Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1910 — A COUNTRY WHOSE SOIL SPELLS WHEAT [ARTICLE]

A COUNTRY WHOSE SOIL SPELLS WHEAT

And Out of Whose Farms Thousands Are Growing Rich What President Taft and Others Think About Canada Another Fat Year for the Canadian West Our Canadian neighbors to the north are again rejoicing over an abundant harvest, and reports from reliable sources go to show that the total yield of 1909 will be far above that of any other year. It is estimated that 1100,000,000 will this year go into the pockets of the western farmers from wheat alone, another $60,000,000 from oats and barley, while returns from other crops and from stock will add $40,000,000 more. Is it any wonder then that the farmers of the Canadian West are happy? Thousands of American farmers have settled in the above mentioned provinces during the past year; men who know the West and its possibilities, and who also know, perhaps better than any other people, the best methods for profitable farming. President Taft said recently, in speaking of Canada: “We have been going ahead so rapidly in our own country that our heads have been somewhat swelled with the idea that we are carrying on our shoulders all the progress there is in the world. We have not been conscious that there is on the north a yopng country and a young nation that is looking forward, as it well may, to a great national future. They have 7,000,000 people, but the country is still hardly scratched.” James J. Hill, speaking before the Canadian Club of Winnipeg a few days ago, said: “I go back for 53 years, when I came west from Canada. At that time Canada had no Northwest. A young boy or man who desired to carve his own way had to cross the line, and today It may surprise you—one out of every five children born In Canada lives in the United States. Now you are playing the return match, and the Northwest Is getting people from the United States very rapidly. We brought 100 land-seekers, mainly from lowa and Southern Minnesota, last night, out of S„J. Paul, going to the Northwest. Now, these people have all the way from five, ten to twenty thousand dollars each, and they will make as much progress on the land in one year as any one man coming from the Continent of Europe can make, doing the best he can do, In ten, fifteen or twenty years.” It Is evident from the welcome given American settlers In Canada that the Canadian people appreciate them. Writing from Southern Alberta recently, an American farmer says: “We are giving them some new Ideas about being good farmers, and they are giving us some new ideas about being good citizens. They have a law against taking liquor into the Indian reservation. One of our fellows was caught on a reservation with a bottle on him, and it cost him SSO. One of the Canadian mounted police found him, and let nrfe -tell you, they find everyone who tries to go up against the lawß of the country. On Saturday night every bar-room Is closed at exactly 7 o’clock. Why? Because it is the law, and it’a the ■ame with every other law. There isn’t a bad man in the whole district, and -a woman can come home from town to the farm at midnight, if she wants to, alone. That’s Canada’s idea how to fun a frontier: they have certainly taught us a lot. On the other hand, we are running their farms for them better than any other class of farmers. I guess I can ■ay this without boaßting, and the Canadians appreciate us. We turn out to celebrate Dominion Day; they are glad to have us help to farm the

country; they know how to govdra; We know how to work." Another farmer, from Minnesota, who settled in Central Saskatchewan some years ago, has the following to say about the country,: “My wife and I have done well enough since we came from the States; wo can live, anyway. We came in the spring of 1901, with the first carload of settlers’ effects unloaded in these parts, and built the first shanty between Saskatoon and Lumsden. We brought with bur car of settlers’ effects the sum of SI,BOO in cash, today we are worth $40,000. We ‘proved up’ one of the finest farms in Western Canada, and bought 320 acres at $3 per acre. We took good crops off the land for four years, at the end of which we had SB,OOO worth of improvements ia the way of buildinfcs, etc., and had planted three acres of trees. Two years ago we got such a good offer that we sold our land at $45 per acre. From the above you will 'see that we have not done badly since our arrival.” Prof. Thomas Bhaw, of St Paul, Minnesota, with a number of other well known editors of American farm journals, toured Western Canada recently, and in an interview at Winnipeg said, in part: “With regard to the settlement >of the West I should say that it is only well begun. I have estimated that in Manitoba one-tenth of the land had been broken, in Saskatchewan one-thirtieth, and in Alberta, one-hun-dred and seventy-fifth. I am satisfied that in all three provinces grain can be grown successfully up to the sixtieth parallel, and in the years to come your vacant lands will be taken at a rate of which you have at present no conception. We have enough people in the United States alone, who want homes, to take up land. What you must do in Western Canada is to raise more live stock. When you are doing what you ought to do in this regard the land which is now selling for S2O an acre will be worth from SSO to SIOO per acre. It is as good land as that which is selling for more than SIOO per acre in the corn belt. / I Would sooner raise cattle in. Western Canada than in the corn belt of the United States. You can get your food cheaper and the cl ligate is better for the purpose. We have a better market, hut your market will improve faster than your farmers will produce the supplies. Winter wheat can be grown in one-half of the country through which I have passed, and alfalfa and one of the varieties of clover in three-fourths of it. The farmers do not believe this, but It is true.” Keeping pace with wheat production, the growth of railways has been quite as wonderful, and the whole country, from Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains, will soon be a net-work of trunk and branch lines. Three great transcontinental lines are pushing construction in every direction, and at each siding the grain elevator is to be found. Manitoba being the first settled province, has now an elevator capacity of upwards of 26,000,000 bushels; Saskatchewan, 20,000,000, and Alberta about 7.000.00 Q, while the capacity of elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur on the preat Lakes, is upwards of 20,000,000 more. Within the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta there are flour and oatmeal mills with a combined capacity of 25,000 barrels per day, and situated along some famous water powers in New Ontario, there are larger mills than will be found anywhere In the prairie provinces. Last year the wheat crop totalled over 100,000,000 bushels. This year the crop will yield 30,000,000 more. A recent summary shows that on the Ist of January, 1909, the surveyed lands of the three western provinces totalled 134,000,000 acres, of which about 32,000,000 have been given as subsidies to railways, 11,000,000 disposed of in other ways, and 38,000,000 given by the Canadian government as free homesteads, being 236,000 homesteads of 160 acres each. Of this enormous territory, there is probably under crop at the present time less than 11,000,000 acres; what the results will be when wide awake settlers have taken advantage of Canada's offer and are cultivating the fertile prairie lands one can scarcely imagine.