THE NEW WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 1714, 19 August 1922, Page 3

THE NEW WORLD.

NO MORE LONELY PIONEERS

WIRELESS AND AEROPLANES

(By Sir William Beach Thomas.)

How .science is robbing the "out--back" farm of its loneliness and mitigating the dangers and anxieties of pioneer life is explained in this interesting article from Sir William Beach Thomas, who is making an extended tour of the Empire in the interests of intending men and women settlers. Edmonton, Canada..

It is becoming very difficult to be lonely. The pioneer himself, or the solitary squatter, is to-day intimately in touch with the world, indeed with the latest graces of civilisation. My example is this. Much of the fairest parkland of the American Continent stretches north of Edmonton. Near the town it is a paradise of mixed farming. The black soil, often yards deep, cover undulating strata; the rains arc sufficient, and even the winter is not harsh.

You might think on many homesteads that you were in England itself. Such soil, such country, extends several hundred miles north up to the Peace River, much of it as yet unbroken. 18 YEARS OLD—3SO ACRES. Throughout this area are many posts of lumbermen, of railway men, of wood-rangers, of pioneer farmers. A young man—he looks about 16 years old—from St. Albans, Hertfordshire, lias a farm nearly 300 miles north. By right of being over 18 years old he has claimed 160 acres of free land. By light of having fought overseas he has another 160 acres, and lie gets, in addition, at the cost of a few shillings, a lew acres that lie between these 320 acres and the lake. So his farm totals some 350 acres. The land is unbroken except for some nine acres that he has cleared, and there he runs some stock that bring him in a little income. What he does is to take any work he can get in town or country during one-half of the year (I earned him a sovereign or two by giving him an interview), and for the other half he sices forth to his freehold with agricultural tools, including a new patent grubber of brushwood and some dynamite cartridges, to till and to clear. Ho enjoys his life to the full, and his farm has already appreciated much in value.

But I am quoting his case merely as an example of one of the so-called "lonely" posts which, thanks to recent inventions, are no longer lonely in the old sense.

NIGHTLY FARM CONCERTS

The newest agent in this work of abolishing loneliness is the "radio," or wireless telephone. Scores of posts, and they will soon spread to hundreds, aire now being connected, with the towns, from which they can get not only news but amusements. The local evening paper here has started regular concerts from 8 to 10, to which pioneers and isolated persons, and even communities, listen both individually, with receivers over their ears, and in groups, by aid of the megaphone attachments. What the radio may mean in such countries as this, and the extent to which it may aid in the development of the millions of acres now wasted, can scarcely be understandable in England, with its crowded hordes and .short boundaries. Here imaginations are leaping very rapidly to its message. AER OPLA'NE FIRE-FIG HTERS.

Other newer discoveries tend in the same direction, from wireless telegraphy to the aeroplane. A little below Calgary there is a regular aeroplane establishment which sends out patrols for the detection of forest files ; and these 'planes are of course equipped with wireless telephones, so that they can communicate at once with the outlying as well as the central posts. All this is making immigration easier and more pleasant, especially at the start. Pioneering in the old sense has lost its heroic isolation. We are to-day at home in the wilds! The British farmer would be amazed by the journey from Winnipeg to Edmonton. I saw stubbies being re-sown without being first ploughed. A disc cultivator that scratches an inch or two into the earth is run over the long stubble, giving it a slightly muddied look and the drills follow without more ado. The practice is now bad form, and growing rarer, because it encourages weeds, but it is at any rate some tribute to the land that it is expected to return a. paying crop without ploughing, without manure, and without change of rotation. The British farmer will prefer the so-called parklands to the pure prairie lands, both of which you will go through on this 700-miles journey. Mixed farms of the highest quality surround Edmonton, and the farther north you travel the better is the giain, especially of oats. A seed trade is developing with even the southern parts of the United States and promises to be a great industry. FJREE KNOWLEDGE. The black soil runs down many feet. The country is undulating, broken by poplar woods ami rivers and lakes, and is outside the drier belt. Nor is the climate necessarily colder towards the north. It may be warmer and wetter. There are places 80 miles north of Winnipeg which have nt least as mild a climate. But the temperature, the rainfall, the date of the frosts, and all such figures are now public property. The immigrant is a. fool who does not take advantage of the knowledge provided free gratis and for nothing by the Government farms. Wherever mixed farming progresses --and it is steadily ousting the purely wheat farm —silos are multiplying; and the popular crop of the day, strongly recommended by the men of science, is the sunflower—the common or garden sunflower. It gives an immense weight of ensilage, and although evil may result from its excessive use, it lias proved a healthy fattoner of stock and a great defence against winter dearth.