However, the rural population which Qu'Appelle had served steadily declined as family farms were consolidated: The "Dominion Lands Act", 1872 had provided for farms of or ¼ section, a section being . The Depression of the 1930s made it clear that while this might have been enough land for a family farm in eastern Canada, it was not nearly enough in the dryland farming conditions of the prairies, and farmers steadily sold up or bought up, farm sizes increased and the hinterland population waned.