"There is a marked increase in the number of livestock. Farmers are becoming more fully alive to the advantages they derive from this source and are realizing that their borrowing credit is greatly enhanced if they can show a good proportion of cattle in their assets, and banks should look with favour on loans for the purchase and handling of livestock."
Robert Campbell, general manager of the Northern Crown Bank, gives strong testimony of the wealth of Western Canada:
"It is important at a time like the present for every business concern, financial or otherwise, to show by its statement that collections have been good. We may congratulate ourselves upon the showing we have made in this. Notwithstanding that we have made new loans amounting to millions of dollars since the crop was harvested, our old loans have been paid off so rapidly that our liquid assets were not reduced.
"This state of affairs is attributable to the fine weather we have experienced in the West, which enabled the farmers to harvest their grain early and quickly and to the unusual rapidity with which the crop was moved by the railway companies."
Corn is not generally grown in Western Canada, but this 320 acres shows a splendid yield, and considerable is now grown for fodder.
PROVINCIAL PREMIERS ARE OPTIMISTIC
Manitoba is Stronger.—Sir Rodmond Roblin has no pessimism regarding the outlook in Manitoba. He says: "The improvements upon farm and field excite the admiration of those interested in agriculture, while our population has been very considerably increased by a healthy, intelligent, and industrious class of new-comers. Manitoba, is much stronger financially, numerically, commercially, industrially and educationally than she was in the year 1912. Her progress and development are rapid, healthy, and permanent."
Hope and Cheer in Saskatchewan.—Hon. Walter Scott: "The sheet anchor of Saskatchewan is its soil, which (excluding, of course, the far north) comprises a larger proportion of land capable of sustaining a farming population than any area of similar vastness on the globe. Nothing but inconceivable recklessness and waste can prevent its remaining for all time a great agricultural province, and nothing can seriously check its steady forward movement."