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line, is now loaded upon trucks specially prepared to receive it, right in 

 the forest itself, and run down direct to Quebec in three days time, as 

 against three weeks formerly required to float it down in rafts. British 

 Hondiiras exists as a colony only for its woods ; Burmah was annexed 

 to the British rule for its valuable forests of teak ; and sandal-wood has 

 been the means of opening up many of the islands of the south seas. 

 Cotton, the importance of which can never be overestimated, has had 

 much to do with the social condition of this continent. Its growth 

 developed the southern States, whose climate suited it well ; but requir- 

 ing harder labour than the planters cared to give, African labour was 

 imported, and the climate suited that race. 



Wheat, however, is the great factor of the vegetable world in devel- 

 oping civilization. Climate has much to do with the well-being of this 

 cereal. A hot, dry summer gives it perfection, a changeable and damp 

 sttmmer is detrimental to it. Confined formerly to only certain districts, 

 it is now by adaptation of circumstances grown where a few years ago 

 its cultivation would have been laughed at, and the great wheat fields 

 of India now furnish large supplies, through the extension of railways 

 and by means of irrigation, combined with very low wages. In Aus- 

 tralia, the Argentine Reptiblic, Chili and California, wheat is now 

 grown to an enormous extent by means of improved systems of agricul- 

 ture, and the development of these countries is remarkably increasing. 



Look at our great Northwest and the rapid strides of its develop- 

 ment. The Canadian Pacific Railway depends largely on wheat as an 

 article of freight traffic^ and the lines to the southern frontier from 

 Winnipeg were mainly built for wheat, and as new branches are ex- 

 tended over the prairie, ])ioneer settlers break up the matted sod that 

 has for centuries turned the rain aside from the soil below, which, 

 soaking into the newly exposed surface, calls forth at once its power 

 of raising grain. What the future of this granary of the world, now 

 throbbing with the sti-ongest and newest life of the west will be, none 

 dare predict. From the height of land south-west of Lake Superior, the 

 whole valley of the Red River northwards to Lake Winnipeg, the 

 undulating prairies rolling westward to the Rocky Mountains, and the 

 Upper Mississippi valley, constitute this granaiy, and this centre of 

 production is the centre of the river systems of North America. The old 



