There have always been Americans coming into the Northwest and
westerners crossing the line into the States. This interchange of human-
ity will be constant, varying only according to conditions. Sometimes
there will be more coming than going; sometimes more going than com-
ing. Up to about 1900 Americans looking for good free prairie land or
good cheap prairie land on terms could find what he was seeking in his
own country. Since then it is not so. The last big stretch of practically
uninhabited prairie in the States lying ready for the plough lay between
the Mouse River in North Dakota and the Canadian boundary. The near-
est railway station in the States from Southeastern Saskatchewan was
Minot on the St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway, and curiously enough
that was really a Canadian Railway, having been built by the Canadian
Pacific Company. Here was a stretch of unoccupied land fifty-five miles
deep and a good many more miles long with practically not a settler on it.
This was land of the same description as that lying between the Canadian
boundary and Moose Mountain. When all the wheat land in Minnesota,
South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas had gone, there was only this patch
left. In the spring of 1901 people crowded into this last oasis of free
land, and almost in the twinkling of an eye every claim was covered. On
the Canadian side there was still excellent land for homesteading along
the boundary but this was soon snapped up. The last or at any rate one
of the last of the new settlements on this side was Goshen.
And it was now that the American invasion. began and it was in a
sense compulsory. This Wisconsin. farmer who had two 6r three sons
could not provide them with farms in Wisconsin, but he could sell out and
get farms for them all in North Dakota-farms for practically nothing.
But when all the Dakota land was gone, if an American farmer wanted to
do a thing of that sort the only country available to him was Canada.
And they were easily pleased. I remember an American who came over
in the dry season of 1900. Everybody was apologising for the poor crop
a ten bushel one. He couldn't have come at a better time. Where he
came from a ten bushel crop was about the average. And so the American
farmers came over by the thousand year after year, bringing with them
stock and farming effects amounting in the aggregate to millions of dol-,
lars. It was reckoned that each American immigrant of this class was
worth at least a thousand dollars to the Canadian West. Without wishing
to depreciate any other nationality-even the Canadian-in my opinion
the American farmer is the best settler we have.
In the first place he doesn't expect too much~ If there is a dry season
he has seen worse at home. If there's a dust storm the same. If there
is a high wind. starting his field to "blow" he thanks God it isn't a cyclon~
All other settlers, whether from Ontario or Scotland or Hungary~ may
comes in full of extravagant hopes and immigration literature but not so
the American. John Duke, from Iowa, told me that when he came into
the West all he asked of it was an average of fifteen bushels of wheat to
the acre at fifty cents a bushel. Numbers of the American immigrants at
this time were of Scandinavian stock once removed. Perhaps they hadn't
the external snap and vim of the English-speaking American but they
were full of energy. The superior snap of the American was illustrated
to me in the following way. It is a little thing but it will suffice.
Carnduff is about twelve miles from the American boundary. One
day a Scandinavian-American walked into my office to advertise a lost
team. He was one of the new settlers over the line I have spoken of.
His place was about midway, between Carnduff and Minot. Immediately
the team was missing, he had started north to the nearest newspaper of-
fice, which was in Canada; and his wife had started south to Minot. On
the way he enquired of course, and would do so going back; same with
the wife; but meanwhile he had spread a newspaper net over the whole
of the territory where those horses were. One of our own people of a
similar stamp would have hunted around home for 'a week~; then he might
or might not spend a dollar with a local paper; and in a month or six
weeks' time, perhaps a notice might appear in the N. W. Territories
Gazette.
One mustn't suppose that all American farmers are agricultural dyna-
mos. Far from it; but the fact remains that where Americans settle
they set an example which has an excellent result in speeding up and
instructing their more lethargic neighbors. I wonder how many of our
farmers have had their eyes opened by a certain Illinois farmer of my
acquaintance. He told me, and this is years ago, that he had broken up
in all fourteen sections of raw prairie, and he had done this on his own
initiative and without assistance. I don't mention the following as an
example to be followed when there are such things as press drills, but it
will show the spirit of "get there." I once saw an American sowing
wheat broadcast from the tail end of a wagon. In the wagon were sacks
of wheat. A boy was driving the team at a very fair clip. The man was
scattering the golden grain and he was a two handed sower at that.
Following the American settler came the American land buyer. Com-
panies bought railroad lands, and then advertised their holdings in the
States, by which means many settlers were located on the odd-numbered
sections which otherwise would have been taken up very slowly. The
first of these was a company formed in Illinois, and it bought all the
railroad lands in the vicinity of Carnduff. Then the Banker's Realty
Company of Iowa bought the lands in the vicinity of Gainsboro; and these
cases were only forerunners of others. The best wheat lands could then
(1901-02), be bought from the C. P. R. for four dollars an acre. These
companies immediately started to sell lands at nine and ten dollars an
acre. The Illinois Company brought over a train load of land viewers.
They advertised the train schedule before hand so that at every station
along the Souris Extension line there were crowds of farmers in from
the country. There was a brass band in a particularly gorgeous uniform
bearing the legend "Kirkwood." Buttons and little flags were distributed.
We repeat that the American settler is the best we have. The time
will come when the American will come again in the same way, not as
an army with banners but with brass bands, buttons and bank bills.
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