A STUDY OF LAND SETTLEMENT IN THE
PRINCE GEORGE-SMITHERS AREA, BRITISH COLUMBIA

By

W. J. ANDERSON!

INTRODUCTION

Considerable areas of forested land in north central British Columbia are
physically suited for agricultural development. Some of this land is already in
farms but fairly extensive tracts are still part of the public domain. To convert
it to agricultural use will involve large capital expenditures. It is important
that land policy be based on the potential net income of individual farms, that
is on the earning capacity of farms which have been formed into economic units
on the basis of land use well suited to the region and management practices
designed to make effective use of the capital and labour of their operators.
A study of settlement experience in similar or contiguous areas may be revealing
in that regard.

The history of the free homestead in Canada and the United States has
shown that the opportunity to take over virgin land and develop it has been
sufficient inducement to attract settlers. A man who obtained a parcel of virgin
land free or for a nominal sum could hope to build it gradually into a farm and
to accumulate capital in the form of land values as the community developed.
This process solved the problem of the capital requirement for land for those
persons with limited resources who wished to get started in farming. It provided
an opportunity to substitute their own labour and ingenuity in developing new
land for the capital which would be required to purchase an established farm.

The policy of free homesteads, though it was successful in promoting settle-
ment, operated favourably for the settler only when the quality of the land was
such that the quantity granted to the individual provided a better than marginal
farm unit and could be developed relatively inexpensively to the stage where it
returned an income. ‘The difficulty then, neither always realized nor within the
scope of the settler’s knowledge, was the appraisal of the economic potentialities
of new land and the cost of development. As a result there were attempts on
the part of many settlers to operate uneconomic farm units. Perhaps the settlers
who faced the greatest difficulties were those with little capital who tried to
develop forest land. Instead of paying for clearing and breaking they were
forced to use their own labour, accompanied by a relatively low level of living,
for many years, before sufficient land was under cultivation to yield an adequate
living.

Modern machines offer an alternative to the slow and arduous hand labour
method of clearing and breaking forested land. They do require a large capital
investment, however, which means that most farm operators must use them on
a, custom or rental basis. Moreover, even when the machines are available for hire,
a large outlay must be made in order to bring sufficient land under cultivation to
provide an adequate family living. This fact has been generally recognized and
has led to the demand that in the development of forested land the state should
assist in making available the minimum capital requirement needed for a farm
that would provide a decent living for a farm family. As a result land clearing

i Formerly Agricultural Economist, Economics Division, Dominion Department of Agriculture.

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