The Great North- West— The Territories. 409 



One of the party who accompanied His Excellency the Marquis 

 of Lome on his journey in 1881, was the Rev. Dr. James McGregor, 

 who has since written a descriptive article in the Contemporary 

 Review. In that article he says : — " As day after day, and week 

 after week, we drove across those fertile regions, it was a daily 

 wonder to us all how they had been so long kept hidden from the 

 hungry millions of Europe. From Winnipeg to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains we did not come across a thousand acres that were not fit 

 either for grazing or for agriculture. Of the marvellous fertility of 

 the first prairie steppe, the Red River region, there is no doubt what- 

 ever. The soil is a rich, black, friable mould, from two to four feet 

 in depth, and has in some places yielded crops of wheat for fifty 

 years without manure. The unbroken prairie has a sward of the 

 richest green, thick and close in the pile as velvet. Here is the 

 evidence of hard-headed practical Scotch farmers who recently 

 visited the country. Mr. Gordon, of Annandale, says that ' beneath 

 that surface of dried grass and ashes, consequent upon the frequent 

 fires, there lies hidden a treasure in fertility of soil which, when 

 developed, will sustain millions of the human race.' ' Along the 

 Red River,' says Mr. Snow, of Midlothian, ' the soil is a very strong 

 black vegetable mould, and would carry paying crops of wheat for 

 thirty years.' « As a field for wheat raising,' says Mr. Biggar, of 

 Kirkcudbright, ' I much prefer Manitoba to Dakota. The first cost 

 of land is Jess ; the soil is deeper and will stand more cropping ; the 

 sample of wheat is better, and the produce five to ten bushels per 

 acre more; all of which is profit. On the whole I was favourably 

 impressed with Manitoba. No one who sees the immense extent of 

 fertile soil and the excellence of its products can for a moment doubt 

 that there is a great future before that country.' A writer in 

 Harpers New Monthly Magazine for September, 1881, says : — ' If 

 one-half of the ground of that comparatively small portion which is 

 drained by the Red River and its affluents were sown to wheat, the 

 product at an average yield would be five hundred million bushels, 

 or more than the entire amount raised in the United States in 

 1880.' " 



Of the second prairie steppe, Dr. McGregor says : — " This second 



