
For those poor men who swing the axe
On their strength ’tis a heavy tax,
For several years they naught can grow
While from the first we plow and sow,
And while we plow we don’t get thumps
By running it against the stumps,
And where wild Buffalo now doth feed
There very soon they’ll sow the seed,
Where Indian wigwams now do stand
Will be the site of cities grand,
And where the deer and wolf doth roam
Millions will build each happy home,
So quick as if by magic wand
They will arise o’er the whole land,
But this one fact we won’t deny
Ontario she can supply,
For so skilfully she doth invent
Each agricultural implement.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L22.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “The Joys of Prairie Farmers.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/the-joys-of-prairie-farmers/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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