36 



ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



ing been blessed by the hand of Providence, produced the 

 largest crop ever grown in this country and, now that the 

 final figures are available, we find that our wheat crop 

 reached the enormous total of 376,448,400 bushels; our 

 oat crop, 389,000,000 bushels ; barley, 39,202,000 bushels ; 

 and our flax 6,000,000 bushels, making a grand total of 

 810,650,400 bushels of grain." ^ 



The crops for 1916, 1917, and 1918 have not been nearly 

 as good as those of the banner year 1915. Nevertheless, 

 during this period, in the Prairie Provinces, the wheat 

 crop on the average has been well in excess of 200,000,000 

 bushels. 



The chief wheat-growing province is now Saskatchewan,"^ 

 after which comes Manitoba and then Alberta, as is shown 

 by the following figures for spring wheat for the year 

 1915:2 



Acreage and Yield of Wheat for 1915 



Saskatchewan 

 Manitoba . . . 

 Alberta 



Acreage 



6,884,874 

 3,664,281 

 1,637,122 



Bushels 



173,723,775 

 96,662,912 



58,830,704 



Yield 

 per acre 



25.23 

 26.40 

 35.93 



The average annual yield of wheat in bushels per acre 

 in the principal wheat-growing countries of the world, for 

 the five consecutive years 1909-13, was as follows : ^ 



iW. E. Milner, President's Address, Eighth Annual Report (new 

 series) of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, Winnipeg, September, 1916, 

 p. 24. 



2 Supplement to the Cereal Maps of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and 

 Alberta, issued from the Natural Resources Intelligence Branch of 

 the Department of the Interior, Ottawa, 1917, pp. 4, 6, 8. 



3 Ihid., p. 13. 



