Instances of Decided Success 



There are to be found, however, a few instances 

 in which women (in one case a former successful 

 London journalist) make a decided success operat- 

 ing a grain or mixed farm. This however presup- 

 poses a good deal of caipital to initiate the enter- 

 prise, and such cases are few. Notice might be taken 

 here of the four ex-army nurses of Montreal who, 

 evidently suffering from the disease of the returned 

 soldier, thought to take advantage of the Soldiers' 

 Settlem-ent Act which permitted ithem to take soldier 

 land grants for their services overseas and made the 

 long trek to the Spirit River district of the Peace 

 River Country. Here they have taken four quarter 

 sections, in the middle of Which a cabin has been 

 erected, and ! have commenced their operations this 

 spring with the utmost confidence of success. It 

 must be stated, however, that such cases are excep- 

 tional and that woman's place on the large farms 

 of the western provinces is usually as a helpmate 

 to man, in which it must 'be said, there are thousands 

 of openings. 



The gentler phases of farming, however, appeal 

 to woman, especially the robust, sturdy out-of-doors 

 type, and this mode of livelihood is particularly ap- 

 pealing to those girls who worked on the land dur- 

 ing the war and in the experience they gained learned 

 to love the free, untramelled life. In the Province 

 of British Columbia, especially in the settled fruit 

 areas, mainy women are running small orchards or 

 fruit farms and doing all the work entailed them- 

 selves. In the same Province, close to the industrial 

 towns and larger centres, many women are finding 

 poultry raising a profitable means of livelihood and 

 a calling which does not overtax their physical 

 strength. Still others find a source of healthy reve- 

 nue in bee keeping. 



In the Niagara peninsula and other fruit regions 

 of Ontario the same conditions prevail and here wo- 

 men are to be found wresting a living in the pleas- 

 antest of environments and working conditions from 

 the easily yielding soil. Each year sees a migration 

 from the cities and towns to these districts and the 

 orchards of the Pacific coast province, of women 

 and girls of every profession and calling who find 

 picking and packing fruit a profitable as well as 

 pleasurable manner of spending a holiday. 



Tackling Most Things Successfully 



The small farms of the Maritime provinces, with 

 their admirable settings of exquisite scenery and ac- 

 cessibility to all the markets, offer particularly fine 

 opportunities to groups of two or more women either 

 in growing fruit and flowers or in dairying. No 

 region can hold forth greater attractions or be more 

 suited to the healthy, energetic, out o'door girl who 

 feels drawn to making her living on the farm. 



Women in Canada may be said to have tackled 

 most things and made a fair success of them even 

 to attaining cabinet rank in the 'provincial legisla- 

 utres. Last year a British Columbia woman attained 

 some prominence because, finding the time heavy 

 on her hands during the winter months, she set out 

 to trap from her husband's ranch, and from an ini- 

 tial outlay of $30 made a little nest egg toy spring 

 of $1,800. 



Indications are that girls are becoming more and 

 more attracted to the active side of farm life, and 

 it is significant to note that this year's graduating 

 class at the Ontario Agricultural College includes 

 the first woman in Canada to take the degree of 

 Bachelor of Scientific Agriculture. 



United States Immigration 



The biggest factor in Canadian economic 

 development since such time as Canada, a 

 united Dominion, commenced to concern her- 

 self seriously over national growth and ex- 

 pansion, and stir organized effort to this end, 

 has been immigration the fundamental fab- 

 ric which enters into the construction of new 

 countries. Contributions to Canada's immi- 

 gation tide have come from many countries in 

 varying proportions and a heterogeneous as- 

 semblage of nationalities is evolving the sta- 

 tus of the future Canadian. As however one 

 peruses the immigration returns from year to 

 year the two tributary tides which feature 

 prominently in swelling the main current have 

 their sources in the British Isles and the 

 United States. 



This exodus from the United States to the 

 Dominion has always been regarded as a most 

 gratifying feature of the latter's development, 

 and so certain did Canada become of the an- 

 nual trek that it has come to view as a matter 

 of course each spring and summer's increment 

 of this human donation of national building 

 material without apprehension of its curtail- 

 ment or cessation. For this reason to note in 

 the immigration returns that the interruption 

 the war brought to this flow is' apparently 

 ended, and that it is regaining its pre-war vol- 

 ume, is very welcome evidence. Canada may 

 now expect in swelling numbers that host 

 which reached the pinnacle of ascendancy just 

 before the outbreak of the war. 



In the year 1871, four years after Confed- 

 eration, when the first Dominion census was 

 taken, Canada was found to have a population 

 of 3,485,701, and of these 24,162 persons were 

 returned as having been born in the United 

 States. It is evident, therefore, that the 

 United State's contributions to Canada's popu- 

 lation began at a very early date, in fact prior 

 to the country's creation as a Dominion. The 

 trend from across the line maintained sub- 

 stance and quality in the years following, but 

 unfortunately Canada's system of recording 

 immigrants at that time was very inaccurate, 

 so that no reliability can be placed on returns 

 before the year 1897. Twenty-five years have 

 elapsed since that date, and carefully and ac- 

 curately kept statistics record that in that 

 quarter of a century featuring remarkable pro- 

 gress in Canada, the United States sent 

 1,398,527 citizens northwards to swell Can- 

 ada's population, or roughly about one-sixth 

 of the Dominion's present estimated popula- 

 tion. 



Brought an Average of $372 Each. 



The trek from across the international bor- 

 der was relatively of small numerosity, at first 



154 



