May r, 1886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



761 



MANITOBA AND ITS PBODUCTS. 

 Owing to the great reduction in the value of 

 farming produce, many of the agriculturists of 

 Great Britain have been endeavouring to break their 

 leases and to remove their Lares and Penates, along 

 with the little hard cash which they still possess 

 to some other scene of labor, and naturally tlie 

 question of which colony would be the best suited 

 for them has been the one uppermost in their 

 thoughts of late. Pamphlets have been pu))lished 

 and are to be had gratii: from the agents-general 

 of the various colonies, and it is amusing to note 

 how each colony is pointed out, in the pages of the 

 pamjihlet specially referring to it, as the most 

 desirable one for any person to go to, and, taking 

 the first of these that comes to my hand, I find 

 the Prov ince of Manitoba thus referred to by one 

 William Howey of Birtle Mass, who says : — " I 

 consider there is no better place under the sun, for 

 men with asmaU capital." Now I have never been in 

 Manitoba myself, but I have known many who have 

 been there, — men who bore the hardships of early 

 settlement in New Zealand and Australia, who 

 had • roughed it ' in the good old colonial way, 

 and had never shirked hardwork or hard tare, 

 men also who had helped to open up the jungles 

 of India and Ceylon, and had planted coffee on 

 the clearings, who had lived often on nothing but 

 curry and rice from one week's end to another, 

 and who were in no way afraid of hard work or 

 rough living, and strange to say these have all got 

 the same thing to say about the Paradise of Mani- 

 toba, riz., that they would rather be hanged in 

 Australia or eaten by a tiger in India, than die a 

 natural death in Manitoba. Now something must 

 be wrong : either my informants have been ill to 

 please or the pamphlet has been written by one 

 whose imagination is stronger than his veracity, 

 and as I am not easily induced to accept of any 

 tale as gospel, I always try to find out as much 

 as possible for myself as to which story is the 

 true one. With regard to Manitoba an opportunity 

 was offered me lately of inspecting some of the 

 produce grown there, which was being exhibited in 

 Aberdeen, and I took advantage thereof of going to 

 see them and of endeavouring to clear up the doubt 

 which had become inherent in one on the subject of 

 the suitability of Canada as a field for emigration, and 

 its assumption to rank first as a grower of farming 

 produce. The exhibition was crowded, but I made 

 two visits to it and took careful note of everything 

 that I saw. The specimens of grain— wheat, maize, 

 oats, barley, dc. — were very poor, the wheat being 

 exceedingly small, and the oats so ' shelly' that 

 the weight per bushel could not have been more 

 than 30 lb. ; indeed it was a poorer specimen than 

 the average of the ' light oats ' in this part o f 

 Scotland — that is the grain which is separated 

 from the good oats in the process of winnowing. 

 The barley also was very .small. According to the 

 pamphlet above referred to, the average yield per 

 acre in Manitoba in 188a was wheat 21 bushels 

 oats 31) and barley 2i>, and'all these are much behind 

 the British averages. — The samples of peas and 

 heans were very good, although small, but there 

 was no doubt that they had been through a sizer, 

 similar to those employed in coffee mills, as the ex- 

 actness of the size of all the peas was too remarkable. 

 But the strong point of tlie exhibition undoubtedly 

 was the jiotato department ; the specimens of 

 these esculents left nothing to be desired. I have 

 seen perfect potatoes in New Zealand, and, in the 

 95 



same country, I have seen 30 tons to the acre 

 grown ; but I never saw anything better than the 

 specimens of ashleaf kidney and magnum bonum 

 potatoes exhibited as grown in Manitoba. The 

 onions also were very good, and so were the carrots ; 

 but the collection of turnips and mangolds were as 

 poor as any I ever saw. They were large, coarse 

 and hollow, covered with warts and hideous 

 excrescences, and, although several of those look- 

 ing at the specimens expressed surprize at the 

 magnitude thereof, I observed that any practical 

 farmer who referred to them at all, did so in far 

 from complimentary terms, styling them rough, 

 ' fusionless,' finger-and-toed and worthless. On 

 the whole the specimens were in no way equal to 

 those to be seen at any country show, with 

 the exception of the potatoes, and so 1 am 

 inclined to give credit to the somewhat sneering 

 remarks of those who have told me about 

 their trips to Manitoba, and their determination not 

 to throw their lot in with the struggling .settlers there. 

 It is not my purpose to refer to the photographs 

 of the fine scenery of Canada and the stuffed heads of 

 buffaloe and mouse-deer hanging round the hall — 

 these were tine indeed — but emigrants cannot live 

 on scenery, even although they may occasionally 

 have their larders full of buffalo 'junk,' and 

 Ij only intended, when writing this, to give 

 you my idea of the products of the Canadian 

 farms, as compared with those of other colonies 

 or even of the mother-country. I have no doubt 

 the specimens wliich I saw were fair samples — 

 at least the Canada North-West Land Company, 

 under whose auspices the exhibition was held, 

 would surely not have put themselves to incon- 

 venience to collect inferior specimens to send so 

 far as to Aberdeen Awa. Cosmoi'olite. 



EEPORT FOE 1885 OF THE KOYAL BOTANIC 

 GAEDENS, CEYLON. 



Besides what we have already quoted, we add 

 a few further extracts from Mr. Nock's report on 

 that now favourite resort of visitors to Nuwara 

 Eliya and tourists, the Hakgala Gardens : — • 



The Hill Garden continues to increase in useful- 

 ness and beauty, as the improvements planned out 

 five years ago, and steadily continued since, approach 

 their full development, and the many newly-introduced 

 plants begin to exhibit themselves more prominently. 

 The Carriage Drive extension was continued (by 

 labour from Peradeniya as in previous years), and 

 sufficiently finished to enable it to be used by car- 

 riages for its whole length. About 150 yards, liow- 

 ever, are still un-metalled and very rough, but I hope 

 t)mt the whole road will be properly finished off 

 during the coming year. The damage by flood re- 

 corded in my last report was repaired and a larger 

 culvert, (40 feet long, 2 feet deep, and 22 inches-wide) 

 was made under the drive to carry off the overflow 

 water ; but again in June a heavy fall of 2 y8 inches 

 rain in two hours washed away a considerable por- 

 tion of the road and embankment. This was at onco 

 thoroughly repaired, and the embankment atrenghtenod 

 with brickwork and cement. It now appears to with- 

 stand the floods, and it is hoped will give no further 

 trouble. 



The Sunerintendout's bungalow has been inr'-easod 

 by the addition of two more rooms, and the enlarge- 

 ment of a third, and by an extension of the verandah. 

 This gives him an office for garden work— a want 

 hitherto much h'.t at Hakgala. The work was 

 carried out by the Public Works Department, under 

 the superintendence of Mr. Nock. The small re- 

 servoir built last year has answered its purpose very 

 well, and proved very useful indeed during the droughts 

 of February-April, and AugnstSoptember. Though 

 at times very low, there was always enough water 

 for the nurseries, plauthouses, and flower-gardens. 



