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1900 - 1909 In the cities immigrants lived in slums, worked in basement and attic factories. Sanitation was poor, ventilation was worse. Some nine year olds worked ten hours a day, six days a week, without vacation. 160 acres of free land (1/4 section) for $15 per year tax - to be had for the cost of getting to Winnipeg. (Usually it cost less than $100.00 to come from Europe) and to farm it for three years. Few women immigrants came, most were men. By 1911 Prairie men far outnumbered prairie women. Calgary - 17,000 men to 9,000 women. Arriving in Canada - those with money paid high prices - up to $325 for a wagon and horse. Others walked to reach their claims. They cut the sod and piled it to make an earthen cave. They broke the soil with a single-furrow plough. Then the men walked back to town and took jobs laying train tracks to earn money for food, coal, tools, an axe, a gun, a proper house. Women cooked jackrabbit day after day. Men fought grasshopper plagues and grassfires started by train-engine sparks. Farmers fought sawflies, hail, drought, rust, and frost. Steam tractors were used. A lot of immigrants flocked back to the cities in the winter where they would try to find work in slaughter houses, sweatshops, laundroma