EDUCATING THE SETTLER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 367, 7 June 1911, Page 3

EDUCATING THE SETTLER.

The Nightingale colony is at present j twelve miles from the railroad, but the C.P.R. and two other companies aj:e building lines that P^ sa H 3 looundariea, su that it will have no Jong haulage. Another advantage it has, and one which should be noted, is a special irrigated demonstration farm, recently established by the C.P.R-i at Strathmore. This institution embraces a few hundred acres of good soil, and is under the management of Professor J. W. Elliott, a distinguished American agriculturist, who was secured from the Government farm in Montana. Already Professor Elliott has made some interesting and I useful demonstrations in the growing I of improved cereals and other pro-

ducts, and his work has the warm interest of the farmers of the neighbourhood. But his special care is to be the ready-made farm colonies, both irrigated and "dry," and from this time forward he will spend a lot of his time in the motor car provided for the purpose, travelling from colony to colony and settler to settler, giving advice on cultivation and the use of water, and the raising of live stock. Professor Elliott believes in establishing a close personal touch with the farmers, and that as much can be done by visiting from farm to farm as by demonstrations on a central property. The farm aims to be of practical financial assistance to the new settlers. For instance, while I was at Strathmore Professor Elliott asked the Nightingale settlers to hold a meeting and advise the company how much seed wheat and oats they would want for the spring sowing and for horse feed. It seemed that a sharp advance in prices was likely, and the farm, on behalf of the C.P.R., wao going to buy ahead of the rise, and let the colonsits have it at cost when they wanted it. The farm milks 80 or 100 cows, by machinery, and supplies the trans-Canadian dining-cars with milk and cream. A superior dairy stud is being established, and is to be at the free disposal of the colonists. Purebred poultry is being raised on a large scale for distribution on similar lines. One hundred thousand shelter trees, mostly adapted for bleak prairie,and many kinds of vegetable seedlings, are being grown. In these and other directions the farm aims to make as direct and easy as possible the progress of the settler towards profitable production. On a small tract of country the C.P.R. is this year introducing a special poultry raising colony. These colonists, like the rest, will be introduced from Great Britain —a novel experiment.

By the spring of next year about seventy more ready-made farms will be ready, and by the spring of 1912 five hundred will be offered. And, profiting by this year's experience,the houses will be larger and the improvements on a more generous scale. Instead of a house that costs only £7O, the new colonies will have houses costing £l3O, and the barns will cost £6O and the fencing £24. The largest of the new colonies now being prepared is off the irrigated block, and taken up by the Dominion Government and the other land companies. It is stated that the company has received 100,0 for the fifty uniyyigatod iavms to be offered next spring. AH of these are from Great Britain.

Comparing the irrigated land in Canaia and that in Victoria the former has but limited advantages. Canadian land is cheaper, about £6 an acre, against £l2; so is the water. On the whole, the Canadian soil ja j also perhaps of superior feut,. j after making thos? admissions, Vic- | toria begins to 3cp,re. In Canada the i growing season is extremely short;] how short may be gathered from the fact that, while irrigated land in Victoria yields six cuts of lucerne, in Alberta it yields two. Those two crops would be heavier than two in Victoria, but not as heavy as six, and the. price is not nearly so good in Canada. The Canadian land is not nearly so well graded as ours, and irrigation will be more difficult, and patchy, and expensive. The fare from Liverpool to Strathmore is about £l7 10s, second class on steame\- arc} ssiiiways. To Victoria it ia <ja»siderably more. But yi^toria * loans 80 per cent of the fare, and Canada gives no aid. However, that is a small matter. The .C.P.R. and the Victorian delegation have proved beyond all question that Great Britain abounds in settlers* 4o whom the cost of a sea voyage is a trifling matter. Canada sells its irrigated on ten years' terms; in , victoria the buyer gets 31J years. — From a travelling correspondent t<3 "The Australasian."