the N.W.T. He even had offered to set up the Rolanderie ranch as an experimental farm. While Ottawa seems to have paid little attention to Meyer's proposal, the two aristocrats gave the idea serious consideration. Roffignac was able to raise the initial start up cost of $500,000. The late Mrs. L.W.D. Park, whose father James Grierson of Whitewood constructed the Rolanderie and Bellevue chateaus, wrote in an article in The Whitewood Herald (1950) As sugar was expensive and much in demand on prairies, it was thought that by cultivating the beet the farmers could produce a commodity which would rival wheat production in that it would give richer returns per acre. To ensure that the soil and climatic conditions were suitable, Mrs. Park recalls, "Tests of selected sugar beets had been made under the supervision of an expert from Brazil and apparently had proved satisfactory." De Roffignac, shortly after his return from France in 1890, and van Brabant organized a meeting of settlers in Whitewood. Their proposals are said to have been accepted. The farmers not only appreciated the sugar-beets conceivably were a more profitable cash crop than wheat, they recognized the vegetable was better suited to the climate of the region. Frost neither retarded the growth of the plant nor injured its quality. The same could not be said of the Red Fife wheat they were currently growing. The two nobles distributed the seed to the farmers, and the first crop was grown in 1890. To the aristocrat s dismay the territorial government refused to allow the production of the beets because the process yielded an alcoholic by-product. Regina was attempting at the time to keep out of the hands of the Indians. It would allow settlers to have liquor in their possession only if they held a "permit" from the Lieutenant-Governor of the N.W.T. Thus ended what to be the most successful of all the enterprises initiated on the Pipestone. Bellevue and Richelieu were not the only centres of activity. By 1892 the Gruyere cheese factory ned to above was established on Tsp 16 - Rge 15 - West of the 3rd, on now (1980) owned by Andre Dartige. Janet and de Seyssel had arrived in 1890 with the express of establishing such a factory. After surveying the land and gauging the possibilities of such an enterprise, they returned to France in the fall of 1890 to purchase