Section IV, 1919 [61] Trans. R.S.C. 



The Problem of the "Burn-out" District 

 of Southern Saskatchewan 



B-y J. Stansfield, B.A., M.Sc. 



Presented by D. B. Bowling, B.Sc, F.R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1919.) 



The "burn-out" district of southern Saskatchewan comprises 

 some 652,800 acres, forming an area approximately 100 miles long and 

 ten miles in average width, and extending from the vicinity of Avonlea 

 in a south-easterly direction to beyond Torquay. This area is served 

 by the Avonlea branch of the Canadian National railway and the 

 Neptune branch of the Canadian Pacific railway. The greater part 

 of the area is more or less unsettled, notwithstanding the fact that 

 immediately to the northeast lies one of the most fertile grain growing 

 stretches in Canada and that the more hilly district to the southwest 

 is more thickly settled. The chief reason for this thinly settled char- 

 acter is that many of the early settlers who came into the district 

 with the wave of settlement about 1906-1910, were unable to make a 

 sufficient success of farming to lead them to make their homes there 

 permanently. Many of them left and the reputation of the district 

 suffered in consequence, so that at the present time the question of 

 its future settlement constitutes one of the important land problems 

 of Canada and one which is worthy of having focussed upon it the best 

 brains of the country. That the successful solution of this problem 

 will greatly increase the national wealth of Canada can easily be under- 

 stood, by consideration of the difference between an area of nearly 

 two-thirds of a million acres, the greater part of which has never known 

 the plough, as at present, and the same area enjoying an annual 

 production of wheat, oats, barley, rye and flax which may not equal 

 per acre that of the most highly favoured districts of the country, 

 but which should equal the average for the prairie provinces. 



The writer does not look for a speedy solution of the problem, 

 but does expect that its solution will be a positive one. 



The "Burn-Out" — What It Is 



The name "burn-out" is given by the western farmers to those 

 parts of the prairie which present a peculiar hummocky appearance 

 (see Fig. 1), the higher parts of which possess a fine sandy loam soil 

 and the lower parts of which, being some four inches below the higher 



