What has happened over five, six, or seven decades has been a progressive rationalization, I'll call it, of the prairie grain economy, in which the land holdings have become larger and larger; you've had mechanization, in which the railways have brought in higher-capacity equipment; you've had a disappearance of a lot of branch lines; you've had a disappearance of a lot of small towns; and you've had a disappearance of a lot of farms.
Depuis cinq, six ou sept décennies, on assiste à une rationalisation progressive, si je puis dire, de cette économie des Prairies, où les exploitations deviennent de plus en plus grandes; il y a eu la mécanisation et l'arrivée de matériel à plus grosse capacité grâce au chemin de fer; il y a eu la disparition de nombreuses lignes secondaires; et on a vu disparaître de nombreuses petites villes et de nombreuses exploitations agricoles.
