Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1913 — WESTERN CANADA’S PHENOMENAL DEVELOPMENT [ARTICLE]

WESTERN CANADA’S PHENOMENAL DEVELOPMENT

ITB PERMANENCY VERY LITTLE QUESTIONED. There have been boom* in almost every civilized country and they were looked upon as such, and in the course of time the bubble was pricked and they burst. But in no country has the development been as great nor a* rapid, whether in city or in country, as in Western Canada. There may sometimes be found one who will say “Can it last?’’ Winnipeg/today, stands where Chicago stands as far as being the base of the great commercial and agricultural country lying a thousand miles back of it. It has an advantage that Chicago did not have, for no country in the world’s history has attracted to Its borders a larger number of settlers in so short a time, or has attracted so much wealth in a period of equal length, as have the Canadian prairies. Never before has pioneering been accomplished under conditions so favorable as those that exist in Western Canada today. The provinces .of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have the largest area of desirable lands on the North American Continent, and their cultivation has just begun.

Even with a two hundred million bushel wheat crop less than eight per cent, of the land is under the plough, four per cent, being in wheat. Less than five years ago the wheat crop was only seventy-one million bushels. It is a simple calculation to estimate that if four per cent, of the available cultivable area produces something over two hundred million bushels, what will forty-four per cent, produce? And then look at the immigration that is coming into the country. In 1901 it was 49,149; 17,000 being from the United States. In 1906 It was 189,064, of which 57,000 were Americans, and in 1912 It was about 400,000, of which about 200,000 are Americans. In the three years prior to 1912, there were 358,859 persons who declared themselves for Canada, who brought into Canada In cash, bank drafts, stock. Implements and effects over $350,000,000. Why have they gone to Canada? The American farmer is a man of shrewd business Instincts, and when he finds that he can sell his own farm at from SIOO to S2OO per acre and move into Canada and homestead 160 acres for himself, and similarly for all his sons who are adult and of age, upon lands as rich and fertile as those he had left, and producing, Indeed, several bushels to the aere in excess of anything he has ever known, It will take more than an ordinary effort to prevent him from making the change He can also purchase good lands at from sl2 to $25 per acre.

And, then, too, there is the American capital following the capital of brawn, muscle and sinew, following it so as to keep in touch with the industrious farmer with which he has had dealings for -years back. This capital and the capital of farming experience is no small matter in the building up of a country. Will Western Canada’s development continue? Why not? The total area of land reported as available for cultivation is estimated as 218,000,000 acres; only fifteen per cent of this is under cultivation. Nothing is said of the great mineral and forest wealth, of which but little has yet been touched.—Advertisement