tries. A substantial portion of Dominion im- 

 migration finds its way to the land, nearly two 

 thousand newcomers in 1920, for instance, 

 being added, according to declaration, to Can- 

 ada's agriculturalists. There is a constant 

 stream, thin at times and fluctuating and waver- 

 ing with industrial and economic conditions, 

 from the city to. the farm. There is the added 

 acreage broken each year and rendered produc- 

 tive on those farms already settled and im- 

 proved. All these are factors in increasing the 

 amount of productive land and the output of 

 agricultural produce. 



It must be borne in mind that all uncultivated 

 land is not necessarily unproductive. This would 

 place under the negative head the extensive 

 acreage devoted to pasturage with its important 

 and valuable product. And in considering this 

 phase in the light of the small cultivated area 

 of thirty years ago, when the Western prairies 

 were stretches of horse, cattle and sheep range, 

 it is well to remember that at present, when 

 these are largely parcelled into grain and mixed 

 farms, their intensive methods are surpassing 

 the livestock production of the giant ranches. 



In 1871, four years after Confederation, when 

 the first Dominion census was taken, there were 

 slightly more than thirty-six million acres of the 

 fertile land of the Dominion settled upon and 

 occupied as farms, substantially less than the 

 area in Canada which is to-day productive of 

 field crops. In the ten years following this 

 occupied farm area increased to well over forty- 

 five million acres. It added another fifteen 

 million acres in the period 1881 to 1891, or about 

 a million and a half acres per year, indicative of 

 the wave of farmer immigrants which besieged 

 the country in that decade. At the beginning 

 of the new century the total area of land occu- 

 pied by farm settlement in Canada was more 

 than sixty-three million acres. 



Steadily Increasing Farm Cultivation 



In 1891, about fourteen million acres, or 

 twenty-three per cent, of the settled area was 

 under field crops, the remainder being pasturage, 

 timbered land, or for some reason unproductive. 

 Five million acres were added in the ensuing 

 decade, the total cultivation in 1901 accounting 

 for nearer twenty than nineteen million acres, 

 this being more than thirty per cent, of the 

 occupied area. Wheat production in this ten- 

 year period jumped from forty-two million 

 bushels to fifty-five million bushels, and oats 

 from seventeen million bushels to twenty-two 

 million bushels. 



The next decade witnessed the most remark- 

 able progress in cultivation as the unstemmed 

 tide of immigration swept over the land and 

 farming operations commenced for the first time 

 in many new areas. By 1910 there were more 

 than thirty-seven million acres producing crops 



in Canada. From that time on a steady and 

 sustained increase has been maintained. Two 

 million acres were added in the last five years, 

 bringing the total up to more than thirty-nine 

 million acres in 1915. Tribute to the speeding 

 up of war-time production in the abatement of 

 the human tributary flood is accorded in the 

 figures of the next five-year period, which indi- 

 cate an increment of no less than thirteen mil- 

 lion acres or nearly three million acres per year, 

 the acreage devoted to last year's crop being 

 52,830,865. 



A Billion Dollar Crop in 1920 



The surprising progress of the Western Prai- 

 rie Provinces at the hands of new farmers who 

 have settled there and broken the virgin sod, 

 bringing millions of fertile acres into fruitful- 

 ness to a large extent accounts for the. increased 

 Dominion acreage in the last decade. Whereas 

 in 1910 there were but eleven million acres under 

 cultivation, this increased to eighteen millions 

 in 1915, and in 1920 had reached the astonishing 

 aggregate of more than thirty and a half mil- 

 lions of acres awaiting the plough to bring them 

 to the same state of productivity. 



Canada is a vast land of 1,401,000,000 acres 

 area. Thirty-one per cent, of this total, or 

 440,000,000 acres has been declared fit for 

 agricultural cultivation. Yet of this tremen- 

 dous total only 110,000,000, or one-quarter, is 

 occupied by farms and about 52,000,000 or one- 

 eighth is producing crops. Much more, of 

 course, is valuable and productive as pasturage, 

 etc., but these figures indicate the wide latitude 

 which still exists for development and the ex- 

 pansive area of rich, fertile, land awaiting settle- 

 ment. 



Canada has a notable record of production 

 already which she has achieved in a remarkably 

 short space of time, and her status as a billion 

 dollar crop producer places her high on the list of 

 agricultural countries. She has yet, however, 

 a long way to travel before attaining her zenith 

 of productivity, but her progress to that end 

 will, in the light of conditions and circumstances, 

 be even more rapid than that recorded in the 

 past half century. 



Industrial Ontario 



Ontario is the richest province of Canada. Of 

 the Dominion's wealth, estimated at $2,801,- 

 000,000 for the year just past, Ontario's share 

 was $1,267,000,000. Consistent with the re- 

 mainder of the Dominion, agriculture asserts its 

 superiority over other lines of activity and nain- 

 tains the premier place in provincial assets. 

 Ontario is, however, the first industrial province 

 of Canada, considerably more than fifty per 

 cent of the product of the Dominion's manu- 

 facturing plants being attributable to this pro- 

 vince. 



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