ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DEPLETION 79 



ditions was made by competent men. It was scientific 

 research, not in the laboratory, but in the rural com- 

 munity. The Report indicates that a comparatively 

 small number of farms are run under good systems of 

 cropping and good methods of cultivation. A few of 

 the salient points brought out by the survey are: That 

 out of the 800 farms under investigation in the Mari- 

 time Provinces, Quebec and Ontario, on only 25 per 

 cent, is any systematic rotation of crops followed ; in 

 a representative Ontario county " a percentage of the 

 farmers hardly know what is meant by the term system- 

 atic rotation." Yet, Dr. Robertson states, wholly 

 apart from the effects obtained from fertilizers, and 

 simply by the use of a rotation which includes the bean 

 or clover crop, there has been in specified places an 

 increase of from 100 to 150 per cent, in amount, with 

 an increase of from 200 to 300 per cent, in profit. 



Mr. Grisdale, Director of Dominion Experimental 

 Farms, stated in his evidence before the Select Standing 

 Committee of the Senate on Agriculture, in 1912, that 

 the average farmer spends $10 an acre in the cultivation 

 of his land, and, according to the census, receives 

 $15.50, making a clear profit of between five and six 

 dollars, but that at the Experimental Farm cultural 

 operations cost $11.77, and crop return is $45.47 per 

 acre, making a profit of $33.70. 



As regards the use of selected seed the Report states 

 that by the majority of farmers nothing is done in the 

 way of seed selection more than to grade the grain 

 through a fanning mill. Yet Dr. Robertson assures us 

 that by seed selection alone the crops of Canada can 

 nblod. ''In Ontario, field crops last year were 

 woru. $193,000,000, and if there were $1-93,000,000 



