i8 TO-DAY'S OPPORTUNITY IN NOVA SCOTIA 



spells success from start to finish. Canada has transmuted adversity 

 into good fortune. Take another case : that of a man of gentle 

 breeding brought up among men of leisure like country gentlemen 

 in England ; a good rider, a first-class shot, a judge of sound claret, 

 and fond of golf and cricket. He might find a similar environment 

 not at all to his taste, and feel acutely the absence of class distinc- 

 tions and the loss of accustomed pleasures. To him emigration 

 might not appear in quite so attractive a light ; at all events until 

 he had adapted himself to his environment, and got rid of the 

 dead weight of old ideas and habits. 1 



The present opportunity of acquiring improved farms in Nova 

 Scotia, often including good orchards, at very profitable prices 

 may not last very long. 2 



There is a splendid demand for the products of ' mixed farming ' 

 in Nova Scotia. The farmer who comes to this province will come 

 to a country where the demand of the local home market far exceeds 

 the supply. How is it that oats are retailing to-day in Halifax at 

 70 cents (almost 35. stg.) per bushel imported oats while there 

 exist vast stretches of untilled land, which can be had at trifling 

 cost, which could easily be made to produce between 35 and 40 

 bushels per acre ? How comes it that when lambs readily bring 

 from $3 to $4 each ( i.e. from I2s. to i6s. stg.), and wool is eagerly 

 bought up at 30 cents per pound (is. 3^.), there are large vacant 

 tracts in various districts peculiarly suited for sheep runs to be 

 purchased for little money ? How is it that Nova Scotia imports 

 not only large quantities of hay, oats, barley, butter, eggs, poultry, 

 but beef also from Prince Edward Island and Upper Canada, when 

 home production might be made to pay a handsome profit ? One 

 explanation of this state of things is that there is very little of what 

 may be called ' good ' farming in Nova Scotia : another is that the 

 lure of the West and the nearness of the province to the great 

 Republic, loses a great deal of the young blood which should enrich 



1 Mr. Keir Hardie was quite right in his recent remark made in Canada 

 that ' adaptability to changed conditions is a first essential in a new country.' 

 This faculty is far oftener found wanting in English emigrants than in Scotch 

 or Irish, and accounts for 90 per cent, of the failures. 



2 This is particularly true within the writer's knowledge of the values 

 of large tracts of land in Hants, Yarmouth and North Queen's Counties, 

 admirably adapted for fruit growing and general farming, and of extensive 

 areas in Antigonish County peculiarly suitable for sheep. To quote the 

 Principal of the Agricultural College at Truro, M. Gumming, B.A., B.S.A. : 

 ' A settlement of congenial British farmers can take up lands here at very 

 moderate prices, and work along lines of general farming in the early part 

 of their career, with the idea, however, of having profitable orchards in from 

 ten to fifteen years/ 



