60 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler, Esq. 



figures, Mr. Keeler naturally concluded that they would show 

 some logical consequences on agricultural production and so 

 turned to statistics again, where he was surprised to find that 

 the average of farm values for Ontario had increased but $1.12 

 per acre for all occupied lands, from 1906 to 1910, while the 

 increase of land assessed was only 421,969 acres over 24,284,000 

 in 1906; but that the percentage of land cleared was slightly less. 

 In keeping with these figures he further found that there were 

 fewer cattle, sheep and pigs in 1909 than in 1905. Thus: 



1905 1909 



Milch cows 1,106,000 1,075,000 



Other cattle 1,762,000 1,595,000 



Total slaughtered 714,000 800,000 



Sheep 1,324,000 1,320,000 



Sheep slaughtered or sold 2,584,000 2,767,000 



Swine 1,906,000 1,551,000 



Similarly there were decreases in acreage of the several grains 

 in the same period. Thus: 



Fall wheat, decreased 75,000 acres. 



Spring wheat, decreased 21000 acres. 



Barley, decreased 60,000 acres. 



Oats, decreased 62,000 acres. 



while he found increases only in the acreage of corn and potatoes 

 of 70,000 and 15,000 acres, respectively. 



When, however, he found in a study of the number of bushels 

 grown per acre, no increase, fall wheat being 2.4 bushels less in 

 1911 than the earlier average for five years, barley 1.8 less, oats 

 1.6 and peas 3.3 less while the price per bushel had increased 

 but little, relatively, he realised in this phenomenon of decreased 

 production and relatively small increase of prices to the farmer, 

 a situation, bad as it was in 1896 when trade everywhere both 

 in town and country was depressed, which was now aggravated, 

 so far as its effects upon farm values and the tendency to leave 

 the farms to crowd to the cities where there was a demand for 

 labour were concerned, by the increased cost of farm labour. 



It was not long before he had the professor engaged in the 

 discussion of these figures brought down to the present time. 



