{J AMES] AN HISTORICAL WAR CROP 105 
price of wheat in Canada had shown a steady decline because there 
were so many settlers with limited capital the world over who were 
opening up new lands and who, by necessity, were restricted to wheat. 
No country, however, can expect to make permanent progress if it 
depends upon wheat as its main product. The Great West cannot 
become a country of general prosperity until mixed farming has become 
well established. This is fully recognized not only by governments, 
but, to a large extent, by the people themselves, and the movement 
towards meat and dairy production in the prairie provinces has 
become increasingly marked of late years. This historic wheat crop of 
1915 has contributed and is still contributing towards the strengthen- 
ing of the Allies at the front; it is helping to relieve a serious finan- 
cial situation in the West, and it will also be of great assistance in 
hastening the development of mixed farming on the prairies by the 
extra cash that it is bringing to the farmers, a condition that is of more 
importance to all Canada than eastern people are likely to realize. 
Though the necessity of extending and encouraging mixed farming 
in the West for the future stability of that country is not well under- 
stood by easterners, yet the desirability of it seems to be quite com- 
monly held, or at least expressed. Advice is more frequent than 
practicable suggestion as to how this is to be brought about. 
Apparently the factors involved are not always well understood. 
The growing of wheat involves a moderate capital outlay and may 
bring cash returns within six months, and the industry is adapted to 
a country of wide variations both of land and climate. The suc- 
cessful keeping of live stock requires capital, a much larger invest- 
ment in animals and buildings; it calls for ability not only to care 
for animals but also to grow and store food products of varied 
nature. Capital or credit, also, must be available to await market 
returns. Farmers who read, observe and think are profiting by this 
big cash wheat crop to enlarge their mixed farming operations. 
Recognizing the importance of the wheat crop in the settlement 
of the vast areas of Western Canada and the desirability of safe- 
‘ guarding the marketing of it, the Government of Canada has pro- 
vided for its inspection by the Dominion Grain Commission. No other 
country in the world has such a complete plan of inspection, and, while 
market price manipulation apparently cannot be controlled, the western 
grower of wheat knows that the crop that he produces and delivers to the 
local elevator or loads into the railroad car will find its place in the Europ- 

ber, 1903, and reprinted in “Selected Readings in Rural Economics,’’ complied by 
Prof. Thomas Nixon Carver of Harvard University, Ginn & Company, Boston, 1916. 
This deals mainly with Minnesota, but also sets forth the movement from the East- 
ern States to the Western. 
