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the value of perquisites obtained from the farm, then, would not be a complete measure of their level of living in terms of satisfactions. There are, however, other non-money characteristics that tend to subtract from real farm income. Many of these are associated with pioneer life. They include the isolation from other people and the relative inaccessibility of certain social and service facilities that are ordinarily considered to be necessities of life. It is probably true, too, that the greater intermingling of rural and urban dwellers will tend to magnify the undersirable features of pioneer life in the minds of some settlers. - For practical purposes, then, it is probably quite safe to consider the amenities of pioneer farm life as offset by the inconveniences. Then the farm level of living can be expressed in objective terms.

A typical farm yard of an established farm with log buildings.

The expenditure on cash living by farmers in the Prince George-Smithers area was equivalent to or higher than that spent by farmers in other pioneer areas. The same was true with respect to the value of farm perquisites. It seemed too, that even though a fairly large proportion of the farm buildings was only fair or poor and the average value of farm dwellings was quite low, buildings were, nevertheless, as good as those that have been found in other pioneer areas. Medical and hospital facilities were provided but in an area as sparsely settled as this it was inevitable that they were not conveniently located to all of the settlers. Roads were fair to good and a fairly high proportion of the farms was located on a gravelled road. The area as a whole was at least as well equipped with roads as many other pioneer areas. .

HOUSING AND FARMSTEADS

The average value placed on their dwellings by the farm operators in the Prince George-Smithers area amounted to $793 (Table 18). This was high when compared with the average valuation of $554 for farm houses in the Bonnyville pioneer area of Alberta,! 1943 and $340 in eight representative pioneer areas of Saskatchewan,? 1941-42.

1 Kristjanson, B. H. and C. C. Spence, ‘‘Land Settlement in Northeastern Alberta’’. Economics Division, Marketing Service, Dominion Department of Agriculture. Unpublished.

2 Stutt, R. A., and H. Van Vliet, ‘‘An Economic Study of Land Settlement in Representative Pioneer Areas of Northern Saskatchewan’’. Economics Division, Marketing Service, Dominion Department of Agriculture. Technical Bulletin 52, issued 1945.