Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1918 — INCREASE IN WESTERN CANADA LAND VALUES [ARTICLE]

INCREASE IN WESTERN CANADA LAND VALUES

But Forty and Fifty Bushels of Wheat to the Acre. Durlag the past year there has been i>« greater demand for farm lands In Western Canada than for a nuinber of | year* past. The demand is for good farm lands Improved or unimproved. And at an Increase of from ten to fifteen dollars an acre more than the same lands could be had for a couploaf years ago. The rise in the price of every kind of produce grown on these Western lands, in some cases to double and in others to treble the price prevailing before 1914, have attracted and are attracting in ever-increasing proportions the men who are anxious to Invest their money, and apply their energies In the production of wheat for which the allied nations are calling with i voices which grow louder and more ..anxious as the months roll on, and the end of the war still seems distant. Beef, and more especially bacon, are required in ever greater quantities, and the price of all these things has Board, until it is not a question of what shall we produce, but how much can we produce. Even should this world calamity be brought to a close in six months from now, it will be years .before normal pre-war prices prevail, and meantime self-interest if not patriotism is turning the minds of thousands back to the land. The inevitable consequence has been, the rise In values of land, especially wheat land. The Calgary Herald, commenting on these conditions says: “From inquiries made from leading dealers in farming and ranching properties, and from the Information gathered in other ways, it is known that the value of all land —wheat land, mixed farming properties, and even good grazing land—has risen in the last two years 40 per cent. Wheat lands in some districts have practically doubled in price. One dealer in farm lands recently sold three sections for S7O an acre, one extra good quarter went as high as S9O, and another brought SIOO. These are. of course, large prices, but that they will be equaled or even surpassed in the near future is beyond question. There is a feature about this rush to the land from which the most solid hope can be drawn for the success of the movement. The proper tillage of land, to produce large crops in a climate like ours is now understood and practiced as it never was In the early days of the province. It would seem too that with the Increase of land under cultivation, the seasons are changing and the rainfall becoming greater and more regular. “Crops are being harvested, especially In Southern Alberta, which would have seemed impossible to the old-time farmer, with his old-fashioned Ideas of breaking and seeding. And at the price now set Uy the government for wheat and which possibly may be increased during the coming season, the return to the practical skilled agriculturist must necessarily be very large. “What matters $lO or even S2O an acre extra on wheat land when a return as high as 50 bushels and Oven more may be taken from every acre sown? With hogs bringing S2O a hundred pounds; beef on the hoof at sl3. and mutton sl6, while wool under the new government arranged system of handling and sale brings 65 cents a pound land these values cannot fall to any great extent for some years) the demand for land will continue and values increase in a corresponding degree. “There has never been In the history of Canada a time so favorable for the farmer as the present; self-interest, the Inspiration of patriotic feeling, the aid freely extended by the government, who are permitting the import of certain agricultural Implements free, all these tend to still further raise the price of Alberta land.” —Advertisement