NATURAL HISTORY, TORONTO REGION 



assured competence by the growth of the nation's 

 wealth. One hears of push-cart men becoming semi- 

 millionaires within a few years, and the stimulus of 

 such tales is not lost in the telling. In Toronto, as 

 in New York (Borough of Manhattan), the downtown 

 landowners are mostly corporations or Jews. 



But, typical as it is in many respects, the " ward " 

 is not all of Toronto. The backbone of the city'a 

 population, its pith and marrow, are still Canadian. 

 And as Canadians their interests are chiefly in the 

 home life. A drive in a tally-ho, a view from the 

 tower of the University or of the City Hall will con- 

 vince the visitor of this fact. Few, if any, of the 

 cities of America, certainly none in Europe, can show 

 so many miles of comfortable and even commodious 

 dwelling-houses in proportion to the population. But 

 here, too, conditions are changing. Seven years ago 

 there were only three apartment houses in the city. 

 Now they number 300. With the great increase in 

 land values, the decrease in the supply of domestics, 

 and the lowness of the Ontario birthrate, such sub- 

 stitutes for the true home are sure to be multiplied. 

 Hitherto they seem to have had no effect in diminish- 

 ing the rapidity of the city's territorial growth. 



That growth has been guided to some extent by 

 the geological conditions. The successive hill-pla- 

 teaus which mark the earlier shore-lines of Lake 

 Ontario formed boundaries to the north, and so the 

 city till quite recently expanded east and west along 

 the lake front till it extended from the Humber Bay 

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