Agricultural and Industrial 

 Progress in Canada 



A monthly review of Agricultural and Industrial progress in Canada, 

 published by the Department of Colonization and Development of the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway at Montreal, Canada. 



VOL. 4 No. 3 



MONTREAL 



March, 1922 



The Western Canadian Farmer 



PEOPLE often refer to the Western Cana- 

 dian farmer as though he constituted a 

 type. Nothing could be farther from 

 the truth, and the mistake could only be made 

 by those who have never visited the areas of the 

 Western Canadian provinces, slowly being 

 rendered productive, and have not come into 

 contact with the men who are effecting this. 



Western Canada is still a territory in a state 

 of transition where the process of shaking down 

 and levelling is still in progress, and its people 

 accordingly comprise a collection of classes and 

 castes, the complexity of a myriad types and 

 a wide variety of characteristics, all fused into a 

 perfect democracy. Some characteristics they 

 have in common, 

 certainly, such as are 

 born of the invigor- 

 ating, virile atmos- 

 phere or spring from 

 the life's demand 

 for quick action and 

 rapid thinking, but 

 the impression of 

 sameness is entirely 

 absent and the in- 

 dividual is still the 

 individual. This is 

 after all but natural. 

 Western Canada has become the Mecca of the 

 land-hungry and for those seeking the indepen- 

 dance which the land can assure. It is the goal 

 of peoples lured by the same dream from the 

 corners of the globe, a bourne of many new hopes, 

 a land in which faith in oneself and one's 

 capabilities is created anew. 



Such instincts and desires are not limited 

 to people of one appearance, one caste, or one 

 intellectual capacity, and so the tillers' of Western 

 Canada's lands run the entire gamut of human 

 type and trait. They are of every conceivable 

 class and kind, differing in the individual but 

 alike in spirit and endeavor. 



It is probably safe to say that the majority 

 of men farming the Western Provinces have not 



been farmers all their lives. It is both interest- 

 ing and significant, certainly, to note that many 

 of these who have come to the top as the 

 Dominion's premier agriculturalists had no 

 conception of land activities previous to going 

 to the West. A great proportion undoubtedly 

 adopted farming after having reached maturity. 

 Deep in the hearts of most men there is a love 

 of the land and of the life of the open. 



Those who are to be found in Western 

 Canada form an elect band. Many left trades 

 and professions after years of pursuit, often 

 purely from distaste for these callings. Many 

 more, despite success in their business callings, 

 felt the greater glamor of the land and left 

 what they were doing at its beckoning. Many 

 thinkers, tiring of the eternal struggle to make 



a daily wage cover 

 a multitude of ex- 

 penses, sought the 

 land where indepen- 

 dence through per- 

 severance and ener- 

 gy was attainable; 

 still others, with 

 growing families and 

 planning for them, 

 saw the greatest fu- 

 ture in the basic in- 

 dustry of agriculture 

 as well as oppor- 

 tunity to keep sons and daughters about them. 

 Haunted possibly by the prospect of old age 

 and inability to make adequate provision against 

 it, brought others to take thought of developing 

 a harbor for this period. Many realizing that 

 the true fundamental of wealth lies in the land, 

 and seeing the enviable position of people in 

 older countries whose ancestors were pioneer 

 land settlers, are building up homes to be their 

 posterity's for all time. 



They are men who have seenJ^he * 

 vision and followed it; who dream 'tl 

 dreams and often see their fulfilment 

 lifetimes. Were there more genuine 1 

 more men courageous enough to follow thj 

 victions, more actuated by a desire to "i 



