874 report — 1884. 



perature and rainfall during the summer months are the conditions of climate 

 most favourahle to the productions of the earth. The absence or deficiency of one 

 of these elements must necessarily render climates less propitious to plants. 

 Forest lands are permanently the most profitable, and produce more abundant and 

 more uniform crops. Prairies, in high latitudes, as in Minnesota and especially in 

 Manitoba, have a greater rainfall and more humidity than the regions to the south 

 and south-west, and sufficient to produce fine crops. But these are on the northern 

 limits of the prairie lands. No doubt the preference is given to prairies from the 

 greater facility in bringing them under culture, but the chief consideration shotild 

 be the permanent quality of the soil and especially of the climate, and not the 

 facility of beginning. 



The conditions in Canada in connection with forests are very different from 

 those in old countries where, through centuries of hewing and hacking, forests 

 have been destroyed, and especially different from regions to the parts of the 

 western prairies of America, and the desert areas of the Old and New Worlds, 

 where, from the severe summer droughts, it is difficult, and in many parts 

 impossible, to get trees to grow. 



The most pressing want throughout the Dominion is the reservation of a 

 certain percentage of the pristine forests. Many efforts have been made, for a 

 quarter of a century or more, to induce the Governments of the provinces to require 

 from the purchasers the reservation in forests of from one quarter to one half of 

 every farm of 200 acres. So favourable is the climate in Canada to the growth of 

 trees that when a field has been left untilled for a few years it is covered by many 

 varieties of native woods. 





