14

Farm Water Supply

Certain farm enterprises, particularly those that involve livestock, are
dependent upon a readily available supply of farm water. Lack of it places very
definite limits on the development of these enterprises. Moreover, water may
be available but only at a cost greater than an individual farmer can afford.
This is often the case where deep wells requiring a large capital investment are
the only dependable source of farm water supply. Some farms included in the
study were faced with this problem. These seemed for the most part to be
located on the Pineview Soil Association at Prince George and on the Prairiedale
Association at Vanderhoof. Farther west, in the Smithers-Telkwa and Frangois
Lake districts, it seemed that a farm water supply was more readily obtained at
small cost. Many farmers in the latter districts were able to utilize springs
and creeks located on their own property.

TABLE 5.—SOURCE OF FARM WATER SUPPLY, PRINCE GEORGE-SMITHERS AREA,

1943-45
Sg Prince Vander- . Francois
ource Cusine Hoot Smithers Eales

percent percent percent percent

of farms of farms of farms of farms
‘Wellionlypaccdsat ania tre tts aisthavas Sar ni eho anol rears oe ete 24 35 29 25
Well supplemented by creek, river or lake ar 46 28 29 50
Greeksiniverionilake tianecsepescrihine ae saan tae 19 35 21 20
IDFhen Wiech aopity a panaods sonoma ksaowds cenoo0 nase 6 0 1 0
Spring eee cet einclscchsto ale atime yarns spate aaa 0 0 16 5
Noisouncconttheiiarmises seems erlmiteen rie cenit 5 2 4 0

In the whole area about one-quarter to one-third of the farms depended upon
a well only for water supply (Table 5). An additional 28 to 50 per cent supple-
mented a well with some form of surface water, that is, a creek, river or lake. In
the Smithers district 16 per cent obtained their water from springs. In the whole
area from 19 to 35 per cent obtained water from creek, river or lake only. Very
few had no source of water supply on the farm and for the whole area these
amounted to less than five per cent of the total farms in the study.

In the Vanderhoof district 23 per cent of the wells were 201-300 feet in depth
and an additional nine per cent were 150-200 feet. A few (eight per cent) in
the Prince George district were 61-150 feet deep, the majority of the remainder
being less than 30 feet. In the Smithers and Francois Lake districts none was
more than 60 feet deep. The water problem, therefore, was associated with
certain local conditions and in those localities it had to be reckoned with as an
important consumer of the capital required to set up a farm organization.

With respect to adequacy of supply about one-quarter of the farmers stated
that their water source would provide for less than 25 head of cattle; about
two-thirds thought that their source would be adequate for more than 50 head.
On the whole, therefore, water supply for livestock seemed quite readily available
and except in local instances did not appear to be a limiting factor to the develop-
ment of agriculture in the area.

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

It is difficult to trace the development of agriculture in the area previous
to 1931 because changes were made in the Census subdivisions in British Columbia
between 1921 and that year. Data from the 1931 and 1941 Census, however,
indicated that agriculture in the area did not expand markedly during the decade.