All public lands in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are controlled and administered by the Dominion Government through the Department of the Interior. The lands disposed of as free homesteads (Government grants) under certain conditions involving residence and improvements, are surveyed into square blocks, six miles long by six miles wide, called townships. When these improvements are completed and duties performed, a patent or crown deed is issued.

THE FOLLOWING IS A PLAN OF A TOWNSHIP

Each township is subdivided into 36 square blocks or sections one mile square and containing 640 acres and numbered from one to thirty-six. Each section is divided into four quarter-sections of 160 acres each.

The four quarters of the section are described, as the northeast, the northwest, the southeast and the southwest quarter.

Who Is Eligible. The sole head of a family or any male eighteen years of age or over, who is a British subject or who declares his intention to become a British subject; a widow having minor children of her own dependent upon her for support.

Acquiring Homestead. To acquire a homestead applicant must make entry in person, either at the Dominion Lands Office for the district in which the land applied for is situate, or at a sub-agency authorized to transact business in such district. At the time of entry a fee of $10 must be paid. The certificate of entry which is then granted the applicant gives him authority to enter upon the land and maintain full possession of it as long as he complies with the homestead requirements.

Cattle Provision to Secure Homestead. With certain restriction, stock may be substituted in lieu of cultivation.

Residence. To earn patent for homestead, a person must reside in a habitable house upon the land for six months during each of three years. Such residence however, need not be commenced before six months after the date on which entry for the land was secured.

Improvement Duties. Before being eligible to apply for patent, a homesteader must break (plough up) thirty acres of the homestead, of which twenty acres must be cropped. It is also required that a reasonable proportion of this cultivation must be done during each homestead year.

Application for Patent. When a homesteader has completed his residence and cultivation duties he makes application for patent before the Agent of Dominion Lands for the district in which the homestead is situate, or before a sub-agent authorized to deal with lands in such district. If the duties have been satisfactorily performed patent issues to the homesteader shortly after without any further action on his part, and the land thus becomes his absolute property.

Timber and Fuel. An occupant of a homestead quarter-section, having no suitable timber of his own, may obtain on payment of a 25-cent fee a permit to cut 3,000 lineal feet of building timber, 400 roof poles, 500 fence posts, 2,000 fence rails. Homesteaders and all bona fide settlers, without timber on their own farms, may also obtain permits to cut dry timber for their own use on their farms for fuel and fencing.

CUSTOMS REGULATIONS

A settler may bring into Canada, free of duty, live stock for the farm on the following basis, if he has actually owned such live stock abroad for at least six months before his removal to Canada, and has brought them into Canada within one year after his first arrival viz: If horses only are brought in, 16 allowed. If cattle are brought in, 16 allowed; if sheep are brought in 160 allowed; if swine are brought in, 160 allowed. If horses, cattle, sheep and swine are brought in together, or part of each, the same proportions as above are to be observed.

Duty is to be paid on live stock in excess of the number above provided for. For customs entry purposes a mare with a colt under six months old is to be reckoned as one animal; a cow with a calf under six months old is also to be reckoned as one animal. Cattle and other live stock imported into Canada are subject to Quarantine Regulations.

The following articles have free entry:

Settler's effects, free viz: Wearing apparel, household furniture, books, implements and tools of trade, occupation, or employment: guns, musical instruments, domestic sewing machines, typewriters, live stock, bicycles, carts, and other vehicles, and agricultural implements in use by the settler for at least six months before his removal to Canada, not to include machinery or articles imported for use in any manufacturing establishment or for sale; also books, pictures, family plate or furniture, personal effects, and heirlooms left by bequest; provided, that any dutiable articles entered as settlers' effects may not be so entered unless brought with the settler on his first arrival, and shall not be sold or otherwise disposed of without payment of duty until after twelve months' actual use in Canada.

The settler will be required to take oath that all of the articles have been owned by himself or herself for at least six months before removal to Canada; and that none have been imported as merchandise, for use in a manufacturing establishment or as a contractor's outfit, or for sale, and that he or she intend becoming a permanent settler within the Dominion of Canada, and that the "Live Stock" enumerated is intended for his or her own use on the farm which he or she is about to occupy (or cultivate), and not for sale or speculative purposes, nor for the use of any other person or persons.

FREIGHT REGULATIONS

1. Carloads of Settlers' Effects, the property of the settler, may be made up of the following described property for the benefit of actual settlers, viz: Live stock, any number up to but not exceeding ten (10) head, all told, viz: Cattle, calves, sheep, hogs, mules, or horses (the customs will admit free of duty in numbers referred to in Customs paragraph above, but railway regulations only permit ten head in each car); Household Goods and personal property (second-hand); Wagons or other vehicles for personal use (second-hand); Farm Machinery, Implements, and Tools (all second-hand); Soft-wood Lumber (Pine, Hemlock, or Spruce—only) and Shingles, which must not exceed 2,000 feet in all, or the equivalent thereof; or in lieu of, not in addition to the lumber and shingles, a Portable House may be shipped; Seed Grain, small quantity of trees or shrubbery; small lot live poultry or pet animals; and sufficient feed for the live stock while on the journey. Settlers' Effects rates, however, will not apply on shipments of second-hand Wagons, Buggies, Farm Machinery, Implements, or Tools, unless accompanied by Household Goods.

2. Should the allotted number of live stock be exceeded, the additional animals will be charged for at proportionate rates over and above the carload rate for the Settlers' Effects, but the total charge for any one such car will not exceed the regular rate for a straight carload of Live Stock.

3. Passes—One man will be passed free in charge of live stock when forming part of carloads, to feed, water, and care for them in transit. Agents will use the usual form of Live Stock Contract.

4. Less than carloads will be understood to mean only Household Goods (second-hand), Wagons or other vehicles for personal use (second-hand), and (second-hand) Farm Machinery, Implements, and Tools. Less than carload lots must be plainly addressed. Minimum charge on any shipment will be 100 pounds at regular first-class rate.

5. Merchandise, such as groceries, provisions, hardware, etc., also implements, machinery, vehicles, etc., if new, will not be regarded as Settlers' Effects, and, if shipped, will be charged at the regular classified tariff rates. Agents, both at loading and delivering stations, therefore, give attention to the prevention of the loading of the contraband articles and see that the actual weights are way-billed when carloads exceed 24,000 lbs. on lines north of St. Paul.

6. Top Loads.—Agents do not permit, under any circumstances, any article to be loaded on the top of box or stock cars; such manner of loading is dangerous and absolutely forbidden.

7. Settlers' Effects, to be entitled to the carload rates, cannot be stopped at any point short of destination for the purpose of unloading part. The entire carload must go through to the station to which originally consigned.

8. The carload rates on Settlers' Effects apply on any shipment occupying a car weighing 24,000 pounds or less. If the carload weighs over 24,000 lbs. the additional weight will be charged for. North of St. Paul, Minn., 24,000 lbs. constitutes a carload, between Chicago and St. Paul and Kansas City or Omaha and St. Paul a carload is 20,000 lbs. From Chicago and Kansas City north to St. Paul any amount over this will be charged extra. From points South and East of Chicago, only five horses or heads of live stock are allowed in carloads, any over this will be charged extra; carload 12,000 lbs. minimum.

9. Minimum charge on any shipment will be 100 lbs. at first-class rate.

QUARANTINE OF SETTLERS' CATTLE

Settlers' cattle must be inspected at the boundary. Inspectors may subject any cattle showing symptoms of tuberculosis to the tuberculin test before allowing them to enter. Any cattle found tuberculous to be returned to the United States or killed without indemnity. Settlers' horses are admitted on inspection if accompanied by certificate of mallein test signed by a United States Inspector of Bureau of Animal Industries, without which they will be inspected at the boundary free of charge by a Canadian Officer. Settler should apply to Canadian Government Office for name of Inspector nearest him. Certificate of any other Veterinarian will not be accepted. Horses found to be affected with glanders within six months of entry are slaughtered without compensation. Sheep may be admitted subject to inspection at port of entry. If disease is discovered to exist in them, they may be returned or slaughtered. Swine may be admitted, when forming part of Settlers' Effects, but only after a quarantine of thirty days, and when accompanied by a certificate that swine plague or hog cholera has not existed in the district whence they came for six months preceding the date of shipment; when not accompanied by such certificate, they must be subject to inspection at port of entry. If diseased to be slaughtered, without compensation.

UNITED STATES AGENTS.

Top

The present demand for food stuffs and the expense of their production on high-priced lands make it seem that Western Canada, with its opportunity for meeting this demand, came into notice at the crucial period. Its millions of acres of land, easily cultivable, highly productive, accessible to railways, and with unexcelled climatic conditions, offer something too great to be overlooked.

The provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta have the largest area of desirable lands in North America, with but 8 per cent under the plough. Their cultivation has practically just begun. A few years ago the wheat crop amounted to only 71 million bushels. To-day, with only 4 per cent of the available area in wheat, the crop is over 209 million bushels. What, then, will 44 per cent produce?

Then look at immigration. In 1901 it was 49,149, of which 17,000 were from the United States; in 1906 it was 189,064, of which 57,000 were Americans; in 1913 it was about 400,000, about 125,000 being Americans. Why did these Americans go to Canada? Because the American farmer, like his Canadian cousin, is a shrewd business man. When an American can sell his farm at from $100 to $200 per acre and homestead in Canada for himself and for each of his sons who are of age, 160 acres of fertile land, capable of producing several bushels more to the acre than he has ever known, he will be certain to make the change.

And then, following the capital of brawn, muscle, and sinew, comes American capital, keeping in touch with the industrious farmer with whom it has had dealings for many years. These two, with farming experience, are no small factors in a country's upbuilding. Nothing is said of the great mineral and forest wealth, little of which has been touched.

In so short a time, no country in the world's history has attracted to its borders so large a number of settlers prepared to go on the land, or so much wealth, as have the Canadian prairies. Never before has pioneering been accomplished under conditions so favourable as those in Western Canada to-day.

It is not only into the prairie provinces that these people go, but many continue westward to the great trees and mountains, and fertile valleys, the glory of British Columbia, where can be grown agricultural products of almost every kind, and where fruit is of great importance. The vast expanse of the plains attracts hundreds of thousands who at once set to work to cultivate their large holdings. But man's work, even in the cities with their record-breaking building rush, is the smallest part of the great panorama that unfolds on a journey through the country. Nature is still supreme, and man is still the divine pigmy audaciously seeking to impose his will and stamp his mark upon an unconquered half continent.

THE HOMEMAKING SPIRIT.—The most commendable feature in Western development to-day is the "homemaking spirit." The people are finding happiness in planting trees, making gardens, building schools, colleges, and universities, and producing an environment so homelike that the country cannot be regarded as a temporary abode in which to make a "pile" preparatory to returning East.

THOUSANDS OF AVAILABLE HOMESTEADS.—The desire of the American people to procure land is strong. Agricultural lands of proved value have so advanced in price that for the man with moderate means, who wishes to farm, finding a suitable location has become a serious question. Fortunately, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, there are yet thousands of free homesteads of 160 acres each, which may be had by the simple means of filing, paying a ten-dollar entrance fee, and living on the land for six months each year for three years. No long, preliminary journey, tedious, expensive, and hazardous, is necessary. This homesteading has been going on in Canada for several years, and hundreds of thousands of claims have been taken up, but much good land still is unoccupied. Many consider the remaining claims among the best. They comprise lands in the park districts of each of the three provinces, where natural groves give a beauty to the landscape. Here wheat, oats, barley, and flax can be grown successfully, and the districts are admirably adapted to mixed farming. Cattle fatten on the nutritious grasses; dairying can be carried on successfully; timber for building is within reach, and water easy to procure.

In addition to the free grant lands, there are lands which may be purchased from railways and private companies and individuals. These lands have not increased in price as their productivity and location might warrant, and may still be had for reasonably low sums and on easy terms.

Nowhere else in the world are there such splendid opportunities for indulgence in the land-passion as in Western Canada. Millions of rich acres beckon for occupation and cultivation. Varying soil and climate are suited to contrary requirements—grazing lands for the stock breeder; deep-tilling soils for the market gardener; rolling, partly wooded districts for the mixed-farming advocate; level prairie for the grain farmer; bench lands and hillsides for the cultivator of fruits.