352 APPENDIX. 



tility remain fallow ; and the traveller passes over continuous 

 leagues of the richest soil, which is wholly unproductive to 

 man. Nay, towns surrounded by lands capable of the most 

 successful cultivation, are often compelled to import corn for 

 the daily consumption, as is the case at Antioch, in whose 

 immediate neighbourhood the fine lands on the borders of the 

 Orontes might furnish food for hundreds and thousands of 

 inhabitants." 



From our distant possessions in South Australia, it appears 

 that sufficient corn is now raised, not only to supply the wants 

 of the colonists, but to allow of exportation. In a petition to 

 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated Adelaide, llth 

 of April, 1844, it is stated that, as far as wheat is concerned, 

 the production is already beyond their wants, to the extent 

 of about two hundred thousand bushels ; and they are, in 

 default of markets, suffering under a most ruinous depression 

 of prices. 



Turning now from the Old World to the New, let us inquire 

 concerning the resources of North America, and her power to 

 supply us with corn in the time of need. As far as extent and 

 capabilities of soil are concerned, every one knows that the 

 resources of even our British possessions in that country are 

 almost boundless. It has been well said, " Our colonial wastes 

 are mines of gold: millions of treasure slumber in our unap- 

 propriated lands." Canada alone is about six times as large 

 as England and Wales ; and the whole area of our British 

 North American provinces is more than twice as great as that 

 of all France. Of this great extent of land, however, not more 

 than thirty millions of acres are granted, and of these not more 

 than five millions are cultivated. Of the productiveness of this 

 region we have the following among similar testimony : " So 

 great is the fertility of the soil in Canada, that fifty bushels of 

 wheat per acre are frequently produced on a farm where the 

 stumps of trees, which probably occupy an eighth of the sur- 

 face, have not been eradicated ; some instances of sixty 

 bushels an acre occur ; and near York, in Upper Canada, one 

 hundred bushels of wheat have been obtained from a single 

 acre. In some districts wheat has been successively raised 

 upon the same ground for twenty years without manure." 

 (Butler.} Montreal, the chief trading port of St. Lawrence, 

 is the outlet of the greater portion of the produce of Upper 

 Canada. 



So great are the natural advantages in the neighbourhood 

 of the St. Lawrence, that in a memorial to our Governmen t 



