Experimental Farm In 1887 the Dominion Experimental Farm was founded as one of the original research stations in Canada. Today it is still doing research and giving valuable information to farmers. Settlement began to accelerate seriously after 1900 and by the outbreak of World War I in 1914 its population had reached 1200. In 1902, the PFRA tree nursery was inaugurated and is still shipping out several million trees each year for farm shelterbelts in the three prairie provinces. "The Indian Head Experimental Farm [was] responsible for the whole of the North-West Territories. The intent of the farm was to meet the needs of new settlers for reliable information on the best farming methods and practices for local conditions. Long-term studies with field crops, animal husbandry and horticulture were initiated….During the 1930s, a concerted effort against the blowing topsoil by the Indian Head Experimental Farm and [other] …stations … was effective in developing tillage methods that reduced soil erosion. The post-war years saw great changes with the introduction of selective chemicals to control insects, plant diseases and [w]eeds. Programs were set up at all stations to advise farmers on the use of these new chemicals. Nutrition and management studies at Indian Head [and other stations] have done much to improve livestock production in the province." Early centre of arrival in and departure from the North-West Territories In the days of the last two decades of the 19th century, Indian Head was a significant centre for people arriving in the North-West Territories by train from Ontario. It was necessary for the town to have hotel accommodation for travellers and several were on hand. Their appearance now seems extraordinarily substantial but at the beginning of settlement of what was later to become the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta it appeared certain that the population of the eventual provinces would be substantially greater than it turned out and that the provincial capital, whatever it might be, would be vastly larger. Indian Head streetscapes were remarkably lively in the town's early days, when automobiles and trucks had not yet arrived and agricultural, shopping and social expeditions to town were extremely frequent compared to later days when expeditions to Regina or the Qu'Appelle Valley became significantly faster and more convenient than after World War I, when automobiles and trucks began to become common: until then, expeditions to the city generally conducted by train—with a lengthy