PRODUCE OF CANADA WEST. 271 



the western wheat, and because the flour it makes Is less 

 apt to sour at sea. 



The best samples of wheat are grown on a belt of 

 some twelve miles broad, which skirts the lake from 

 Niagara round as far as the town of Cobourg, which is 

 about a hundred miles west of Kingston. The land on 

 this belt is rolling, and generally light, loamy, and 

 capable of being ploughed with light horses. Beyond 

 this belt, in every direction, wheat is more subject to 

 rust. Winter wheat cannot be grown with equal 

 certainty, and spring wheat, therefore, is generally 

 sown. From what I have heard, I think it not 

 unlikely that thorough-drainage may eventually cure all 

 this. 



The whole produce of Canada West, in 1828, and the 

 average yield per imperial acre, are represented in the 

 following table : — 



Though the largest breadth of land is under wheat, it 

 will be seen by the above numbers that oats and 

 potatoes are staple articles of food. This arises, in 

 part, from the climate being more generally pro- 

 pitious to these crops, and in part from the large 

 proportion of persons of Scottish descent who are found 

 among the inhabitants of the province. 



The wheat midge has not yet been sensibly felt in 

 Canada West ; still, the wheat crop is by no means so 

 sure as it used to be, and, as one consequence, larger 

 numbers are returning to Indian corn, which, twenty 



