Norwich bulletin., 1913-03-29

Written Specially for The Bunet1n.) )
 Oh, this ready made age!
 For a good many years most of us
 have been buying ready made hats for
 made shoes for the other end. A con-
 stantly growing proportion of us also
 buy ready-made clothes for the rest
 of our coverings. When the average
 baby is born he is put into a ready
 made long dress: when he dies he Is
 boxed in a ready-made coffin. All the
 journey is largely through the land of
 ready-made. His first jumpers are
 ready-made: his earliest breakfast
 food is ready-made: his first sled is
 bought ready made from the toyshop:
 his first schooikit-which mothers and fathers used to plan and work and Ery over, is now bought ready made:
 he goes courtiRg in a ready made col lar and. ordinarily, with a readymade
 imitation of a tse mendaciouSly hooked
 or CT the collar button.
 Even we hard handed, coarse fiber
 ed and utterly unsentimeatai old farm
 CTS are getting rapidly into the ready
 made habit. We can't raise our own meat any longer, but must buy it ready made from the butcher. Some of us have got so we even buy it ready cooked and canned. Instead of going into the woods and getting out our own fences, we buy them ready made from the wire shops: instead of rais-
 
 it ready made from the mills: we can't any longer shave out own axe helves but must buy them ready made: we can't even make cots for our own sore fingers out of old gloves, but must buy them ready made at the drug stores
 But did you ever happen to hear of a '-ready-made farm ?'' It isn't a mere
 figure of speech. nor is it by any means such a novelty as some of us eastern Yankees might assume It's a very actual and tangible fact. And it has been on sale for a good many years: Aas been sold to a good many thou sand farmers.
 Let me explain:-
 When the Canadian Pacific roads wore built, most of their mileage was through an unsettled wild country. To encourage the builders and give them some chance to make money from such territory, which manifeStly could fur nish them neither passengers nor freight for many years, the Canadian i government gave them wide strips of l land on each side of their tracks. For 1 hundreds and hundreds of miles these ] strips were across the fertile north | western admirable sites for | farms, if only there were farmers on | them. There was very little difference 1 between the soil on this Canadian side ] of the border and that on our own | side which was rapidly being taken | up by our own farmers But it was 1 under a foreign f1ag and the climate i was manifeStly a little colder, since it i vas farther north The Canadian Pa l cif1c wanted to sell these farmlandS to ] good farmers 1t demanded good ones, l because 1t wanted to be sure of its l pay for the land, which ShiftleSS set tiers might not be able to rake up, l and because it wanted to insure fu- ! ture freight on future shipments of n fn laz nf01t were likely to produce. To get this sort of settlers away from our own homestead lands on our own side of the line, the crafty Kanucks invented and put on the market the ready 1 made farm"
 In ts,e last fifteen years it is said ]! that about 800.00O,0OO have gone over the border and settled on these lands. This is the way it works out in prac- tice:
 The Canadian government has inn migration agents and the railroad has publicity agents all over the United States and Europe. These men in vestigate the producing capacity, the financial standing and the moral char acter of intending immigrants. When one IS found who is clearly industrious, capable, with a thousand or two dol lars and a good character, he is prompt y offered a ready made farm" in western Canada He is not required to go through any of the risks and dis comforts of the old settler. He has no land to clear; the great plains are forestless and stumpIess He has 10 , shack to build; the railroad company ( offers him his choice of ten different kinds of houses, to be built and fin shed, ready for occupancy when he arrives. He doesn't need to break up ] he land in a hurry and take chances | ,n a first crop; the railroad will break fifty or a hundred acres as he may : elect, furnish the seed and put in the ,rop. He doesn't have to buy any sort of scrub stock and teams to start with; the railroad will stock his farm | with whatever it needs of horses and . ;attle and poultry, etc. fence it and | 'uild barn adequate for all imrne- ( Hate reeds. It will charge him just q i air price for the land, and exactly cost or all this work and equipment He must be able to pay twentieth r town. and he has ninteen years to pay | [ he rest, another twentieth each year q