1915-16 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. 



105 



nists may, therefore, well reflect that a country worth fighting and dying for is one 

 in which it is worth while to live and work. 



The applications we had on hand from our Ontario farmers for farm hands 

 called for from 7 to 12 months engagements, and we had no difficulty in getting the 

 farmers to pay the amount we had to guarantee, namely, $35.00 per month, with 

 lodging, board and washing. 



While our agents were in the United States they were also very active in 

 advertising the opportunities in Northern Ontario. Apropos of that country's 

 attractiveness is a comment on the report of its staff correspondent regarding " the 

 spirit manifested by the sufferers from the late fire in the district north of Lake 

 Timiskaming," by a leading newspaper: — 



" The reader cannot fail to be deeply impressed by the invincible courage and 

 ' buoyant optimism ' of those settlers who have manifested and proclaimed their 

 determination to stick to their burnt-over farms in spite of pecuniary losses and 

 still more depressing calamities. There must be something inherently and en- 

 duringly attractive in a locality which has the magnetic power to counteract the 



Interior Immigration Office, opposite Union Station, Toronto. 



repelling force of such a disaster as they have passed through. ' Troubled, but not 

 distressed, perplexed but not in despair, cast down but not destroyed,' they turn 

 to the future with an unwavering faith in the resources of the soil and in their o^vn 

 ability to utilize them. 'The land is still there, and it is wonderful in its rich- 

 ness,' so wonderful that nothing short of actual contact with it can. convey to the 

 observer an adequate idea of the real truth. 



" The secret of this ' richness ' is not far to seek : It is in the fact that the 

 soil is a calcareous alluvial clay. The infused lime seems to be of just the right 

 amount and quality to make the clay friable, so that, unlike the old-fashioned clay 

 of southern Ontario, it does not ' cake ' into bricks. Laid bare to the sun from 

 several feet below the surface it will become pulverized instead of being hardened 

 into 'adobes,' so that there is no 'sub-soil' in the ordinary sense of that term. 

 This peculiarity is so pronounced that it is hard in some places to keep up the open 

 drains on the highways. The deep, fertile soil of the western prairie offers no 

 agricultural advantage over the deep, fertile soil of the Northern Ontario forest, 

 where the timber may be made to pay partially if not wholly for the clearing;." 



