The Canadian Government went into the publicity
business on its own part. To a certain extent European
immigration was encouraged, but the United States really was the
country most combed out for settlers for these Canadian lands. As
by magic, millions of acres in western Canada were settled.
The young American farmers of our near Northwest were especially
coveted as settlers, because they knew how to farm these upper
lands far better than any Europeans, and because each of them was
able to bring a little capital of ready money into Canada. The
publicity campaign waged by Canadians in our Western States in
one season took away more than a hundred and fifty thousand good
young farmers, resolved to live under another flag. In one year
the State of Iowa lost over fifteen million dollars of money
withdrawn from bank deposits by farmers moving across the line
into Canada.
The story of these land rushes was much the same there as it had
been with us. Not all succeeded. The climatic conditions were far
more severe than any which we had endured, and if the soil for a
time in some regions seemed better than some of our poorest, at
least there waited for the one-crop man the same future which had
been discovered for similar methods within our own confines.
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