The favor with which free homesteads of 160 

 acres were regarded is reflected in the early 

 rapidity of settlement within the areas where 

 they were made available, while the diminishing 

 numbers of homestead entries in the past few 

 years indicates the approaching exhaustion of 

 desirable land to be secured by this means. In 

 the last two decades, from 1900 to 1920, more 

 than 500,000 homestead entries were made in 

 the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and 

 Alberta, which represents the settlement and 

 fencing off of more than 80,000,000 acres by this 

 system of appropriation. Not all this can, of 

 course, be considered as under cultivation, 

 though the farmer who takes a homestead with- 

 out additional holdings usually has the greater 

 part of the area rendered productive. 



A Survey of Homestead Statistics 



United States immigration to Canada has 

 always been regarded in so desirable a light, 

 largely because the majority of those emigrating 

 to the Dominion find their way to the land where 

 the Dominion has the greatest economic need of 

 them, whereas a large section of the British 

 emigration tide flows into the cities and industrial 

 centres. American settlers have, in the past, 

 been possessed of the greatest per capita wealth 

 on arrival in Canada, for which reason a great 

 many have been in the habit of purchasing im- 

 proved farms and become producing assets to 

 the Dominion without any loss of time what- 

 ever. A survey of homestead statistics, how- 

 ever, also reveals the fact that they have 

 constituted the most important single factor in 

 the settlement of these lands, and that in the 

 filing and proving on the approximate 500,000 

 homesteads of the past twenty years, former 

 United States citizens have been responsible for 

 the settlement of nearly 140,000, or almost 

 thirty per cent. The British Isles, taken 

 together, accounted for about 91,000 entries, 

 divided approximately into English, 67,500; 

 Scotch, 17,000; and Irish, 6,500. This was 

 surpassed by the settlement' of continental 

 peoples in general who filed on nearly 100,000 

 quarter-sections of western land. 



The banner year of homestead entry was 

 1911, when 44,479 applications were received at 

 the various lands offices. Figures dropped 

 somewhat until the outbreak of the war, when in 

 1914, 31,829 potential farmers from all countries 

 took homesteads. During the fiscal years 1915, 

 1916, 1917 and 1918, a total of only 60,636 home- 

 steads were taken up, in 1919 only 4,227, in 1920 

 6,732, and in the first seven months of the last 

 fiscal year, 3,784. 



Dwindling Available Homesteads 



In the dwindling figures of homestead entries, 

 one observes the reflection of both the wartime 

 cessation of British emigration and the falling 



off of the United States annual contribution, and 

 the depleting areas of homestead land in the 

 west. To-day, the luxuriant open tracts of the 

 Peace River Country of Northern Alberta 

 remain one of the few areas which contains large 

 sections of land which may be homesteaded. 

 This favored section has recently been the Mecca 

 of many farmers and many of Canada's ex- 

 soldiers desiring to exercise the rights of soldier 

 grants. 



The homesteads of to-day are the rich produc- 

 tive farms of to-morrow, and the homesteads 

 settled upon within the last twenty years are 

 now producing much of the crops and cattle 

 which have made the western provinces famous 

 the world over. They are now netting their 

 owners, in many cases, handsome yearly revenues, 

 and from being secured for the exchange of a 

 ten dollar bill and a few agricultural and residen- 

 tial duties, are held in many instances at values 

 of one hundred dollars per acre. Carefully 

 compiled statistics prove that land in Canada is 

 rising in price at a startling rate. The excellence 

 of crops produced and the rapidity of settlement 

 are in a large measure responsible for this. 

 Homestead land settled to-day will be worth a 

 large figure in a few years, and improved land 

 purchased at the comparatively low prices 

 prevailing at the present time, when compared 

 with those existing in other countries, will within 

 the span of the purchaser's life, realize a price 

 many fold what he paid. 



World Winners in Wheat 



There is no more startling feature in agricul- 

 tural history than the sudden rise to prominence 

 as a wheat-producing area of the Canadian 

 North-West. Where but a short span of years 

 ago the buffalo roamed, and where at a little 

 later date pastured huge herds of range cattle 

 and horses, waving wheat fields that stretch 

 from the beholder to the horizon hold the vision, 

 and Western Canada has speedily attained one 

 of the first places among the wheat-producing 

 countries of the globe. This position she main- 

 tains not alone in the tremendous output of her 

 fields, which each fall crowds myriad elevators 

 to overflowing and taxes railroad transportation, 

 but in the high quality of her cereal which has 

 given the Western prairies the proud title of the 

 finest producer on the American continent. 



It has been generally assumed, and with 

 sufficient justification, that the world's choicest 

 wheat is grown on the American continent. Thus 

 the premier wheat grower of the continent has 

 received the distinction of champion among the 

 world's wheat producers, and his product con- 

 sidered unexcelled the world over. This enviable 

 title Canadian farmers have consistently secured 

 without exception during the past ten years, or 

 from the time when the Dominion first seriously 



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