Arizona republican., 1908-06-21

work has Just been cOmpietcd anu
water is now available for 100000
acres.
The decision of the government and
of the railroad to take hand in the
farming of this tract originated in
desire to help new settlers with their
first years crop. which often has 10
be sowed before the farmer is estab-
llished on his land and when he needs
all his time to build a home. AS a re-
suit the transportation company step
ped in and on hundreds of farms this
bspring the breaking, disking, narrow
ing and seeding was done by agents OF
the railroad, at cost. Farms were even
fenced by the railroads, demonstration
farms were established and irrigation
experts sent out to instruct the farm
ers in the use of the water.
The governments share in the
paternalistic scheme is even more in
teresting. In the first place water Is
guaranteed by the government at the
purely nominal rate Of fifty cents an
acre per year. This supply OF water
at cost lies at the very base or the
enterprise, and the results OBTAINED
have not only approved the course OF
the government, but will in all likeli-
hood have a profound effect on the
settlement and manner of cultivation
of the seventy-odd million acres yet
to be broken in Western Canada AS
that aspect of the matter has serious
meaning in the life of the western
world, a meaning that lifts 1t out OF
and above all considerations of COM
mercialism on the part of the railway
company, and places it upon plane
of radical Importance. The govern
ment goes farther than this. Expert
foresters in it's service visit the farms
and advise the kind of trees to plant
and where to plant them, not only with
view to the improvement of each,
farm, but to planning the best shell
ter-belts and shade for whole neigh
borhoods and groups of farms South
ern Alberta is not timbered country
but cuttings from the few native trees
grow very sturdily on the watered
land, and when the place of planting
has been decided upon. the govern
ment furnishes the trees without
charge, and delivers them on the
ground.
To the farmers of the states 1t has
long been an object of desire that the
government should step in and handle
at least a part of the market for farm
produce. The Alberta government has
voluntarily undertaken to do this very
thing. the farmers in and around the
Calgary district having become dis
satisfied with the privately conducted
creameries on which they had to de-
pend. 1t is rich dairying region, and
the Importance of this industry was
great enough to warrant the govern
ment in setting up public creameries
and building at Calgary one Of the
largest cold storage plants in the west.
This service is public to the unusual
degree of making its customers or pa
irons partners in the creameries near
est them. A uniform manufacturing
charge Of four cents pound is made
for butter, and another cent is taken
out for maintenance of the works;
but the farmer gets a check for his
butter every thirty or sixty days from
the government itself, and his cent a
pound is accounted as payment for an
interest in the Creamery, Thus a new
ly settled farmer with a few cows be-
gins to draw money from the govern
ment itself in a month or two from the
day he takes possession. The govern
ment sells the butter, but the farmer
has nothing to bother about in that
particular. He knows the government
will pay him just exactly what II gets,
less the fixed charges, which are rea-
sonable. If not really low. Thus the
novel spectacle is afforded this year of
70 ,ir1cr hrrr he L iv,or ~
ground and planting being done by the
railroad and the marketing of the
dairy produce by the government.
The reservation of irrigated lands
on the Bow river in Southern Alberta
is the most recent. and in many re-
spects the most important. to be
thrown open to public occupancy. It
has a straight title from the Dominion
government. through big railway
company, and has been held strictly
out of the market for several years,
while lands all around it were being
taken up.
The mean elevation of the part of
Alberta in which the irrigation tract
is situated is $500 feet and the dry
Chinook" winds from the Southwest
give ii a warm, equable climate, where
winter is turned almost into summer
and baseball. tennis and cricket are
midwinter pastimes. The source from
which the water is drawn is mex
haustible. The beautiful Bow river
rises in the heart of the Rockies and is
fed continually from the melting SHOWS
and glaciers and the overflow of mac
cessible mountain lakes. The river
has capacity of 5000 cubic feet per
second during the irrigation season.