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Show ' RAILROAD BUILDING ill THEJQMINION Canadian Pacific Proposes (o Meet All Invasion of Its Territory. EXTENDING INTO HEART OF RICH WHEAT COUNTRY AVill Protect Its Own Irrigation Project and Beat James J. Hill. Special to The Tribune. CALGARY, Alberta, .Aug. 3 Tho Canadian Pacific railway has announced that it will moot the proposed invasion of its territory by the Grand Trunk and the. Canadian Northern, by running an extension of its own north from Leth-bridge. Leth-bridge. into the heart of the rich wheat, country that the other roads are preparing pre-paring to cross. This means that four railroads have begun the most exciting excit-ing railroad-building race, in the history bf Canada, with the territory east of this city as the goal. The increasing importance of the southern Alberta winter wheat crop, which is largely grown by American farmers who liaVc emigrated from the States, is responsible lor this sudden activity, and the story of the chain of eve'nis leading up to tho Canadian Pacific's announcement forms a vivid chapter in the romance of railroad map-making. map-making. The Canadian Pacific railroad was the the first in tho field and for years handled the entire grain crop of southern south-ern Alberta, then worth less than a million mil-lion dollars. When tho Grand Trunk decided to build west to the coast, its officers saw that it would havo to have some of this traffic, so the Grand Trunk announced that it would build a branch line from the North Saskatchewan river j to Calgary. This was followed by rumors ru-mors tliat the Canadian Northern intended in-tended running an extension down to Calgary, somewhere west of the Grand Truhlcs proposed route. Then Jim Hill set every one by the cars with the announcement an-nouncement that he was going to ,ioin the contest by bringing the rails of the Great Northern from Montana right, up into the heart of the disputed tern-tor tern-tor . They're After Hill. The total crop of wosterir(JanalIStp,yns ' then worth $100,000,000. and Sir Thomas Shaughncssy, president of the Canadian Pacific, signified his purpose of holding control of its transportation by issuing his famous pronuueiameuto that he would build two miles of railroad rail-road in the United States for every mile Hill built in Canada. Since then tho crop has increased still raoro jn size and value, in the face of a shortage south of the international .line, and the Canadian Pacific has at last taken active ac-tive steps to meet the competition of its rivals by building ahead of them and directly across their proposed routes. The exact course of the extension from Lcthbridge has uol yet been announced, an-nounced, but it will strike north ' through the fertile lands east of this city, and will probably cross the main line of the railroad at a point betwecu Chcadlc and Strathmorc. This will open up a new section ofthe companv's 3,000,000 acre tract of farm land, which it is bringing under irrigation. This is the largest; irrigation project on the continent and is the nrinicpal reason for the dosire of the Canadian Pacific to build ahead of its rivals. The territory affected is larger than the combined States of Delaware and Rhode Island, and needs only the. as-6iuauco as-6iuauco of water to render it the finest kind of farming country, snys Dr. El-wood El-wood Meade, a United States Government Govern-ment engineer, who roccntly investigated investi-gated if. The railroad is preparing to spend between fivo and six. million dollars in the project. One thousand miles of canal havo already been dug, opening up n third of the" territory to cultivation, cultiva-tion, but ll'OO more miles o'f canal must be dug and 21.7n0.000 cubic yards of material removed before the gigantic task will be completed. Besides the Lethbridge extension, the Canadian Pacific is planning a cut-off from Mewnsin lo Shepnrd. "similar to the ones which E. II. Ilarriman is now building, at the expense of millions, to shorten the main line of the Union Pacific. Pa-cific. The Mcwasin cut-off will save leu miles, gel rid of a four per cent grade, and open up a new part of the irrigation tract. A reason for the hastening of the railroad's plans in regard re-gard to the Lcthbridge extension is the porgress of the winter wheat crop. It is estimated that this will be the biggest iu the history of Alberta. |