408 Our North Land. 



" Favourable testimony as to the climate was everywhere given. 

 The heavy night dews throughout the North- West keep the country 

 green when everything is burned to the south, and the steady winter 

 cold, although it sounds formidable when registered by the ther- 

 mometer, is universally said to be far less trying than the cold to 

 be encountered at the old English Puritan city of Boston, in 

 Massachusetts. It is the moisture in the atmosphere which makes 

 cold tell ; and the Englishman who, with his thermometer at zero, 

 would in his moist atmosphere be shivering, would here find one 

 flannel shirt sufficient clothing while working. .... 



" With the fear of Ontario before my eyes, I would never venture 

 to compare a winter here to those of our greatest Province; but I am 

 bound to mention that when a friend of mine put the question to a 

 party of sixteen Ontario men, who had settled in the western portion 

 of Manitoba, as to the comparative merits of the cold season of the 

 two provinces, fourteen of them voted for the Manitoba climate, and 

 only two elderly men said they preferred that of Toronto. 



" You have a country whose value it would be insanity to ques- 

 tion, and which, to judge from the emigration taking place from the 

 older provinces, will be indissolubly linked with them. It must 

 support a vast population. If we may calculate from the progress we 

 have already made in comparison with our neighbours we shall 

 have no reason to fear comparison with them on the new areas now 

 open to us. Exclusive of Newfoundland, we have at present four 

 millions four hundred thousand people, and these, with the exception 

 of the comparatively small numbers as yet in this Province, are 

 restricted to the old area. Yet for the last ten years our increase 

 has been over eighteen per cent., whereas during the same period all 

 the New England States taken together have shown an increase 

 only of fifteen per cent. In the last thirty years in Ohio the increase 

 has been sixty-one per cent. Ontario has had during that space of 

 time one hundred and one per cent, of increase, while Quebec has 

 increased fifty-two per cent. Manitoba in ten years has increased two 

 hundred and eighty-nine per cent., a greater rate than any hitherto 

 attained, and, to judge from this year's experience, is likely to increase 

 to an even more wonderful degree during the following decade " 



