WESTERN CANADA

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 213, 28 May 1918, Page 8

WESTERN CANADA

FARMING CONDITIONS

COMPARISON WITH NEW ZEALAND

(By A. AV. Packard.)

Just now wheat and then more wheat occupies the attention of Western Canada. Just as New Zealand is peculiarly situated for grazing, so are these North American prairies pre-eminently suitablo for tho growing of wheat. Curious to relate, it took the West somo timo to realise this fact. Even now there are some farmers on tho prairie who indulgo themselves in fond dreams, in which dairy-farming is the central theme. It began in this way. A succession of partial crop failures, induced by lack of moisture and culminating in the summer of 1014 in a severe drought and widespread series of disastrous prairie tires, led manv settlers to realise tho mistake of devoting the whole of their capital and energies to the production of wheat. In a country which, in its virgin comprised one vast natural pasture of prairie grass, dairy farming was one of the firsi. propositions which met with general commendation. The days of ranching were numbered ten and fifteen years back, when the big ranches were thrown open in 160-ncve lots to the homesteaders, or "free settlers."

Settlers were accordingly bombarded | with Government leaflets, and in Sas-, katchewan the Government established a number of dairy factories. A number ■ of privately-owned creameries also j sprung into existence. The progress j made, however, with this foundling in-; dustry lias not been altogether what was j expected. '< The Climate. | This has been brought about by a,: number nf reasons, climatic and other- j wise. Take tho climate, for instance. ; In the winter the thermometer on tho i prairie registers not infrequently 40 and ; 50 degrees below zero.- and Wellington , is often "not in it" when it comes to wind. These conditions make for the; severe blizzards which constantly, sweep : the Canadian North-West and spell danger to both man and beast. It means : that in many districts the cattle have : to be under shelter the greater part of; the winter, and are hand-fed. Boot ', crops aro net cultivated, and in consequence the cattle have to be fed oat- ; sheaves (and in these days oats are high-' price) and hay. On a dairy farm this , would involve a very heavy outlay. Ex-; cept during winters of unusual severity, •; horses may safely be turned adrift in ' the fall and let run loose on the open ; prairie till the spring, when they are j rounded up. Unlike cattle, the horse is. a born "rustler," and he can eke .' out a very fair existence in the winter '■ when left to his own devices. C'onsti- ; tutionally horses can stand the cold,; and unless the snow is exceptionally; deep, they paw through to _ the dry j prairie grass. A very few inches of j snow, however, and cattle are at their j wits' end whero to raise a meal. It: would seem also that their bodies have | not the same storage capacity for na-' tural heat as those of their equine; cousins; in consequence, in cold weather! they require to eat more. This is em- • phrisised in the case of tho daily or ! domesticated cows, which have' not the ! stamina and inherent instinct of self-! preservation as aro found in the "range" j (or ranch) cattle, which are bred for! beef and beef alone. Settlers still -le- | call the terrible winter of 19OS-07. which j finally put most of Iho big ranches out j of business. Blizzards of unprcccdent-! Ed fury were experienced, and hundreds • of thousands of cattle perished. Tho ; fences encompassing tho Canadiau-Paci-1 fio transcontinental railway lino wore j the only fences in tho. country. Tho j eiittlo drifted with the storm for hundreds of miles, and when they reached the barrier in the shape of the railway, i they could go no farther. When spring j ennio and tiie snow disappeared., tens of j thousands of dead cattle were for miles piled up alongside the railway tr'acx. |

Co-operation Wanted. Lack of co-operation is undoubtedly one of the big drawbacks which the Western farmer has to contend Vj.th.__in ; the matter of the dairy industry. Cooperative movements would not appear to be the success among the farmers of the Canadian West that they have been in New Zealand. Western agriculturists do not pull- together to any extent. This is all the readier understood when one takes the racial question into consideration. In Saskatchewan alono there are over thirty different nationalities settled on the land. Many of these have retained their language and oldtimo prejudices and are clannish to a largo degree. Some races look askance at others, and hold themselves more or less aloof from each other. The system of communal settlements, fostered by the Dominion Government, is to a large extent responsible for this, and until the races are all merged into one common blend, the genus Western-Cana-dian, universal co-operative propaganda will largely fall upon stony ground. There are, for instance, several different species of Russians located on the prairie, and each tribe has its own strings of villages built and maintained on communal lines of its own particular order. They are very jealous of their traditions. They possess their own schools, churohes, and social institutions, and even in this enlightened age the majority of their children are being brought up and educated in total ignorance of the English tongue. As relates to the lingual question, the French-Canadians are almost as bad as the Russians, and the Germans are also offenders in this respect. Some of the numerous race;? have their own little co-operative systems (not as relates to .dairying). These are good as far as 'they go, but they are mostly subjected to the dictum of whatever church the tribe or race follows, and in consequence one schema runs at cross pnrposes wltn another. , One must belong to one's own particular o'dev if one wishes to take advantage of them.

New Zealand Nothing to Fear. Some headway is being made with tho co-operative marketing of wheat, but the great majority of the farmers still continuo to sell their grain to elevators owned by private companies. And it was not vintil tho wheat industry hud assumed immense porportions, so that there was, in short,' a' scarcity of elevators for otorage purposes that the cooperative concern started operations on any appreciable scale. The cream of the wheat *;rop is still handled and exploited by private companies. As nothing short ol .iiteusG co-operation will ever put the dairy industry of. Western Canada on a formidable footing, it would not .appear from present indications that it will ever tjecome u serious competilor with New Zealand. There are also other important factors which serve to retard the industry on tho prairie which tend to emphasise this point. Right now the Westerners are finding wheatgrowing tho most lucrative branch of farming afforded them. AVith the price of wheat exceeding two dollars per bushel, and flax (linseed) correspondingly high, they are not losin,,' any sleep worrying over the prospects of another industry which for tholii is not yet out of its experimental stage.' A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; no person who is acquainted with the prairie will deny timt, us one of tho greatest wheat countries in the world, it is through climatic find soil conditions peculiarly suited for the raising of cereals. No one realises this more than the Westerner, but when it comes to talking of dairy cows it is another matter.

With the increasing application of (Scientific methods, eume ot the beat wheat in i/ie world is being grown on the prairie in what is known as tho dry belt—and this in many districts without the aid of irrigation projects. It is extremely questionable, however, if a flourishing dairying industry could bo built up under these same conditions. Nowadays, even in dry years, when tbero is not a blade of green grass on the whole prairie, tho wheat farmer who goes in for intensive cultivation gets some sort of a crop, and would be bet-

' ter off than his neighbour if the latter were trying to rim a dairy herd. In Experimental Stago. A litue mixed farming is gone in tor on the Western prairie, but it is by no means general yet. The great bulk of the settlers still prefer to specialise in cereals, and when it comes to mixed farming the fanner in Canada's newest west has an Irishman's fondness for the pi?. He also likes to raise a few horses and some beef cattle. An odd milk cow or so for.domestic use iil in .ill right in his landscape. The milkers are usually of the same strain as hi<f "beefers," and of no particular breed. He has probably never heard of a milktesting association, and, in accordance witlv the belief current among those who farm this country of intense cold, he considers that the well-bred and domesticated milking strains cannot stand the lone severe winters.

The position in a nutshell is this: The dairying industry in tho two western provinces (Saskatchewan and Alberta) lias not been tried out yet; and, having regard for all tho circumstances and tho :umlitioru existing rhere, tho New Zealand dairy farmer need not worry for the present, at all -—ents about being rtiiwrseded by what ; ,r> >-3es fee :ho dairy industry of these As'c provinces. Perhaps it is just as well for the New Zoalander when ones compares tho low figure which millions of acres of good, flat land in these self-same province* Setch compared with the price demanded'hern! If these million upon millions of acres of flat and rolling country, albeit very low-priced, could carry dairy cows as successfully as they do now raise wheat, where would the Now Zealand dairy farmer with his high-priced and limited acreage be? Happily, Nature has seemingly provided against this predicament.