ON AGRICULTURE TO CANADA 23 



Mr C. H. Parmelle, M.P., and his own father and brother. After 

 lunch served on the lawn we visited the farm buildings, which are 

 more up to date than anything we had so far seen . N or were his cattle 

 — Guernseys and French-Canadians — behind the best of their kind 

 which had come within our observation. Towards evening, ac- 

 companied by Mr Fisher, we left his railway siding en route for 

 Montreal. 



It was intended that the forenoon of next day should be spent 

 in Montreal. This, however, was not possible, for some of the 

 Commissioners. At 9 o'clock, seven of them, along with Mr Fisher, 

 proceeded to a farm, four miles from Montreal. One feature of this 

 farm, which extends to 60 acres, and is rented at 800 dollars, was 

 the melon patch, measuring IJ acres. On this patch the farmer 

 grew 32,000 melons, which yielded a gross return of something like 

 £2000. A visit was also paid to Messrs Trenholme's dairy in the 

 same district. The byres, which housed 150 cows, were floored with 

 concrete and had an air space of 800 cubic feet per cow. The rest 

 of the Commissioners remained in town, only to be convinced that 

 a forenoon is much too short to explore even the most outstanding 

 features of Canada's greatest city. At 12.15 they left for Macdonald 

 College. Mr Fisher and his party joined them at Montreal Junction. 

 Beaching St Anne de Bellevue, the Commission was met by Dr 

 Robertson and driven to the College. At the outset, the doctor 

 gathered the Commissioners together in a classroom and explained 

 the design of the buildings and the general policy of the College. 

 The different rooms were afterwards inspected and at one o'clock 

 we sat down to lunch as the guests of Dr Robertson. During lunch, 

 we had ample opportunity of obtaining information on all points 

 of interest. Subsequently, we visited the different sections of the 

 farm — the poultry section, the horticultural section, and the live- 

 stock section, and then it was time to go. Accompanied to the 

 station by Dr Robertson and quite a host of professors, we left 

 for Ottawa. 



Ontario 



We had now reached Ontario, the wealthiest province in the 

 whole Dominion. It was one of the first settled provinces, and agri- 

 culture in consequence has reached a comparatively advanced 

 stage in its development. It was meet that much time should 

 be spent in this province if we were to see the best that Canada 

 could show us of her agriculture. We entered the province on 

 Saturday, 22nd August, and we did not leave till 2nd September. 

 Our first day was a Sunday and it was spent in the capital, which 

 gave us an opportunity of hearing one of Canada's famous preachers. 

 In the afternoon we met at our hotel informally, the Hon. Frank 

 Oliver, Minister of the Interior, and the Hon. R. W. Scott, 

 Secretary of State and acting Premier in the absence of Sir Wilfred 

 Laurier. Between times we got a pretty fair idea of Ottawa, one 

 of the beautiful cities of the Dominion. An early start was made 

 on Monday morning in good company, for we had with us some of 



