APPENDIX A XLVII 



of country the width of France and 3,000 miles long." Canada is 

 3,000 miles across from ocean to ocean and France 400 miles wide. 

 This would give to the farming land of the Dominion an area of 

 1,200,000 square miles. If anyone who is well acquainted with Canada 

 will draw a line parallel to the southern boundary of Canada but 400 

 miles distant from it, he will find that there is not very much farming 

 land to the north of this line, while there are vast tracts of country 

 on which he would be very sorry to be obliged to engage in farming to 

 the south of it. 



Another authority states that the area of land which is used for 

 farming and grazing purposes in the Dominion at the present time 

 may be set down at 50,000,000 acres and that a conservative estimate 

 would place the area available for these purposes at six times this 

 amount, that is to say, 300,000,000 acres or 470,000 square miles. 

 This smaller estimate, which includes not only farming but grazing 

 land, is probably too low but nearer the truth. 



But we do not require to resort to exaggeration to convey an 

 adequate impression of our immense wealth in agricultural lands. 

 We certainly have in Canada abundant land to support a population 

 of many millions — a people who will be not only numerous but who 

 should have that sturdy manhood which has always characterized 

 the hardy populations of northern countries. 



If, however, this great heritage is to be transmitted to succeeding 

 generations of Canadians unimpaired, we must improve our methods 

 of farming and follow the example set by other countries from which 

 we have now much to learn. Good land will support a dense popu- 

 lation and can be made to do so without losing its fertility, but only 

 by intelligent and intensive cultivation. The greatest farming com- 

 munity in the world is that which lives on the rich delta lands of central 

 and southern China. Prof. King, of the University of Wisconsin, 

 who when in China made an exhaustive study of the methods of farm- 

 ing there adopted, has reported that these people have, during the 

 long series of centuries in which they have tilled the land, developed 

 such a perfect system of agriculture that he could see no way in which 

 western science could materially aid them. Through these long 

 ages, while they have made the land yield enormous crops, they have 

 maintained its fertility unimpaired. 



But what has been the experience of the United States, which 

 is our nearest neighbour and the one whose fields are contiguous 

 with ours ? 



If we take the wheat crop, using it merely as an index of yield, 

 we find that large crops of this grain used to be grown in the east. 

 A recent bulletin of the federal Department of Agriculture tells us 



