PRAIRIES TO DESERT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 60, 8 September 1937, Page 9

PRAIRIES TO DESERT

THREAT OF A WASTE

DRASTIC ACTION IN CANADA

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, August 18.'

During the past week, the Canadian Government commenced moving cattle. ft-om the drought-stricken districts of the prairie to fresh pastures in other parts of Canada, and1 in the United States. Portions of the herds will be marketed immediately, in order to give their owners some cash to maintain their homes. "With the season's crop only a little more than one-fifth of the 1928 harvest, farmers are facing a condition under which lack of. moisture combined with high winds have turned once rich prairie ' wheat lands into desert. Saskatchewan, formerly the most productive of the prairie provinces, is ■the' most seriously affected. Alberta is- also' hard hit.. Some distressing pic : tures are to be seen from train windows,' without leaving the beaten track." A vast number of farmers and their families will be entirely dependent on the Federal and Provincial Governments for the necessaries of life and for feed for such domestic cattle as will be retained. Where the crop is not worth harvesting! cattle have been turned on. to it;, where the sur,fa,ce:soil has been blown away, there 'is.no recourse but to move to fresti 'land where water is available.

The Dominion Government is at 'work on a long-term programme of rehabilitation. Farmers will be carried on relief until their next crop is available. Afforestation, to provide wind .breaks, is being hastened. Small irrijgation and water storage scfiemes are also . being rushed, to fill immediate needs until national projects are under iway. Relief lands, away from the railway- but in the rainfall belt, are being opened up. Of the ultimate cost mo one is at present aware, but the jueglect of past years has forced drastic emergency measures to be adopted.

Mention of neglect recalls vividly ■the recommendation of a Eoyal Commission that toured the prairie in the Seventies, before it was opened up, ttbat certain sections be used only for igrazing, and not for wheat growing. ;in - those districts there has been a succession of droughts. Crops, pasturage, even weeds are dead. The" farmer's last stand-by for fodder, Russian thistle, has perished. Dairy cows are dry from lack of pasture. The prevailing, picture is empty granaries and elevators, no cash, and no credit available. Government relief alone stands jbetween farmers and disaster. But the Kbuntry is aroused at last. Work and .Wages will be found for the sufferers until Nature and man combine to restore to them the means of maintaining themselves and their families.