MARY'S GENEALOGY TREASURES
EARLY HISTORY OF CLIMATE
AND AGRICULTURE
AND AGRICULTURE
a History of Spring Coulee - page 89
Information taken from article of same name
from the research Station, Lethbridge, by B.
Grace and E.H. Hobbs.
Between 1896-1914, millions of acres of homestead
lands were given away by the Dominion Government,
and millions were sold by the railways and land
companies. A system of summerfallowing which was
developed at the Experimental Station at Indian Head
Saskatchewan, and discovery of early ripening grains,
(Fife and Marquis), were decisive factors in the
settlement of the west. The system of summerfallowing
consisted of rotating land use from one year to the next.
By keeping the weeds tilled, soil moisture and nutrient
content was preserved. It was soon apparent, however,
that in our dry climate, excessive cultivation and burial
of crop residues left the soil very susceptible to the
high winds common on the prairies.
With the advent of World War 1, the need to increase
agricultural output brought about the cultivation of
seven million more acres of marginal or submarginal
land, much of which should never have been broken.
In 1914, drifting was extensive throughout the
Chinook belt in the Lethbndge area and southern
Alberta. Strip farming was considered to be the best
way to combat this problem, and by 1918 was widely
practiced in our area.
The worst drought of the century occurred in 1917-1920.
In other parts of the country, farmers were abandoning
their farms, but the Spring Coulee area remained fairly
stable. Those who stayed were able to pay off their
debts due to larger land base, good prices and favorable
climate in the late 1920's. Land holdings increased,
tractors and combines replaced horses, and soil erosion
problems seemed to disappear.
In 1929, erosion problems began to appear in other
areas, and by 1937 the entire Palliser Triangle was
threatened. Strip farming, irrigation, and other dryland
techniques had to be practised in order to prevent
seven million acres, one-fourth of all arable land in
Canada, from becoming a real desert.
Dr. Asael Palmer of Lethbridge, who promoted trash
cover fallowing and C.S. Noble who developed the
Noble blade plow to reduce residue burial while
cultivating, are two of a handful of people credited
with saving the prairies. Others included Lawrence
Kirk for developing Fairway crested wheat grass to
stabilize drifting areas and Sidney Barnes for his work
on the effect of wind on drifting soil. The Hopkins-
Barnes-Palmer-Chapil manual on Soil Drifting Control
in the Prairie Provinces was published in 1935. The
same year the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Authority
(PFRA) was formed to become the instrument to
contain the desert in western Canada. In 1946, work
began on a large earth filled dam on the St. Mary
River just west of Spring Coulee. This P.F.R.A.
project has resulted in an extensive irrigation system
which supplies much needed water to thousands
of acres of cropland.
To this day, continuing research on dryland farming
techniques is put to use by innovative and progressive
farmers in an on-going effort to improve productivity
in an area and climate that was once thought to be
incapable of supporting agriculture.
Return to Towns, Villages, Hamlets, and Cities
Mary Tollestrup