234 



CLIMATOLOGY. 



TABLE VIII. 



Table of the Extreme Temperatures occurring in each 

 Month at several Places in the Saskatchewan Valley, 

 and in Hudson's and James's Bays. 



This table shows that tropical temperatures occur in the Saskat- 

 chewan basin, for a day or two, or it may be only for a few hours at 

 a time in summer, yet that the three summer months seldom pass 

 without night frosts. These destroy tender plants, and in untoward 

 seasons injure the growth of cerealia. Wheat, however, ripens well in 

 the drier limestone districts, and still better in the prairie country ; 

 but it is there subject to periodical ravages of the larvse of caterpillars, 

 which come like an army of locusts, and eat up all that is green. 

 Were the country more generally cultivated, and rooks and domestic 

 poultry encouraged, this plague might be lessened. Maize ripens 

 well at the Red River and Carlton, and, I believe, at Cumberland 

 House also, though I did not see it in cultivation there. The 54th 

 parallel may be considered as its northern limit, but its profitable 

 culture does not, perhaps, extend beyond the 49th or 50th degree on 

 the east side of the Rocky Mountains. 



