Contentment is not necessarily achieved by accomplishments that benefit
the world--the world outside the small sphere in which we move; but when
accompanied by such accomplishments how the satisfaction broadens! The
genius whose inventions have been of service to mankind is in a plane
far above that of the simple-minded individual who finds contentment in
the little things of life affecting himself alone.
Feeding the world is no mean accomplishment. Nor is it a vain or
trifling boast to say that this is what the farmer of Western Canada has
started out to do. He is sure to find contentment. Part of his
contentment will be the consciousness of doing world-wide good; part of
it will be the personal enjoyment of an inspiring liberty and
independence. Afield and abroad his friends will learn what he is doing.
Soon they too will become partners in a work that not only betters their
own condition, but ministers to the needs of the whole world in the
raising of products that go to "feed the world."
It is to those who desire this broad contentment that the Canadian
Government extends the heartiest welcome, and to such men it offers the
vast opportunities of a country richer in possibilities than any other
in the present century. To the man on the farm in other regions, whom
success has followed with slow tread; to the farmer's son, who has
watched with unsatisfied eye the unrequited efforts of his forbears,
seeing the life that has made his mother a "drudge," noting the struggle
which has stooped his father's shoulders, dimmed his vision, dwarfed his
spirit, and returned nothing but existence and a meagre bank account--it
is to these men, father and son, that the opportunities of Western
Canada are presented. To them an invitation is extended to secure the
contentment found in personal progress and world-wide benefaction.
The possibilities of Western Canada are no longer new and untried.
Twelve or fifteen years of cultivation have made it a vital, living
land, and placed it on the level with the greatest of the food-producing
countries. That same redundant energy will shortly make it the richly
laden "bread basket" not of England only, but of the entire world.
Here every condition is a health bringer as well as a wealth bringer. A
few months in this "New World" to which you are invited and where
rejuvenating physical and mental changes are wrought; where before hard
work was drudgery, it is now a delight; where nothing but fresh trouble
darkened the horizon, the outlook is now a rainbow of promise. Industry
is seasoned with the compelling spirit of adventure, and the thought of
the coming harvest constantly lightens the burden of labor.
The crowded city dweller, curbing those natural desires for
home-building that are as natural as breathing, will find in Western
Canada a country where nothing is so plentiful as space. And in building
his home here he is surely laying the foundation for a competence, and
very often for a fortune. Along with prosperity there is abounding
happiness and good fellowship in the farming communities. The
homesteader, beginning in a modest way, rears his first habitation with
practical and serviceable ends in view. His next-door neighbours are
ready and willing to help him put a roof over his head. There is a
splendid lend-a-hand sentiment mixed with the vigorous climate. The
first harvest, like all succeeding harvests, comes quickly, because the
soil is a lightning producer. All summer long the settler has dreamed of
nothing but acres of waving grain; with the autumn the sight of hopes
fulfilled compensates him for his months of toil. In due time the crop
is harvested and marketed, the debts are wiped out, and the settler
proudly opens his bank account.
When he has turned the golden grain into the golden coin of the realm he
realizes for the first time what it means to be liberally paid for the
work of his hand and brain. The reward of the farmer in Western Canada
is sure; and as the soil responds faithfully to his husbandry, year
after year, he looks back upon the old conditions he has left with
devout thankfulness that they are past.
After the bumper harvest the happy young farmer can send for the wife or
the bride-to-be whom he has left "back home." A few years ago "down on
the farm" was an expression synonymous with isolation, loneliness and
primitive living. Not so to-day. Whatever his previous outlook, the
settler in Western Canada cannot go on raising large crops and selling
his products for high prices without enlarging his view of life in
general and bettering his material conditions. He needs to practice no
rigid economy. He can afford to supply his wife and children with all
the best the markets provide. An up-to-date farm house in Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, or Alberta has very much the same conveniences as the
average home of the well-to-do in any other part of the world. Nine
times out of ten it is because he feels confident he can increase the
comfort and happiness of his wife and children that the settler
emigrates to Western Canada.
Western Canada is no longer a land calling only to the hardy young
adventurer; it calls to the settler and to his wife and children. And
with its invitation goes the promise not only of larger financial
returns, but of domestic happiness in a pure, wholesome environment.
Railroads bring to the doors of the settler the fruits of all countries
and here is to hand the use of every modern idea and invention. The
climate is the most health-giving, all-year kind. There is latent riches
in the soil, produced by centuries of accumulation of decayed
vegetation, and the fat producing qualities of the native grasses are
unexcelled in any part of the world.
The soil produces the best qualities of wheat, oats, barley, flax, and
all kinds of vegetables and roots in less time than many districts
farther south in the states. There are inexhaustible coal deposits and
natural gas and oil fields, as yet unknown in extent or production. The
Canadian Rockies, forming a western boundary to the great agricultural
area, supply the needed mineral and building materials. In the north and
west there are immense forests. Lakes and rivers are capable of an
enormous development for power purposes, besides supplying an abundance
of food and game fishes, and forests and prairies are full of big and
small game of all kinds.
But all this is yet undeveloped and unused. All kinds of live stock can
be raised here for less money than in the more thickly populated
communities.
One Western Canada farmer in 1912 secured a crop of Marquis wheat,
yielding 76 bushels per acre. This is spoken of as a record yield, and
this is doubtless true, but several cases have been brought to notice
where yields almost as large have been produced, and in different parts
of the country. During the past year there have been reported many
yields of from 35 to 45 bushels of wheat to the acre. Oats, too, were a
successful crop and so was the barley and oat crop. Wheat that would
yield 40 bushels per acre, would bring on the market 70 cents (a fair
figure) per bushel, a gross return of $28 per acre. Allow $12 per acre
(an outside figure) there would be a balance of $16 per acre net profit.
This figure should satisfy anyone having land that cost less than $100
per acre.