NO MORE LONELY PIONEERS.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1922, Page 1

NO MORE LONELY PIONEERS.

(By Sir William Beach Thomas.) EDMONTON (Canada). It is becoming very difficult to bo oiiclv. The pioneer himsell, or the olitary squatter, is to-day, almost inimatelv in touch with the worlcl, infeed with the latest graces of civilisa- | ion. My example is this. Much of l,e I airest parkland of the American Continent stretches north of Edmonon. Near the town it is a paradise of nixed farming. The black soil, often raids deep, covers undulating strata; the rains are sufficient, and even the winter is not harsh. Von might think on many homesteads that you were in England itself. Such soil, such country, extends several hundred miles north up to the Peace River much of it as yet unbroken. 18 YKARS Old)—dot) ACRES Throughout this area aro many posts of lumbermen, of railwayman, of wood- | (

i rangers, of pioneer farmers. A young man- lie looks about 1C years old—from St. Albans, Hertfordshire, lias a farm nearly 30C miles north, By right of being peer 18 years old lie has claimed 1(J0 acres of free land. By right of having fought overseas he has another ICO aeres and he gets in addition at the cost of a few shillings, a few a,seres that lie between these 320 aeres and the lake. So his farm totals 350 aeres. The land is unbroken except for some nine acres that lie has cleared, and there he runs some stock that bring him in a little income. AVI lat lie does is to take any work lie can get in town or country during one , half of the year (T earned him a sovereign or two by giving him an interview), and for the other half he goes forth to his freehold with agricultural tools, including a new patent grubber of brushwood, and some dynamite cartridges, to till and to clear. JTe enjoys his life to the full an his farm has already appreciated much in. value. But T inn quoting his case merely as ail exaippje of one of the soenlled “lonely” posts which, thanks to recent inventions, are no longer lonely in the old sense.

NIGHTLY FARM CONCERTS. The nowest agent in this work of abolishing loneliness is the “radio” or wireless telephone. Scores'of posts, and they will soon swell to hundreds, are now being connected wit’ll the towns, from which they can get not only the news hut also amusements. The local evening paper here has start ed regular concerts from 8 to 10 p.m. to which pioneers and isolated persons, and oven communities, listen both individually, with receivers over their ears and in groups by aid of the megaphone attachments. Last night, after the disseminatiin of news—some of it football news—a concert was given by the St. Andrews pipers. The newsroom itself, of the Edmonton Journal was full of Edmonton people listening directly, and they got additional pleasure (a non-Caledon, ian cynic said “diininiriied pain”) by the very present sense that the concert, was being shared by listeners in lonely posts perhaps a hundred miles away.

Wlmt the radio may mean in such countries as this, and the extent to which it may aid in the development of , the millions of acres now wasted, can scarcely he understandable in England. 1 with its crowded hordes and short boundaries. Here imaginations are leaping very rapilv to its message. AER OPLA NE FTRE-FIGHTER S. Other newer discoveries tend in the same direction, from wireless telegraphy to the aeroplano. A little below Calgary there is a regular aeroplane establishment which sends out p'atrols for the detention of forest fires; and those ’planes are of course equipped with wireless telephones, so that they can communicate at once with the outlying as well as the central posts. All this is making immigration easier and more pleasant, especially at the start'. Pioneering in the old sense has lost its heroic isolation. TVc are to-dav at home in tlie wilds. The British farmer would he amazed by the. journey from Winnipeg to Edmonton. I riw stubbles being re-sown without being first ploughed. A disc cultivato', that scratches an inch or two into the earth is run oye r the long stubble, giving it a slightly muddied look, and the drills follow without more ado. The practice is now had form, and growing rarer, because it encourages weeds, but it is at any rate some tribute to the land that it is expected to return a paying crop without ploughing, without manure, and without change of rotation. One of the dangers of the purely | prairie districts is the robber, or gambling farmer, who takes a huge area out after ho has shorn off two or three crops. Such men are often not farmers in any real sense of the word.

Tlio British farmer will prefer tlio ; so-called parklnnds to tlio pure prairie lands, both of which you go through on this 700-miles journey. Mixed farms of the highest quality surrouudEdmonton, and the farther north you travel the better is the grain, especially of oats. A seed trade is developing with even the southern parts of the TTnite.l States, and promises a great industrv. ftcek knowledge. The black soil runs down many feet. The country is undulating, broken bv poplar woods and rivers and lakes, and is outside the driei belt. Nor is the climate necessarily colder towards the north. It may lie warmer and wetter. There are places 800 miles north of Winnipeg which have at least as mild a climate. But the temperature. the rainfall, fix date of the frosts and all such figures are now public property. The immigrant is a fool who does not. take advantage of the knowledge provided free gratis and for nothing by the Government farms. Wherever mixed farming progresses and it is steadily ousting the purely wheat farm—-silos are multiplying; and the popular crop of the day, strongly recommended by the men of science, is tile sunflower —the common or garden sunflower. Tt gives an immense weight of ensilage, and though evil may result from its excessive use, it i hag proved a healthy fat toner of stock and a great defence against winteT I dearth.