SHIFTING OF THE WHEAT- REGION. 361 



proceeded, therefore the quantity of wheat raised beyond 

 the demands of the state or colony — that is, the surplus 

 for exportation — gradually decreased. 



I need not enter into details upon this point ; the grand 

 consequence is such as I have described, and the general 

 proof of it is, that the wheat-exporting regions of North 

 America have, as I have already stated in my remarks 

 upon western New York, been gradually shifting their 

 locality, and retiring inland and towards the west. The 

 flats of the Lower St Lawrence were the granary of 

 America in the times of French dominion ; western New 

 York succeeded these ; next came Canada West ; and 

 now the chief surplus exists, and the main supplies for 

 the markets of Europe are drawn from the newer regions 

 beyond the lakes. These in their turn, as the first virgin 

 freshness passes away, will cease to be productive of 

 abundant wheat, and eastern America must then look for 

 its supplies of this grain either to a better culture of its 

 own exhausted soil, or to regions still nearer the setting 

 sun. 



This natural consequence of an exhausting system of 

 culture has been aided and hastened by other causes, the 

 study of which Is full of interest and instruction. I may 

 advert to one of these. 



When a soil becomes unfavourable to the growth of 

 a plant, the plant. If made to grow upon it, comes up 

 weak, and is liable to disease and to the attacks of 

 insects and parasitic plants. Whether as a natural con- 

 sequence of this kind, arising naturally from the exhaus- 

 tion of the soil and the w^eakenlng of the wdieat-plant, 

 or as the effect of some other cause not understood, it is 

 an important fact that the attacks of the wheat-midge 

 have, in Lower Canada, been lending their aid for many 

 years to diminish the wheat-crop in quantity, and to 

 render it less certain. A gradual revolution, therefore, 

 has been taking place, not only in the husbandry, but 



