19

TABLE 10.—FARM TENURE AND PERIOD OF OCCUPANCY PRINCE GEORGE-SMITHERS
AREA, 1943-45

ete, Per cent Years on
Farm
82 15
12 12
6 3

The average farm had been occupied for 14 years by its present operator.
Owners, had been on their farms for 15 years, tenants for three years. In only
a few cases was there evidence that the operator moved to ownership by the
“tenure ladder”. The reason that the tenure ladder did not operate extensively
was that it had been comparatively easy for farmers to homestead or to purchase
land with a small down payment and thus avoid the intermediate steps to full
ownership. Furthermore, it was practical for farmers to operate with a small
amount of working capital. Labour applied over a period of years in clearing
and breaking the land was the chief investment required.

ROADS AND MARKETS

Roads

The Skeena highway traverses the area and was fully open for civilian traffic
in 1945. Besides connecting the towns the highway provides an excellent
market road for the farms located along its route. Many other roads, too, were
gravelled and well kept because of the heavy truck traffic in connection with the
lumbering industry. Asa result a majority (52 per cent) of the farms were located
on a gravelled road. Only 11 per cent were located on unimproved trails. In
this respect, therefore, the settlers in the area were probably more fortunate than
in many other areas where pioneer development has taken place for the most
part with very poor roads.

Markets

The proportion of urban and non-farm rural population in the area is quite
high and as a consequence there are local markets for a considerable amount of
farm produce. Furthermore, mining and lumbering may expand and provide
additional though not necessarily permanent markets for farm products. Once
the local demand is satisfied, however, any surplus must seek outside markets.
In competing on those markets the area is in some respects at a disadvantage.
In the first place it likely suffers in comparison with the Prairie areas in the
production cost of grain and animal products. Secondly, the area is comparatively
isolated from its outside market.

The difficulty in the latter instance is not physical access to markets for the
area is served by a transcontinental line of the Canadian National Railway.
It is more the high freight charges which ensue as a result of the distance to
market. With regard to grain, which is relatively costly to transport, the
situation is as follows. As long as the area has a deficit of grain then producers
with a surplus for sale can ask Edmonton price plus freight to the area, but
immediately a surplus exists the grain growers have to take Edmonton price less
freight. There were some growers in the area, therefore, who felt that they had
suffered by reason of the government wartime freight subsidy on cereal grains
which of course reduced local grain prices to those prevailing at Edmonton.

It would seem, then, that for export from the area marketing conditions
favour the more concentrated animal products. Butter manufacture is carried
on in two creameries, one at Prince George, the other at Telkwa. With respect