Rolanderie' expansion is that Meyer used some of Bonn's capital to buy CPR land. According to Professor [Ted Regehr] of the University of Saskatchewan, C.P.R. land then was going for $1.00 or $1.25 an acre. The CPR owned all the odd numbered sections in the two townships, with the exception of sections eleven and twenty-nine (in both townships), which were allocated as school lands. Most of the Rolanderie holdings were on CPR reserves: in Township 14,1 all of sections 31, 33, and 35; and in Township 15, all of 3 and 9 and the south of 5. Meyer probably purchased the remaining land, the east half of 3 in Township 14, from James Watson, who had homesteaded one quarter and preempted the other quarter. Recruiting immigrants Meyer was well aware of the needs of the new farmers in the Rolanderie district. In a letter to one prospective settler he wrote: "..Whoever on his arrival does not possess at least 3000 francs (600 dollars), has not at his disposal two (male) good labouring hands in his family, is not a farmer, harness-maker, mason or blacksmith should not come hither!" Otherwise the settler would be almost solely dependent on the goodwill of his neighbours. In his letters to Ottawa Meyer repeatedly reminded the Federal government that the new settlers were extremely poor, and that they needed more than farmland in order to begin farming. He was quite critical of land speculators, at least insofar as their activities adversely affected the interests of those predominantly French-speaking Catholic immigrants whom he sponsored. In one letter he complained about certain 'capitalists' who were acquiring vast tracts of land. They fulfilled the government requirements by building small houses which they did not live in, and by seeding small crops which they did not harvest. They meanwhile bought up the best tracts of land, leaving the less desirable tracts for those settlers more dedicated to living on and developing their homesteads. He also felt that the Moosomin detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which then was responsible for supervising the area, should provide more police protection. The widely scattered farms, he believed, left the farmer defenseless in the face of Indian attack. Perhaps 1885 stuck out in his mind, when the countryside around the Pipestone had been almost completely deserted. In the spring of that year Louis Riel had sent 'runners' from Batoche to Moose Mountain