Alfalfa has become a recognized fodder crop in Western Canada. Large areas are already planted, and it produces abundant yields.
A. P. Olsen formerly of Minnesota has raised cattle, horses, hogs and also milked a few cows. His oats yield 45 bushels to the acre, spring wheat, 36 bushels, winter wheat and barley 40 bushels. He won first prize at the Calgary Exhibition for a collection of 32 varieties of grasses found on his own land.
Macleod.—R. McNab has returns which show a yield of 45 bushels of No. 1 Northern wheat to the acre.
Gleichen.—Forty-five bushels of No. 1 Northern wheat per acre was the yield on the Blackfoot Indian reserve in 1913.
Pincher Creek.—Alfred Pelletier had 130 bushels oats per acre.
Cities and Towns.—On the banks of the Saskatchewan and forming the portal alike to the Last West and the New North, the capital city of Edmonton has attractions for the capitalist, the tourist, the manufacturer, and the health seeker. At the centre of two great transcontinental highways, Edmonton will soon be rated among the world's great cities. Traffic from the Pacific to Hudson Bay will go through her portals, the south, north and west will contribute. Possessed of municipally-owned waterworks, electric-lighting and power systems, street railways and telephones, the city is modern, attractive and alive. The number of banks is evidence of prosperity. The coal output of the district is about 3,000 tons daily. Population, about 60,000. In 1901, it was 2,626. In 1911, the assessment was a trifle under 47 million dollars; in 1912, 123½ million dollars. School attendance, 5,114.
Calgary tells its own story in public buildings and in over one hundred wholesale establishments, 300 retail stores, 15 chartered banks, half a hundred manufacturing establishments, and a $150,000 normal school building. The principal streets are paved. There is municipal ownership of sewer system, waterworks and electric light and street railway. Directly bearing upon the future of Calgary is the irrigation project of the Bow River Valley, where 3 million acres are being colonized. One thousand two hundred miles of canals and laterals are completed. Population in 1911 was 43,736; now claimed 75,000. There are 36 schools, 146 teachers, and 7,000 pupils. The Canadian Pacific car shops here employ 3,000 men. It has the Canadian Pacific, Canadian Northern, and Grand Trunk Pacific.
Lethbridge, with a population of about 13,000, the centre of a splendid agricultural district, is also a prosperous coal-mining and commercial city. The output of the mines, which in 1912 was about 4,300 tons daily and necessitated a monthly pay roll of $145,000, finds a ready market in British Columbia, in Montana, and as far east as Winnipeg. A Government Experimental Farm is nearby. The several branches of railway diverging here make it an important railway centre. It will shortly have the Grand Trunk Pacific, and direct Canadian Pacific and Canadian Northern lines eastward. The municipally-owned street car system affords excellent service.