Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1911 — TEN MILLION PEOPLE IN THE CANADIAN WEST BY 1920 [ARTICLE]

TEN MILLION PEOPLE IN THE CANADIAN WEST BY 1920

•Toronto Btar, n Dee. 16th, 1910. The prediction Is made that before 1920 Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia will have ten million people. It is made not by a sanguine Western journal bat by that very Bober business newspaper, the New York; Commercial. It Is based upon actual observation, upon the wheat-growing capacity of the Canadian West, and upon the prospects of development following the building of railways. The wrtter shows how the position of leading wheat market of the world passed from Milwaukee to Minneapolis and thence to Winnipeg. Canada’s wheat-grow-ing belt is tour times greater than that of the United States, and only five per cent of Canada’s western agricultural area is under cultivation. There are 170,000,006 acres of wheat lands which will make these Western Provinces richer, more populous, more dependable for food supplies than the Western States can ever become. The center of food supremacy will change to Canada, and 25 years more will give this country 40,000,000 population west of Ontario. All these estimates of population are in the nature of guesses, and must not be read too literally. But the enormous area of wheat-growing land, the rapid construction of railways, and the large volume of immigration are facts which must be recognized. They point to the production of an ever-increasing surplus of wheat and other cereals. However rapidly the urban, the Industrial and commercial population of Canada may increase, the increase of home consumption is hardly likely to keep pace with that of the production of wheat; for a single acre of wheat will provide for the average annual consumption of four people. . While production in Canada is thus running ahead of consumption at a prodigious rate, consumption In the United States is overtaking production, and the surplus for export is growing smaller year by year. It Is true that the limit of actual power to produce wheat is as yet far away. By methods of Intensive cultivation, such as prevail in France, the production could be greatly Increased. But with the overflowing granary of Canada so close at hand, it'seems likely that our neighbors will begin to import from us, turning their own energies more largely to other forms of agriculture. It must be remembered that while the Northern States Canada in climate and produces, the resemblance diminishes as you go southward. The wheat belt glveß place to a corn belt, and this again to semitropical regions producing cotton, tobacco, cane-sugar, oranges and other tropical fruits. y The man who secures a farm in Western Canada at The present time secures an Investment better than the best of bond of any government or bank. It is no unusual thing for a fanner in Western Canada to realize a profit of from $5 to $lO per acre. There are thousands of free homesteads of 160 acres each still to be had, and particulars can be obtained by writing your nearest Canadian goyernment agent