ON AGRICULTURE TO CANADA 95 



Agriculture lasted for two months, in which 206 meetings were held 

 with an attendance in all of about 29,000 people. This experiment 

 has been attended with such encouraging results that it has been 

 continued, it is believed, greatly to the benefit of the farmers of 

 the West. 



This Division has recently suffered irreparable loss by the 

 death of the Botanist and Entomologist, Dr James Fletcher, who 

 received the members of our Commission at the Central Experi- 

 mental Farm, and whose services to Canadian Scientific Agriculture 

 have long been held in the highest esteem. 



The Poultry Division 



Poultry keeping and the development of the industry is very 

 fully dealt with in the section on poultry. It is sufficient here to 

 say that poultry has received great attention at the Central Ex- 

 perimental Farm where splendid equipment has been established 

 for conducting on a large scale breeding and experimental work. 

 Since the inception of this work twenty years ago, it is claimed that 

 there has been a gratifying change in the attitude of the farmers 

 to the industry. Fowls are looked upon much more favourably 

 now than they were then, and this change must to a considerable 

 extent be credited to the influence of the work in the poultry 

 division and the information disseminated from it. The reports 

 that are circulated annually describe and discuss methods of breed- 

 ing, feeding and management which many years of experience have 

 proved to be effective in obtaining eggs and poultry, at the best 

 paying season of the year. 



Branch Experimental Farms 



These farms vary in size from about 160 acres up to 680 

 acres, but recently the tendency in making new ones has been 

 to restrict them to the smaller size. Each is well equipped with an 

 up-to-date steading, manager's house and office, workmen's 

 cottages, and other appliances. The location of the farms has 

 already been given in describing the Central Experimental Farm 

 system. It has also been indicated that each is carried on by a 

 superintendent who acts under direction from the Central Farm. 

 The work conducted on them is frequently the same as that which 

 has been described as being carried on at the Central Farm, or such 

 part of the latter as is likely to be applicable to local conditions. 

 It must not be supposed, however, that this similarity is really 

 duplication, because these centres lie so far apart and in many 

 respects the conditions are so different that an entirely different 

 result may be looked for even from the same experiment. But in 

 addition to experimenting in conjunction with the Central Farm, 

 each branch has its own local problems to solve and this gives a 

 distinctive local phase to its work. For instance, at Nappan, the 

 centre for the older settled Maritime Provinces, problems connected 

 with live stock, keeping up the fertility of the soil, and fruit-growing 

 claim attention. In the Prairie Provinces the cultivation of the 



