The farm home of the Peaker brothers was located in the Rural Municipality of Wallace, south of Yorkton; Township 25, Section 6, Range 3 West of the 2nd Meridian. On the R.M. map of 1912, Charles Peaker is owner of the North West quarter and James owns the North East as well as the South East quarter sections. They obviously owned other land as well. This photo accompanies an article featured in a 1902 farm publication out of Winnipeg, entitled The Farmer’s Advocate in which they show Peaker brothers as “Mixed Farming in the Territories.” Their farm consisted of 1,120 acres, 300 of which were under cultivation. That year 80 acres were sown to wheat and 140 to oats, which threshed out over 9,000 bushels. The land sown to wheat is always a summer-fallow, which is done with one plowing and kept free from weeds by constant cultivation. This method had proved a success. After the wheat, two crops of oats are grown, then summer-fallowed again, thus a quarter of the acreage under cultivation is summer-fallow. No attention has been given to grasses, as until this year an Indian Reserve, (Little Bone Reserve) close at hand, has afforded plenty of hay and pasture. A considerable quantity of Swedes and mangels are grown for the pure-bred stock. The herds numbers about 150 and 16 of these are pure-bred. The grade cattle are all the offsprings of some ten or twelve cows which were bought when Peaker Bros. came to the territories some 15 years ago. From the first pure-bred Shorthorn bulls have been used and these have left their stamp upon this herd.” (Mangels and Swedes were course root plants used for cattle fodder.)
Contact Terri Lefebvre Prince,
Heritage Researcher,
City of Yorkton Archives,
Box 400, 37 Third Avenue North
Yorkton, Sask. S3N 2W3
306-786-1722
[email protected]
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