ON AGRICULTURE TO CANADA 



193 



find out for themselves the district best suited for their particular 

 trade. 



British Columbia 



Beyond the western prairie there is British Columbia. It is a 

 goodly land too, with a fine climate, which draws men from the 

 western prairie in the evening time of their days when they have 

 extracted from it a competence. But it is a much boomed land. 

 The fame of British Columbia, particularly as a fruit-growing 

 country, has reached sometimes, in the language of exaggeration, 

 to the ends of the earth. Possibly, nowhere is there need for more 



LUNCH ON ROAD AT " PATERSON'S FARM," LADNER, B.C. 



care on the part of the emigrant than here, for land is selling at 

 almost fabulous prices, and that too in districts where the possi- 

 bilities of soil and climate have not yet been tested. 



The settler in this far-western land has certain undoubted 

 advantages. The climate and the soil are usually all that can be 

 desired. The growth is amazing. We have seen timothy six feet 

 high, and clover more than knee deep. We have seen apple trees, 

 which grew five feet in a single year, laden with fruit, until they had 

 to be bolted together with iron bolts to keep them from splitting. 

 There is a good market for all this produce, and though the fruit- 

 growers of British Columbia are catering for the distant British 

 market, this does not seem to be necessary. They have over 

 the mountains the prairie, and it will be an ever-increasing 

 market. But the settler in British Columbia has difficulties to 

 contend with. The country is a mountainous country and the 

 suitable land is exceedingly limited. Much of the land is heavily 

 timbered, and has to be cleared at very considerable expense before 

 farming operations can be commenced. The wheat-grower may 

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