The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-05-29
SELLING A MILLION ACRES.
How One Man Sold Great Tract Fof
Land in Six Months.

Land in Six Months.
Andrew D. Davidson, better known
in about II languages as ''The Col
onel." From the boots up to his head
he is not very far from the ground,
but he gets into a Pullman sideways
"a broad gauge man whichever way
you look at him.
Ten years ago the colonel, says
writer in Business, was banker hold
writer in Business, was banker
holding a hard won title, as strong
right arm man in the commercial
arena. Born on an Ontario bush
farm, broadened in the Wisconsin
pineries, disciplined on Minnesota
railroad, inspired by a successful
demonstration of the agricultural
propensities of cut over timber lands,
he went to Chicago to ferret out a
big job.
He didn't belong to the class which
sits in the stove corner waiting for
opportunity to bruise it's knuclee on
the oak veneer. He opened the door
and went out after things. He looked
around for something wrong to set to
rights and he found it. Chicago, the
primary market of the worlds wealth,
was neglecting great big selling op-
portunity.
Chicago was the centre of the most
active wealth producing area in the
world, with only a little more than
the bottom half of the circle under
development. The colonel didn't stop
to make criticisms; he was too much
of constructive genius for that. He
started to set wrongs to rights.
Other men before him should have
seen that empty sentiment and an
imaginary line drawn across the con-
tinent were all that separated the pri-
mary wheat market of the world from
a vast and prolific source of supply.
But he wasn't strong on sentiment If
it affected business, and he had his
own ideas about imaginary lines.
What the colonel did see was a
many million acre tract of the richest
wheat land in the world idling away
it's time because nobody had sense
enough to make it work for living.
He had found his big job.
The colonels idle rich acres lay on
the Canadian side of the 49th paral-
lel-the Saskatchewan Valley, to be
exact. The colonel didn't exactly dis
cover the valley. 1t was a thousand
or so miles long and few hundred
wide-hardly a negligible quantity in
the country's topography, but neg
lected nevertheless. And out of the
other fellows neglect, came David
sons opportunity. 1t was valley of
vast potentialities, an era of almost
unlimited fertility, an empire lying
fallow without man or beast to liven
it.
But the colonel soon changed all
that. The colonel's task was to over
come prejudice, dispel ignorance and
force quick action. He had to move
thousands of men and millions OF
money from the comfortable homes
and interest-producing channels IN
their own country to a new land and
new conditions. 1t was big job, but
he did it.
Davidson tackled his job in big
way from the start. He created the
first and one of the greatest land
selling organizations that have can
yassed the United States. Every detail
of his plan was the finished work OF
a master mind. He started the great
American invasion of Canada.
Here is the story of the record
sale. It was early in June, 1902, that
Co.. Davidson found himself in con-
troll of 100000 acres of the Saskat-
chewan Valley. He had just returned
to Chicago from Toronto where ne
had completed his deal, when he met
at lunch with a half-dozen friends
all of them bankers. Davidson sug-
eested that these men should go with
him and see for themselves that the
land of the Saskatchewan Valley was
good.
Within an hour every man of the
marty had accepted the invitation and
. 11:.r, h,nlyora ware added to