ON AGRICULTURE TO CANADA 11/ 



been improved by study of conditions at the experimental stations. 

 At the Ottawa farm a cheap wooden house has been found very 

 efficient. Its floor is raised from the ground so as to afEord the pig 

 shelter from the heat by day. 



Green feeding is coming more and more into favour. Cabbages, 

 Indian corn, clover, alfalfa, and other legumes are increasingly 

 grown for this purpose. The meals in favour are seconds of wheat, 

 barley, and corn. Low grade flour and bran is also largely used, 

 whilst at milk factories whey is, of course, of great value. 



The ideal hog for bacon is one weighing about 200 lbs. It must 

 have been fed under conditions of freedom with sufficient exercise 

 until six months old, when it is confined and put on richer food for 

 another month. 



Buying and selling of fat hogs is done entirely by live weight. 

 The price averages about 6 cents per lb. for first quality grade. 

 The large packing houses in the Dominion afford a ready and easy 

 market, and do much to stimulate the industry. 



The quality of pigs throughout Canada is of a high class, and 

 both breeders and feeders testify that " hog culture " is a branch 

 of farming that makes profit. 



Poultry 



Canada possesses unique opportunities for raising poultry- 

 keeping to an important industry. With the exception of the bare 

 prairie lands there is abundant natural shelter everywhere in the 

 woods, forest, and bushy scrub which clothe the earth, providing 

 not only protection from the weather, but affording a supply of 

 insect and animal food so necessary to the health of this kind of 

 stock. In the apple orchards of the Eastern Provinces, in British 

 Columbia, and in the magnificent fruit valley of the Niagara 

 Peninsula, no better conditions could exist for the profitable keeping 

 of fowls ; the two industries of fruit-growing and poultry-keeping 

 so naturally fit into and supplement each other. Whilst the fruit 

 trees supply the shade from the sun and the shelter from the storm, 

 so helpful and beneficial to the fowls, these active, foraging animals 

 are continually devouring all insect and grub pests which are their 

 natural food, but which are the deadly enemies of the fruit trees. 

 Then the labour connected with the two industries is so divided 

 that the busy season of the fruit picking is distinctly separated 

 from the hatching and rearing of the chickens. Particularly is the 

 labour reduced when the birds are put out in colony houses all over 

 the orchards. The minimum of attention is required by this system, 

 while the ground derives the benefit from the manure being equally 

 distributed over it. There is ample evidence of the successful 

 combination of these two industries to the mutual benefit of both 

 to prove that this practice might be most judiciously and profitably 

 extended. 



The prices obtained for table poultry and eggs all over Canada 

 assure a profit to the producer under good management. Taking 

 the whole country the lowest summer price for eggs will not 



