Canada and the British immigrant

by Emily P. Weaver

“Manitoba No. 1 Hard” wheat is famous throughout the world. Manitoba farmers, however, are discovering many other avenues to comfort and success than the almost exclusive growth of this grain, with the advantage of much better prospects to their lands of continued productivity than by the repetition, year after year, of a single crop. Still the province raises immense quantities of wheat, but mixed farming has its advocates, who not only preach but practise their favourite agricultural doctrine.

Nor is this wonderful, in a community which lives chiefly by agriculture and yet cannot begin to supply its own cities (nay, its own farmhouses!) with eggs and meat and dairy products. Last year, says a recent government publication, no less than $102,000 (£20,400) worth of milk and sweet cream was imported from the State of Minnesota for consumption in Winnipeg. At the same time, Winnipeg bought from Eastern Canada 1,700,000 pounds of creamery butter, chiefly for local distribution, and, besides, far-away New Zealand supplied some butter for the tables of Manitoba folk. As for eggs, three hundred thousand dozen, or twenty-five car-loads, were imported from the United States for Winnipeg, and smaller centres also bring them in by the car-load. Nor was this all. Cheese and poultry, sheep by the thousand, and bacon, hams and lard by car-loads, come from east and west and south to feed the people of the prairies.

The point of all this is that these things might be supplied with profit to the farmer and advantage to the consumer from Manitoba’s own land. There is no question about the demand for dairy produce, poultry, meat, vegetables and fruit. Neither is there any question that people, who know how, can produce these things in quantities within the province; and here is where one excellent opportunity for immigrants who understand something of gardening, dairying and poultry-raising comes in. Manitoba has excellent markets, good land, but she wants gardeners and farmers—especially farmers who will give attention to something besides wheat.

As for the land, only about one-sixth of the cultivable area in the older portion of the province is yet under cultivation; and the newcomer may either buy an improved farm (at prices ranging, according to soil, locality, etc., from $15 to $35, $40, or even $80 the acre (£3 to £16)), acquire school lands by purchase from the government (in which case there are no settlement conditions), or make entry for a homestead. In many municipalities—especially in the south of the province—all the homesteads have been taken up, but there still remain free homesteads available within one hundred and twenty-five miles of Winnipeg, with government and school lands at from $3 to $6 the acre (12s. to 24s.). (For conditions as to the homesteading or purchase of government lands, see Appendix, Note B, page [297].)

AMONG THE WHEATFIELDS OF MANITOBA.

The Canadian Pacific Railway also has lands for sale in Manitoba.

The change which is gradually, but slowly, taking place from grain-growing exclusively to mixed farming is resulting in the breaking up of the very large farms, and this will greatly improve social conditions; enabling neighbours to be more neighbourly, strengthening the scattered congregations of the churches, and making life brighter for young and old alike.

Of the population, a considerable proportion are natives of Canada—some of these speaking French—or of the British Isles. There are, too, a number of people who have come from the United States. Nearly one-fifth are foreigners in origin; but the younger members of the alien races soon learn to speak English, and to adopt Canadian ways. By the way, the famous “No. 1 Hard” Manitoba wheat is said to have been grown first by a colony of Mennonites from Ontario, who settled south of Winnipeg. The word is not the name of a race, but of a religious sect, and, according to the latest census returns, of its forty-four or forty-five thousand representatives in Canada, Manitoba can claim over one-third.

The strongest of any religious denomination is the Presbyterian, with the Anglican second, the Roman Catholic third, and the Methodist fourth; but forty or fifty other “religions” are represented in the province (which is, indeed, not peculiar in this respect) by groups of adherents counting, like the Lutherans and the Greek-Catholics, by thousands, or like the Deists and Mohammedans, by twos and threes.