MANITOBA AND THE SASKATCHEWAN. 167 



The Canadian Government have circulated 

 widely in this country certain reports of tenant- 

 farmers delegated from Scotland and the north 

 of England to visit, during last autumn, the 

 great " wheat-growing belt " of Manitoba and the 

 Saskatchewan. These gentlemen, all of them 

 men selected for skill and judgment, speak in 

 the most confident terms of the unequalled 

 productive quality of the soil, and the ease with Fertility of 

 which it can be cultivated. The question of 

 rent in this country, they say, will always be 

 more than met by the cost of transport ; but as 

 the natural produce of an acre there is equal to 

 that here, which has to be constantly kept up 

 to the mark by costly expenditure, it is in this 

 cheapness of production that the advantage is 

 found to lie. Wheat can be grown with a profit 

 there at a price which will admit of it being de- 

 livered at Liverpool for 35. 6d. to 45. a bushel ; 

 beef, from Canada and the United States, at 6d. 

 to /d. a pound ; and cheese of fine quality at 

 6d. With the exception of wheat, which, since 

 the establishment of Free Trade, has never fallen 

 below an average price of 5s., these prices were 



