BRITISH COLUMBIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19434, 21 October 1925, Page 4

BRITISH COLUMBIA

ITS CATTLE COUNTRY. BENEFITS OF THE RAILWAY (From a Vancouver Correspondent). Even residents of the cities in Southern British Columbia and along the coast are often ignorant of the vast extent of the cattle country which their province possesses. In the Cariboo and Chilcotin districts tributary to the country traversed by the provincially-owned Pacific Great Eastern Railway, there are close upon 500,000 acres of the finest cattle country in North America. There are hundreds of miles of fine rolling country, interspersed with light timber forming good shelter, where many thousand head of cattle find excellent pasturage. Last year, from the Chilcotin district alone, more than 8000 head of cattle were shipped. The country is traversed by the

Fraser and Chilcotin rivers, and numerous creeks provide sufficient irrigation for crops required for winter feeding. A great Canadian statesman earned the lasting resentment of this province by designating all British Columbia “a sea of mountains.” Ho can never have seen this huge empire, which begins at a point of less than 200 miles north of Vancouver. An hour’s run westward from the P.G.E. railway brings the traveller to a point where no mountains are visible, and from east to west this country stretches more than 200 miles. The market for British Columbia cattle is found entirely in the coast cities, and for the moment the industry is not in a particularly prosperous condition. Cattle-raising is subject to ups and downs, and just now the effect of the general business depression is being felt. Before the war, however, times were considerably worse. At that time cattle on the hoof were selling at three or four cents per pound, whereas to-day, although it must be remembered that wages and general costs are higher, the price is from five to seven cents per pound. During the war, of course, the ranchers made very handsome profits, with prices ranging from eight to ten cents, and even higher, per pound, and very little reduction for ‘ ‘ cut-outs. ”

The coming of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway three years ago has been a boon to the British Columbian cattlemen. Formerly they had to drive their steers from 80 to 200 miles from the range to Ashcroft, at a cost ot from three to four dollars a head, and, in addition, heavy depreciation in weight on the exhausting journey. Nowadays, with the institution of a cattle-shipping point at Williams Lake, this journey is more than cut in half, with a large saving in cost and little or no depreciation in weight. Before the coming of the railway the ranchers had to pay enormous transportation costs on every necessity of life which had to be imported, for it meant freighting scores of hundreds of miles by horse transport. To-day all that is changed. Small trading centres have sprung up all along the Pacific Great Eastern, where goods may be purchased at practically city prices. Ranchers to-day mostly have their own motor cars, and life is much more pleasant in every way. Most of this great range district is good for little else but cattle, and many thousands of acres are leased from the Provincial Government on the basis of 32J cents per head per annum for cattle and 40J cents per head for horses. There are still many ranges which are owned outright, running from 1000 to 10,000 acres, among them being those owned by the Marquess of Exeter, Lord Egerton of Tatton, and the Duke of Sunderland