TH6 JOURNAL 



OF 



T^fie department of Monculture 



**' NSNV Y< 



VICTORIA. ";!'^'-' 



Vol. XVI. Part 10. 10th October, 1918. 



AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 



IN CANADA. 



Letter from Mr. A. E. V. Richardson, M.A., B.Sc, to the Director of 



Agriculture. 



Canada's chief occupation is agriculture. Fifty per cent, of lier 

 annual production comes from field crops, from animals, cheese, butter, 

 fruits, and vegetables ; 40 per cent, in the f onn of manufactures ; and 

 10 per cent, from the mines, forests, and fisheries. Over half of Canada's 

 invested capital is in farm lands, and more than half of her people are 

 engaged in the agricultural industry. 



Canadians take pride in reminding their visitors that the Dominion 

 has an area of one-third of the British Empire, and that it is larger than 

 the entire United States and Alaska combined. A large 'portion of 

 northern Canada, however, is unsuitable for agriculture, or for occupa- 

 tion, owing to the extreme cold. 



The great agricultural wealth of Canada lies in the crops garnered 

 from the long stretches of prairie extending from the Great Lakes to the 

 Rocky Mountains. 



Between two and three thousand American settlers, bringing their 

 household good and equipment, stream across the American border every 

 month to try their fortunes on these flat, treeless prairies, attracted by 

 the lower priced, rich, black, fertile lands of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and 

 Manitoba. 



In these prairie provinces you see settlements and townships in the 

 making. The soil has been waiting for the advent of settlement for ages. 

 No clearing problems face the settler, for the prairie soil needs but to be 

 stirred and broken to give forth abundant crops. Pioneer farming — 

 more or less continuous cropping — is the usual rule in the prairies, but 

 in the older settled parts crop-rotation systems are being developed. In 

 the older provinces of the east agriculture has reached a high standard. 

 The province of Ontario is pre-eminent among the Canadian provinces in 



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