1903-4. | How PLantT LIFE Is DISTRIBUTED IN CANADA AND WHY, 35 
of more general application to timber, grains and fruit than we have 
supposed. Canadian barley was so preferred by the Americans that a 
prohibitive duty had to be imposed to keep it out of their country; apples 
from Montreal and Abbotsford are noted for their quality; Montreal 
melons are considered a delicacy at the New York hotels; Quebec straw- 
berries used to be famed for their size and flavour; the wood of the poplar 
which is considered by the Ontario farmer of little value, is found in the 
more northerly climate of the North-West Territories, a more useful wood. 
It is very suggestive that these are but illustrations of what may, on 
investigation, prove to be a rule with our timber trees and agricultural 
products. In this more northern climate may not our woods be more 
suited for construction purposes and cabinet ware than those grown 
farther south? The suggestion is made from analogy, but it is well 
worth careful investigation. 
The westerly portion of Assiniboia and parts of Alberta are different 
in appearance from Manitoba. We meet with less of the flat prairies 
and more of the dry, somewhat rolling, plains, and we come across plants 
which remind us of Montana, Wyoming and Utah. Irrigation is neces- 
sary if much of the country of the South Saskatchewan is to be always 
available for agriculture. Even near the foothills of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, in the valley of the Milk River, the Cactus, the Sage and the Grease- 
wood, characteristic plants of dry somewhat arid regions, are met with, 
whilst to the northward around Calgary, the country is more suitable 
for ranching purposes than for the growth of cereals. The successive, 
practically unbroken chains of lofty mountain ranges interposed between 
this district and the Pacific Ocean have, as the air currents pass eastward 
across them, attracted the moisture laden clouds, leaving but a light 
rainfall for the plains on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, whilst, 
as Professor Stupart suggests, the drying effects of the Chinook winds 
have had much to do with preventing the spread of trees over this vast 
area. This, however, does not explain the fact that whilst these plains 
are semi-arid, there is farther north, amidst the foothills of the moun- 
tains and in the North Saskatchewan and Athabasca River country, 
sufficient humidity for agricultural purposes. Probably this may be 
due to the air currents, near the boundary, having to cross in succession 
the mountains on Vancouver Island, the Cascades, the Selkirks, includ- 
ing the Gold and Purcell ranges, and finally the Rocky Mountains, 
before reaching the plains, whilst across the Pacific Ocean to the Yellow- 
head pass, these air currents would have fewer peaks to carry off their 
moisture. 
These same chains of mountains, with the Japanese current and 
the direction of the low pressure air currents from the Pacific Ocean 
