Evening Star Newspaper, July 26, 1931, Page 71

The Prince of Wales sets a pace for royal farmers. Here he is shown driving a farm wagon on his ranch in Canada. The Marquis of Aberdeen is one of the English nobility deeply interested in Canadian ranches. BY JAMES MONTAGNES. OBNOBBING with nobility is part of the routine on some of the ranches on the Canadian prairies. Farming within sight of ladies who have worn ducal tiaras and men who have stood in all the glories of a Windsor Court costume is all the day's work out West. ¥arm hands and farmers have become accus- tomed to royalty and near royalty. Especially is this so in Alberta, Southern Alberta has more titled landowners than perhaps any other part of the North Am-rican Continent. It is the meeting place of princes, b’rons and counts. Here live men and women of culture and refinement, hot in feudal castles but as farmers—and successful farmers in the bargain. Some came to this beauty spot in ths foot- hills of the Rocky Mountains with plans fos establishing there a feudal system such as they were accustomed to in their own country. Othets came incognito to work as farm hands and learn all there was about farming before entering on a ranch of their own. And still others have bought farms in Alberta and Brit- ish Columbia to be managed by a foreman, a place where they could come for a rest and from which a profiable income could be derived. In this last class the absentee landlords, sbsent only because of other duties abroad, are perhaps the best known of these titled farmers. Leading the colony is’the Prince of Wales. The ranking peer of the British Empire here has a 4,000-ecre ranch, which has become famous through his many visits to High River. To the busy young man it is a vacation to come to E-P Ranch, to see his prize cattle and spend the day riding over his large acreage. High River snd the ranch have become well known places to newspaper men and photog- raphers whenever the Prince of Wales paid an informal visit to his farm. THERE are many outstanding British peers who have their farms in Alberta. There Viscount Arbuthnott, for instance, once & farmer without a title, now Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire. He farmed prior to 1920. The: one day when the future lord and his THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JULY 26, 1931. "ROYALTY HAPPY “Down on the Farm”™ Don’t Shout “Hello, Rube!”’ to the Farmhand Whom You Meet on the Canadian Prairies: He May Be an English Lord or a Hun- garian Nobleman—Every Year the Number of T itled IL.andowners and Active Farmers in Canada Increases. lady were out threshing a telegram came. It told of the death of the title holder, and that, as next in line, this farmer and his wife, who had come out to .seek their fortune on the farm, had become heirs to the title. Lord and Lady Arbuthnott now pass the time be- tween their estates in Great Britain and their farm in Alberta. The Earl of Minto, a former Governor Gen- eral of Canada, is another absentee landlord. So are the Marquess of Aberdeen and the Duke of Sutherland. The Earl of Egmont is one of the latest to join the ranks. Up till 1929 he was plain ‘Prederick J. T. Percival. Then came the cable that told this old farmer and his son that he was the new earl. His journey from the lonely farm in the Canadian West to his castle in England was followed in detail in the daily press. Now he is in England, his farm by no means forgotten. But absentee landlords do not make for that freedom when in the presence of nobility which the Southern Alberta farmers especially have developed. Not absence but the presence of titled personages has created that easy democ- racy of the prairies. And that came about when, with the signing of the armistice of the last war, the titled persons began to flock to Western Canada to take up land. The downfall of many an estate had much to do wit* this emigration from every country of BSFupt:. Some came with money. Many came without. Some have made a success of farming, despite their titles and the upbring- ing that went with them in their native land. Others have been swallowed up in the prairies, unknown and forgotten. THBRE are always outstanding men and women in every line of endeavor. That is true of titled people who have had to change their nationality as well. Am®ng them are the two young Austrian cavalry officers, the Barons Joseph and Andre Csavossy, Hungarian noble- men who served with the forces of Austria during the war. They arrived in Canada in 1925, after they had searched the ends of the world for a place to settle. They came with money, even after unsuccessful ventures else- where. Two men still in their youth, they had tried to settle down in the big-game country that is Kenya Colony, British East Africa. But the African veldt had not been for them. They had packed their belongings and shipped to Canada. They did not come with hopes of settling, rather to look around. They stayed, buylng s 1,600-acre farm. The two young Hungarian noblemen, who worked in the fields with their tenants, now turned to machinery to aid them. They brought in expensive milking equipment, had their house electrically wired and renovated, Multumlmbkumemtheyhnd been accustomed to. They were bound to suc- ceed with machinery, they argued. One factor was forgotten, and that was the weather. In the Summer the milking by machinery was fine, but when the snow came, and it 30 or more degrees below szero, the automatic machinery froze up, leaving the two men stranded once more. Today prime beef and wheat constitute the produce of the Csavossy ranch. Another sec- tion of land has been added to the original two and a half sections, and the ranch pros- pers. A De Haviland Moth light airplane has been added to the farm machinery. It has a hangar and landing field near the ranch house. The barons fly to Calgary for business and pleasure. The erstwhile Hungarian cavalry officers are now not only successful farmers but enthusiastic pilots as well. INTO this rolling country with its background of mountains another peer and his wife came after the war. As immigrants they came to the West, though they stopped at the best hotel in Edmonton rather than in the immigrant hostels. They dropped their titles dating back many years, and seemed to have been swal- lowed up in the melting pot of the nationalities. They were man and wife looking for a job on a farm. A bachelor farmer took them on, the peer as a hired man and his wife as cook. In a tent they lived that first Summer. No castle with many servants here on the prairie. And daily the man, who had a seat in the House of Lords in London, pitched hay and cleaned barns, while his wife cooked, attended the chickens and ran a vegetable garden. After thanked him for his lessons and bought an adjoining farm of 1,600 acres, 5 miles from Fort Saskatchewan, a little north of Edmonton. That couple were Lord and Lady Rodney, the eighth baron of the line. They did not out as hired help, but they ' nuity of $10,000. In 192¢ the Government pay out the perpetual annuity in one baron $200,000. He came his farm at Fort Saskatchewan and took the lump sum, putting it in a trust fund for himself and his heirs, so that the annuity will continue. . Their farm has grown from a homestead to Lord Edward Montagu learned farming on the Rodney ranch and them went into the business for himself. a profitable undertaking. Blooded cattle are raised there. The best of horses are bred there. And such has been the reputation established by this titled rancher that all the milk and cream for the hospitals of Edmonton come from the farm. Lady Rodney raises 200 turkeys every year. And while these titled farmers could go back to England and live on the proceeds of their ranch, they prefer to stay on the land. Their sons, both in their early teens, make the trip between the farm and an English public school each year. Sometimes their parents go along, but it has happened that the young heirs to the title have made the entire 4,000-mile trip alone when their titled parents were too busy with the harvest to leave the farm for such a long voyage. UT what I8 more important is that Lord Rodney preaches to titled Englishmen the need of taking up farming in the Canadian - West as a vocation. Every year now he takes on five young men who come out from England and pay to learn farming on his ranch. Capt. M. C. Vereker, himself a younger son of a peer, teaches the young men the necessities of farming, while Lord Rodney is always at hand to help his pupils. They learn every trick of the trade, and most of them have made good on farms of their own after their tuition period s up. The bours at this titled ranch are neither hard nor long. Work starts at 8 in the morn- ing for the students and ends at 5:30 p.m. No matter how busy the season, there is always afternoon tea. And with a successful farm to look up to, the younger sons of titled families, some with small hope of coming into the peerage, learn to wean their fortunes from the woil. Sometimes young men, already peers in their own right, come to the ferm as well. The Duc -de Nemours and Hon. John Stanley, a nephew of the Earl of Derby, are two such Continued on Eighteenth Page