DOMINION EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 13 



complexity and number of the questions studied are also, to a 

 great extent, the result of the educative influence of the Farms 

 themselves and to the greater interest in correct methods of farm- 

 ing which they have helped to arouse among the farmers of Canada. 

 This tendency towards better farming is very clearly seen in the 

 prairie provinces, where the settler, from regarding the soil merely 

 as a mine of fertility to be exhausted in the production of a yearly 

 crop of wheat, is coming to realize that a system of crop rotation 

 or mixed farming, including the keeping of live stock, means the 

 preservation of the crop-producing power of the land, the eradica- 

 tion of weeds and the fair certainty of a yearly revenue. The 

 teaching of this is being given especial emphasis by the Experi- 

 mental Farm system and much of the testing of varieties done 

 has been with a view of obtaining hardy, early-maturing sorts of 

 cereals, forage plants, vegetables and fruits, to render the appli- 

 cation of the lesson practicable. The value of the keeping of 

 live stock in this connection has not been overlooked and much 

 experimental work is being carried on with different breeds of 

 cattle, sheep and swine. Gradually, the live stock and dairying 

 industry is coming into that prominence in the west which for- 

 merly it held in the eastern provinces alone. 



New Farms. 



In response to the popular demand, additional experimental 

 stations have been and are being located as rapidly as possible. 

 Besides those noted in the companion Guide devoted to a brief 

 account of the Branch Farms and Stations, one was acquired, in 

 1911, at Kentville, N.S., in the celebrated fruit-growing district 

 of the Annapolis Valley. This Station is some 285 acres in extent 

 and is to be devoted mainly to horticultural work, which will be 

 commenced in 1912. Another Station, at Ste. Anne de la Poca- 

 tiere, Quebec, 126| acres in area, will be used for general experi- 

 mental work, serving more particularly the farmers of eastern 

 Quebec. In British Columbia, in addition to the Farm at Agassiz, 

 some 52 acres have been obtained at Invermere, where fruit- 

 growing will be a main feature, and a third Station has been 

 purchased near Sidney, on Vancouver Island. 



Sub-Stations. 



Along with these, sub-stations are maintained at Fort Ver- 

 milion on the Peace River, in Alberta, where excellent results in 

 cereal and vegetable growing have been obtained, and at Kam- 

 loops, B.C., where some of the agricultural problems of a semi- 

 arid region are being studied. Some experimental work is also 



