The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25


 Rockies are wonderfully rich valleys ranch, fruit and coal lands. It need scarcely be told here that in every in stance, from Cariboo and Cassiar to East and West Kootenay, the mines have been prospected, developed and operated by Americans. British and Canadian capital has come In second-I am sorry to say, a in Rossland and Slocan. sometimes to an aftermath of watered stock and wild cat schemes. What has happened with the mines is today repeating itself with the ranch and fruit lands. One example will suffice-that of the Nechaco valley, up at the headwaters of the Fraser riv- CT. Canadians are notoriously eonserva- tive. They will not invest $1 till quite sure that g will come back. The Amer ican will lightly risk his s2 on the slim nest kind of chance of getting BIO back. As long as there were prairie lands, Ca nadians did not consider the bunoh-grass and ranch lands of the Rocky Mountain valleys worth having. They were hard to reach, too far away; the govern ment rated such lands as second and third rate. to be obtained for merely nominal homestead duties and dues that did not total more than 50 cents and g an acre. As soon as two transcontinen- tai railways began to push westward it became apparent that railroads would cross these valleys and there was a rush to the Ia1-OlI Duncn-BfdsS ValeyS or squatters whom Seattle and St. Paul and St. Louis companies had "grub-staked l" By the time the government surveyors had come on the scene and the land-of- flee had wakened, the homesteaders had proved title and sold out to American companies for a few dollars an acre lands worth s25. As far as could learn, the operators in the Nechaco valley were from St Louis.
 Now come on across the mountains to the prairie a level stretch of 1500 miles. The first Canadian transcontinental rail- way was constructed about midway be- tween the Saskatchewan and the bound ary-that is, zigzagging north and south, one may call 1t half way. though 1t is nearer the southland settlement fol- lowed along the line of it like iron filings sticking to a magnet. The Saskatche- wan is the true watershed of the north. and down it's broad roily current has swept from time immemorial ocean loads of silt. of humus, of forest covering from | the Rockies, depositing such a cargo of fertility along its banks as the Nile de- l posits over Egypt. The Canadian settler | has always stuck to the line of the rail | road like a burr. The American settler, as If obsessed, has always struck ahead l of the railroad to the bost lands. inde- | pendent of where the road might be | and he has compelled it to come to him
  | for 800 miles from the Rockies Is a de- | posit of 15 feet of solid humus; and | sure enough though the Saskatchewan | is remote from the railroad except at | three points, along it's banks have set | tied American homesteaders-the very | cream of American homesteaders-from | Iowa, where scientific training for 3C 1 years has virtually revolutionized agri- | culture.
 l Peace river plays the same part for l the north that the Saskatchewan does | for the middle north; only, in addition to | arable lands, there are vast asphale beds asphalt enough to pave America. Do | you know who Is behind the railway | charters connecting that north country | with the outside world? A group of l Wall Street men.
 This has been panic year. The ''boom' in the northwest land had col | lapsed before the panic, and the panic witnessed the complete subsistence of fev- cred speculation. Yet more American settlers came into the Canadian North west than ever before. Of 143754 home steaders in the Canadian west, 5S,000 were American. Other countries sent fewer colonists during the panic year. The United States sent 5000 more than in the