242 



hausted fields, would in future years more than repay the teinpoiary 

 gain she is now getting from the sale of it. 



Turning now to a country which in the marketing of its first mil- 

 lion bu&hels of wheat may be said to have just passed its first birthday 

 (our Canadian Northwest), we find a land whose extent and richness it 

 is difficult to comprehend, and whose capabilities for wheat growing are 

 as yet comparatively unknown. 



It is only necessary to examine the samples of our North- west wheat 

 to know that they are the product of a wonderfully rich soil. 



It is true that, owing to the rush with which the country was 

 opened up, and to the consequent difficulty in getting good seed (set- 

 tlers being obliged to take whatever they could get), some of the 

 samples are mixed, but the fact that some of these mixeil samples 

 have passed fur hard wheat only further proves the capability of the 

 soil, by its hardening soft wheat, that is, iuci'easing its natural percent- 

 age of gluten. 



Gilbert and Lawes, in a report of an analysis of the soil of the 

 North-west, say : "These proved to be nearly twice as rich in nitrogen 

 (or plant food) as the average of arable soils in Great Britain — prob- 

 ably about as rich as the average oi the surface soils of English per- 

 manent pasture." And again : "All theoe soils showed an exceedingly 

 high percentage of available i)lant food." 



Prof. Macoun from botanical evidence maintains that the wheat 

 fields of the future will be found further west on the now so called 

 barren plains, and I may say that in comparing these lands with other 

 hard wheat counti-ies I, in a less scientific way, arrived at the sani€ con- 

 clusion, yet this conclusion was arrived at before I had the pleasure of 

 hearing Prof. Maco>m express his decision. And further, taking the 

 wheat growing plains at the foot of the mountain ranges in Europe, 

 taking the State of California, a State in which some years ago the 

 growing of wheat was thought impossible, but which last season led the 

 States and Territories of the Union with a crop of over fifty niilliou 

 bushels, I feel sure that tlie great plains, now called grazing countiy, 

 lying at the base of the Rocky Mountains, will in future ^eai-s become 

 an immense wheat field, capable of supplying not only the wants of 

 Canada, but also a large poition of the wants of outside importing 

 oountries. 



