Settlement in Saskatchewan with special reference to the influence of dry farming
Date
1931
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
"I have been assured that the British public do not care
much about Canada, except as a refuge for the superfluous
population. It is quite satisfied, say my informants, with
pamphlets on the subject distributed by the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company and other emigration agents. This is
doubtless true of a large class. The pamphlets in question
record only the successes of the British settlers in Canada.
It is no business of theirs to give the many losses, their
cause, and how to avoid them. A boy is backward at school -
he cannot pass an examination for a profession; why trouble,
says a sanguine friend, to work up for a second attempt? Why
don't you go and make your fortune in Canada? how this
fortune is to be made, or even how the small capital which
the boy perhaps takes out with him is to be safely invested
and kept from melting away, does not seem to occur to his
adviser. So an inexperienced sanguine youth sets forth from
his home - credulous because he has lived among honest
people, unacquainted with any species of labour except
cricket and football, but confident in his own judgement -
to fall an easy prey to those unscrupulous gentry who in
every colony are prepared to welcome the novice and dispose
of unprofitable land, unsaleable machinery, worn-out cattle,
and anything else they want to get rid of - at his expense.
This is the commonest way in which fortunes are made and
lost in Canada.
"Yet we have heard men, who have started a son with
£500 or £1000, speak as confidently of a certain interest
on that sum within a year or two, as if it had been invested
in British console. If farming is hazardous and slow to
bring a profit in England, it is much more hazardous and
experimental in the most uncertain climate of the North-West;
but then many of us cannot afford to indulge in farming at
all in England, and it can be enjoyed by everyone for a
comparative trifle in Canada, if a man farms on Canadian
soil in the Canadian way."(1)
But to farm on Canadian soil in the Canadian way was
exactly what the early settlers failed to do; and it was not
until this simple truth was brought home to them, after
years of failure, that settlement on the western plains
made any progress.
Ignorant of the true conditions of the country, the
people, not only of Great Britain and Europe, but of Eastern
Canada, had flooded upon them a mass of propaganda in the
form of pamphlets, books and lectures, telling of the
wonderful opportunity awaiting them in the country west of
the Red River. According to the propagandists, all that was
necessary in order to grow wheat in this distant land was to
turn the sod over and plant the seed - the crop would never
fail. The larger the quantity of seed planted the more
fabulous would be the proceeds. After a few years farming
the settler would be able to return to his native land and
spend the remainder of his life a retired man. Unfortunately
all this propaganda was believed by many people. Leaving
their old homes, and often good positions, they set out for
the land of "milk and honey", unprepared for the problems
with which they were to be confronted but confident that in
a very few years they would be wealthy, and, if they
desired, would be able to return home and live at ease.
The vicissitudes which these people experienced in the
country of their adoption will be told in the following
pages. Although the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway
in 1883 solved, in some measure, the transportation question,
there still remained the problems of drought and frost and
for some time it seemed that the statement of Sir George
Simpson, made before the Select Committee on the Hudson's
Bay Company in 1857, would be borne out. He had said: "I do
not think that any part of the Hudson's Bay Company's
Territories is well adapted for settlement; the crops are
very uncertain." (1) Ridiculed by propagandists of the
'seventies and 'eighties, and even by present day writers (2),
this statement has been interpreted as dictated by his
interest in the fur-trade. His modern critics, in claiming
that the west to-day has given the lie to his contention,
forget that Simpson spoke before the discovery of an early-
maturing wheat and dry land farming. he could not foresee
that agriculture science was to revolutionize the possibilities of the west. In his day, besides the lack of transportation facilities, there were no means of coping with the
problems of drought and frost; both of which constituted the
barrier to the settlement of the west, as he well knew. The
propaganda of the immigration officials and railway agents
made no mention of either of these; and, as a consequence,
the settlers did not come prepared to guard against them.
Located along the railway line, their one and sole aim was to
produce thousands of bushels of wheat and they sought to
increase the acreage of this grain at the expense of
proper cultivation and other branches of agriculture. A
visit of drought or frost meant complete failure, and, in
most cases, bankruptcy. Only after years of bitter
experience which often resulted in the depopulation of
whole districts did the settler learn the lesson of proper
farming. To guard against drought he must practice better
methods of land tillage and to guard against frost he must
diversify his farming operations and grow less wheat. The
failure of the settler sooner to learn this lesson and the
consequent ill-effects on settlement was caused largely by
the false impression given him by the eastern propagandists.
Description
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Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
History
Program
History