82 KTJRAL LIFE IN CANADA 



O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, 

 And clasping tares cling 'round the sickly blade; 

 With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound, 

 And a sad splendor vainly shines around.* 



Loss through inferior stock in dairying is heavy; 

 The average yearly yield of milk per cow in Ontario 

 is 4,540 Ibs. But there are many cows in the Province 

 yielding 15,000 Ibs., and some that reach 22,000 Ibs. 

 At the Winnipeg meeting of the British Association in 

 1909 the Danish Live Stock Commissioner described 

 methods in use in Denmark which had raised the aver- 

 age yield of cows from 80 Ibs. of butter in 1864 to 220 

 Ibs. in 1908. 



Nor is this the limit of our loss. The township of 

 Edwardsburg, among other excellent products, yields 

 potatoes of superlative quality. Competent judges 

 affirm that at Spencerville Fair the samples of potatoes 

 annually exhibited grade upon the average higher in 

 excellence than those seen at the Provincial Exhibition 

 in Toronto. Yet this superlative crop has no recognized 

 place in the market. The chief reason appears to be 

 that a score or two of varieties are commonly grown, 

 and when shipped all of these varieties may be found 

 in one carload. 



Thus we find that the economic problem is not only 

 one of technics of utilizing to best advantage the 

 powers of nature in growing plants and animals for 

 human use, but also of economics in its strict sense as a 

 science of utilizing agricultural production to best 

 advantage when it has taken place, through transporta- 

 tion and distribution, through development of consump- 



* George Crabbe, " The Village as It Is." 



