772 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



over it, he became more and more impressed every year witli tlie 

 vast area of good land in the iSTorthwest, and no practical man has 

 ever traveled through those regions but has been amazed at the 

 prospect of their capabilities. 



But we have not yet reckoned with the rich and fertile prov- 

 ince of Ontario. This province has a land area of 140,576,000 

 acres, of which 11,888,853 acres were under cultivation in 1898, 

 and of this latter quantity 1,437,387 acres, or twelve per cent, were 

 in wheat, being an increase of 163,860 acres over the wheat area 

 of 1897, and of 62,573 acres over the average of 1882-98. Ac- 

 cording to the census of 1881 there were nearly 2,000,000 acres 

 in wheat in 1880, but, under the influence of an unremunerative 

 market, the area declined year by year until in 1895 there were 

 but 967,156 acres so employed; since then, however, stimulated 

 by a more profitable price, the area has increased by 470,471 acres, 

 and an increase of twenty per cent upward is reported in the area 

 for 1899. Fall wheat in this province is a very successful crop, 

 having averaged in the last two years twenty-five bushels and 

 twenty-four bushels per acre respectively, while the average for 

 the period 1882-'98 has been 20.5 bushels per acre, so that noth- 

 ing but a continuance of good prices is needed to largely increase 

 the production of wheat in Ontario. In no part of the province, 

 where agriculture is possible, has wheat failed to grow, but the area 

 is so large that it would be unwise to put into figures the extent 

 available for wheat cultivation, it being sufiicient to show that a 

 very large portion, if not indeed the whole, of the twelve million 

 acres to which Sir W. Crookes has limited Canada could, other 

 conditions being favorable, be supplied by Ontario alone. 



The " trustworthy estimates " quoted by Sir W. Crookes limit, 

 as has been stated, the wheat area of Canada to a maximum of 

 twelve million acres under cultivation in twenty-five years; whence 

 the estimates were derived or on what grounds they are entitled to 

 be considered trustworthy there is no information; but is it of any 

 consequence? Let them come from whatever source they may, 

 are they not perfectly useless? The progress of wheat cultivation 

 during the next twenty-five years does not depend upon any mathe- 

 matical ratio of progression, but on the course of certain events 

 absolutely unknown at the present time. The point is that Sir W. 

 Crookes adopts these estimates and gives out to the world a state- 

 ment, on the strength of them, that, in addition to the 3,500,000 

 acres at present in use, there are not more than 8,500,000 acres in 

 Canada available for wheat cultivation — a statement calculated, if 

 believed, to seriously damage Canada's prospects of settlement, and 

 a statement that is as much at variance with the actual facts as it 



