THE AMERICAN INDIAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19303, 16 April 1926, Page 15

THE AMERICAN INDIAN.

ROMANTIC AGE PASSING.

A TREND TO MODERNITY,

SUCCESSFUL GRAIN FARMERS. [from our own correspondent.] VANCOUVER, March 10. The North American Indian, as a romantic and historic figure, is gradually passing from the stage in Western Canada. In his place is a self-supporting, independent Indian who is reaping more success as a grain grower and cattle raiser as the years pass on. The steady trend to modern economic conditions of the growing generation of Indians is stressed by interested observers, such as the Mounted Police and officials, as an indication that the days of their primitive existence in the backwoods, the log cabin and the tepee are gone forever. With the change of venue has come a change of habit. To-day, many Indian farms rank among the most productive in the West. Success at agricultural shows has proved that the Indians are expert farmers. Pride of race is expressed in good Western clothes, as effectively as in the paint and feathers of a generation ago. Some of the details of tho success of the Indian are informative. The Indians of the three prairie provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, reaped over a million bushels of grain in the season just closed. They had on their farms 50,000 head of stock. The crop harvested was made up of 552,586 bushels of wheat, 495,779 bushels of oats, and 94,153 bushels of barley. The average yield of wheat was 17 bushels to the acre.

Of about 110,000 Indians in Canada, 30,934 are in the prairie provinces, divided as follows: —Manitoba, 11.673; Saskatchewan, 10,271; Alberta, 8990. Their reserves aggregate about 1.250,000 acres each in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and 500,000 acres in Manitoba.

Each year a greater amount of improvement is done on Indian farms. The cultivated area was increased by 11,239 acres last season, bringing the total up to 105,000 acres, more than half of which was sown for grain. In stock raising the Indians have been equally successful. Their herds have greatly increased during the past 10 years, and they now own 23,475 head of cattle and 22,000 horses. Careful selection of sires by the Department of Indian Affairs has given them some of the best range cattle in the West, as was illustrated, among other ways, in the number of prizes won by them in recent years at the shows of Winnipeg and Chicago.