“In the field of railroad construction in particular, on account of the necessity of thousands of miles more of track in the new territory which is being opened up, there will be a great deal of work for young men within the next few years. I do not myself believe that it is necessary to build new lines with the haste thought advisable in some quarters, but it is inevitable that sooner or later the country will be covered by a network of railroads. All this railway building and the resulting development of new communities will mean, of course, business and professional openings for a great number of energetic men. “This will be especially true of our immense Northwest, which is virtually a new country of a wonderful productivity in grain and minerals, and of a vastness in territory difficult to imagine. In the flourishing little city of Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, I happened to meet a man not long ago who was installing mills for the grinding of wheat in the territory to the north, and asked him as to the location of the most northerly mill that he was building. In reply he mentioned a place which, to my astonishment, was over twelve hundred miles north of Edmonton. From this you will see that there are wheat fields nearly sixteen hundred miles north of the boundary line between Canada and the United States. “The climate here is tempered by the winds which come through the passes of the Rocky Mountains from the warm Japanese current of the Pacific. This makes it possible to grow wheat in the region just east of the Rockies at a latitude much higher than in the section farther east, where the balmy winds do not reach, but the fact that there are wheat fields sixteen hundred miles north of the border will give you an idea of the marvelous extent of the wheat growing country of northwestern Canada. “I have not the slightest doubt that in the course of the next twenty-five years a great commonwealth will have been developed here, and this means that many thousands of young men who are honest and energetic and wide awake enough to see and seize their chances will acquire comfortable competencies for themselves and families. Some will unquestionably make large fortunes. “I do not, however, regard the accumulation of a great deal of money as a criterion of success. I think that a man who has been able to build for himself a comfortable home, presided over by a good wife and enlivened with the presence of a moderate number of children, is apt to be far more content with his lot than the man who must carry the burden of a great fortune.