PROSPECTS OF UPPER CANADA. 367 



a whole, that the price of flour should, in consequence, be 

 raised to that large tract of country, on the Lower St 

 Lawrence, which has ceased to raise enough for its own 

 consumption ? 



Again, if the conclusions be well founded that the 

 existing system of culture is an exhausting one, and that 

 the wheat-exporting regions are, in consequence, retiring 

 more and more towards the west, the same fate awaits 

 Upper Canada which has already overtaken the equally 

 fertile State of New York. The surplus of wheat 

 beyond the wants of the home population — the ability 

 to export, that is to say — will gradually lessen, and, 

 except in extraordinary seasons, will finally cease. It 

 is true that a larger proportion — about 80 per cent, it 

 is said — of the population of the Canadas is engaged 

 in agriculture than in the State of New York, and is 

 therefore producing food ; but against this is to be 

 placed the fact, that so large a proportion of these agri- 

 culturists are already purchasers of flour. The proba- 

 bility, therefore, is really great, that Canada, as a 

 wJiole^ will fall off" in the production of wheat, in com- 

 parison with the wants of its population, quite as 

 rapidly as the State of New York has done. * 



It is quite true that Upper Canada can boast of much 

 zeal for agricultural improvement, and many enlight- 

 ened and anxious promoters of rural advancement — as 



* I have stated elsewhere, in the text, that I speak with reserve of 

 Upper Canada, as I have not had the oppoi^tunity of visiting enough of 

 it to form a satisfactory opinion. But the view given in the text is 

 much confirmed by a passage in the address of the president of the 

 Agricultural Association of this province, delivered in September 1850. 

 " The farms," he says, " on the whole line iu the old settled townships, 

 from Montreal to Hamilton, and round the banks of the lakes, rivers, 

 and bays, for a space of eight hundred or nine hundred miles, with few 

 exceptions, are what is termed in Canada ' worn out,' and may be 

 purchased at from £3 to £10 an acre." Suppose that better culture 

 can restore this laud, yet wheat can never be raised on it as cheaply 

 as at first. 



