September 30, 1 909J 



NA TURE 



417 



yields hitherto obtained. It is obvious that under 

 Austrahan conditions the breeding of varieties of the wheat 

 plant which will thrive on a low rainfall would make all 

 the difference to Australia as a source of wheat exports. 

 From 1902-7 the Australian average yield was only half 

 that of Manitoba, or nine bushels per acre ; but this in- 

 cluded one year of disastrous drought (1902-3), wherein 

 the Commonwealth average fell below 2i bushels to the 

 acre. In New South Wales and Victoria, wherein more 

 than half the acreage lay, it was even below this accord- 

 ing to the official figures. Such instances offer the 

 strongest evidence that could be offered of the extreme 

 variability of Austrahan conditions, and make one almost 

 hesitate to quote Mr. Humphreys' own cheerful estimate 

 that in the State of New South Wales alone, wherein 

 nearly a third of the Australian acreage is found to-day, 

 or i,8S6,ooo acres, there was a possible area of good 

 wheat land of nearly ten times this, or 18,000,000 acres. 



To the last I have left another sphere of wheat extension, 

 and one that will be most of all familiar to my audience. 

 Yet here again the forecast of the Canadian future made 

 in 189S was surely unduly pessimistic. The opinion then 

 quoted by Sir William Crookes as that of trustworthy 

 authorities assigned to the Dominion a bare total of 

 6,000,000 acres under wheat as all that could be expected 

 to be reached within a dozen years. That period has not 

 yet fully come, but I observe that by December 31, 1908, 

 the official figures show an acreage as reached within the 

 decade which exceeds by 10 per cent, the maximum allotted 

 to 1910. If I were to add the figure now ascertained for 

 the 1909 crop, a total of 7,750,000 acres is now reckoned 

 upon, so that here again the forecast has been outstripped. 

 The further proposal to estimate the maximum of the 

 Canadian potential capacity for wheat production by 1923 

 at no more than 12,000,000 acres will therefore, I imagine, 

 meet severe critics in Winnipeg to-day. 



I greatly wish that our contribution to the knowledge 

 of the economic future of Canadian development may be, 

 as the result of discussions here, some approach to an 

 agreement to avoid all exaggeration on the one hand or 

 on the other in these forecasts of future wheat-growing 

 in the North-West ; but I am very conscious of the risk 

 of all far-reaching prophecy in a problem where the more 

 or less uncertain growth of the immigrant population 

 plays as great a part as the soil or the climate. 



Sir William Crookes, in endorsing the most modest 

 estimates of the capacity of this region, mentions that he 

 had before him calculations which, I think most of us 

 will agree, were, to say the least, exaggerated in an 

 opposite direction, attributing to Canada 500,000,000 acres 

 of profitably utilisable wheat land. Against such inflated 

 prophecies he argued that the whole area employed in 

 both temperate zones of the world for growing all the 

 staple food-crops was not more than 580,000,000 acres, 

 and that in no countrv had more than 9 per cent, of the 

 area been devoted to wheat culture. But error of estimate 

 in one direction or another is quite inevitable when the 

 available data on which to form a conclusion are so 

 scanty. Replying later to journalistic criticism. Sir 

 William, it must be remembered, acknowledged the un- 

 doubted fertility of portions of the North-West provinces : 

 but, basing the conclusion on official meteorological 

 statistics and on supplementary data supplied by Mr. 

 Wood D.avis as to the July and .August temperatures of 

 these regions, he suggested that " from one-half to one- 

 third only " of Manitoba — the south-west portion already 

 fully occupied — was adapted to wheat. It was doubtless 

 In the light of these climatic records that he inclined to 

 regard 200,000 square miles of the whole 300,000 square 

 miles comprising .Asslnlbola, .Alberta, .and Saskatchewan, 

 as these regions were then defined, as lying *' outside the 

 districts of profitable wheat-growing," while even of the 

 remainder it was apparently suggested that it would take 

 thirty years from 1898 to place as much as 18,000,000 acres 

 under all grain crops. Can we here to-day, with another 

 ten years' experience, reach a somewhat greater accuracy 

 in this search into the possibilities before us? 



-As illustrating the remarkable discordance of view 

 hitherto existing, it Is well to have before U!<, as a start- 

 ing point for debate, some specimens of later but still 

 most widely varying estimates of the capabilities of this 

 country. These I quote from the cautious report rendered 

 NO. 208:^, VOL. 81] 



by Prof. -Mavor to the British Board of Trade in 1904, 

 midway through the decade now closing. More or less 

 speculative as it is fully acknowledged all estimates must 

 be which purport to define the area " physically _ or 

 economically susceptible of wheat production," that pains- 

 taking investigator set aside, as of little value, hypothetical 

 curves setting forth the " northern Hmit of cereal pro- 

 duction," trustworthy data for which "were not forth- 

 coming, and if they were they would be constantly chang- 

 ing." After enumerating under fourteen different heads 

 and sub-heads a formidable list of distinct but materially 

 qualifying " conditions " or factors covering questions of 

 soil, of temperature, and meteorology, of moisture, sun- 

 shine, and acclimatisation of the plant. Prof. Mavor sug- 

 gests that, broadly speaking, the cleavage of the areas 

 of different fertility runs obliquely from south-east to 

 north-west through the great quadrilateral of the Canadian 

 North-West. Alike in the north-eastern and in the south- 

 western angle the conditions seemed to him more or less 

 unfavourable. The south-eastern and north-western corners 

 and the belt connecting them, however, presented relatively 

 favourable conditions ; an exception qualifying this sub- 

 division was, however, suggested in the extreme north- 

 west. 



The vagueness of the statistical basis on which any 

 numerical estimate of future wheat areas must rest cannot 

 better be shown than by briefly referring to the results of 

 five independent estimates which are quoted in this report. 

 For the details of these estimates it is necessary to refer 

 anv student of the report to the analysis of each, differing 

 as 'they do materially In their methods and in the classifica- 

 tion of the areas comprised within the Manitoba, 

 Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta of that date. As 

 regards the total area for settlement and for annual wheat- 

 growing respectively, the first three of these estimates 

 varied in placing the surface fit for settlement or susceptible 

 of cultivation as low as 92,000,000 acres, and as high as 

 171,000,000, the annual surface available for wheat in these 

 districts ranging from 13,750,000 acres to 42,750,000 acres, 

 and the resultant possible produce from 254,000,000 bushels 

 to 812,000,000 bushels. 



It should be added, to make these figures clear, that 

 all the estimators quoted assume as a condition precedent 

 to their accomplishment such an influx of population and 

 settlement of the country as would be adequate to secure 

 the cultivation of the hypothetical cultivable area. 



With Prof. Mavor, we may think that both the lower 

 estimates are over-cautious and the third perhaps over- 

 sanguine, while most properly he reminds us that beyond 

 the physical capacity of any region, the question of 

 economic advantage remains to be solved, under what may 

 be conditions prevalent at a distant time, what efi'ect a 

 rise of price might have, and whether the farmers_ of the 

 future would devote so much of their land as is here 

 suggested, and so much of their working capital, to wheat 

 alone. I ought to add that a fourth estimate referred to 

 In the report takes the graphic form of a map, distinguish- 

 ing the suggested area where the wheat crop is certain, 

 where less certainty exists from the effect of summer frosts, 

 and where, again,' the crop is uncertain from insufficient 

 moisture. Yet another estimate was quoted as made in 

 1892, but endorsed as not over-stating possibilities of the 

 future in July, 1904, and this classified somewhat more 

 than half the land of Manitoba as " land suitable for 

 farming," or 23,000,000 acres, allotting to the rest of the 

 North-West 52,000,000 acres more, or in all 75,000,000 

 acres. The same estimator, forecasting the results for 

 1912 (or three years from the present time), allotted to 

 Manitoba a probable wheat production of 168,340,000 

 bushels, and to Alberta, Assiniboia, and Saskatchewan 

 181,600,000 bushels. This crop of 350,000,000 bushels of 

 wheat was in addition to an estimate of a further 

 200,000,000 bushels of oats and 50,000,000 bushels of 

 barley. I have little hesitation in concluding, with Prof. 

 Mavor, that such widely divergent results, arrived at, as 

 we are told, bv competent estimators, illustrated the 

 impossibility at 'the time of that report of setting out 

 precise limits of cultivation In a region in which so much 

 has yet to be done. To-day I would ask. Has the lapse 

 of another quinquennium, full of interesting movements in 

 both the population and the crops of the North-West, 

 enabled us to reach anv greater certainty? If so, thp 



