CPR Land Sales

READY MADE FARMS FOR CROWS NEST – C.P.R. Will Spend Money Preparing for Settlers in Columbia Valley

            That British Columbia is to have ready-made farms similar to those which have proved highly successful in Alberta, was the announcement made today in an interview with the Victoria Colonist by Mr. J.S. Dennis of the C.P.R. company’s irrigation and land interests, who has been in Victoria for a few days interviewing the government in regard to routine matters affecting his department.  Owning about three million acres of land in British Columbia, the C.P.R. is deeply interested in the settlement and colonization of the province.  Therefore Mr. Dennis said part of the appropriation of four and a half million dollars passed at Montreal a few days ago for expenditure this year by his department would be laid out in British Columbia.  This system of colonization has produced such results in Alberta that the company has decided to extend it here, and this year a number of ready-made homes and farms would be prepared in the Columbia valley, along the line of the Kootenay Central railway, south of Golden and near Wardner, on the Crows Nest line.  On these farms all suitable buildings will be erected, the land cleared and fenced and a certain amount of cultivation carried out.  Families would then be brought out from Great Britain on the same conditions as governed those settled on Alberta company farms.

            Mr. Dennis has just returned from a two-months trip of the agencies of the company in Great Britain and Northern Europe, and says that the interest manifested in this province is very marked, and that the indications are that there will be a large influx of both settlers and capitalists here this year.