FARMER PEERS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19611, 6 May 1929, Page 3

FARMER PEERS.

IN WESTERN CANADA. (fp.om ora special corbesfqndjsnt.) VANCOUVER, April 3The succession of Frederick Perceval, Alberta rancher, to the peerage as the Ea.rl of Egmont, adds another name to the imposing list of members of the nobility who have been associated with agriculture in Western Canada. The most distinguished member is Baron Renfrew (the Prince of Wales) who has owned and operated a ranch at High River, Alberta, for ten years. The Earl of Minto, Lord Aberdeen, and the Duke of Southerland have been permanently identified with rural development 'in the West. There is still a Minto ranch in close proximity to that of the Prince of Wales, and through it the owner remains, though absent, a benefactor to the livestock industry of Western Canada. Years ago, Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Sutherland developed raneh properties, the former at the entrance to the rich Okanagan Vallev in British Columbia, the latter in the Brooks district of Southern Alberta. Valuable colonisation was done through both areas; one made a mark in fruit production, while the other became prominent for alfalfa, bringing to Canada for the first time the championship for alfalfa seed.

Lord Rodney, after a distinguished career with the Scots Greys and Tank Corps, settled with his wife in Northern Alberta, and through his own efforts developed a very fine farm, which he is expanding. He established a training school for young men of good family from the Motherland, and among his pupils were Lord Edward Montagu, Hon. John Stanley, nephew of the Earl of Derby, and the Due de Nemours. Another British peer, at the conclusion of the war, settled near Alix, in Alberta, and established himself as a wheat farmer, while the Marquis of Anglesey operates a large cattle ranch in the interior of British Columbia, and is also a successful fruit farmer.