AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH-WEST CANADA. 211 
The Area of the Prairie Provinces.—The area of the three prairie 
provinces—Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta—is much larger than 
the area of the region formerly occupied by Manitoba and the North- 
West Territories. This appears in the following table :— 
1904 1905 
In Millions of Acres 
Land | Water| Total || 
Land | Water | Total 
Province of Manitoba 
.. . | 412] 60 | 472] 412] 60 | 47-2 
The Territories, afterwards the i 
Provinces of Saskatchewan and | / 
Alberta (including the added i 
areas) . : . ‘ 1879 | 30 |191:0 1551 | 63 | 160-4 
| 160°8 | 1:5 | 162°3 
2291 | 9-0 | 2382 357-1 | 12:8 | 369-9 
The added areas thus amounted to more than fifty per cent. of the 
original area of the region. The addition consisted of almost the whole 
of the former territory of Athabasca. The greater part of this addition 
is beyond the region of practicable settlement for commercial produc- 
tion at the present time. 
Meteorological Data of the Years 1905-09.—Attention was drawn 
on the previous occasion to the fact that the observation stations of the 
Meteorological service do not furnish records for a sufficient length of 
time to.enable decisive conclusions to be formulated regarding the 
important questions of temperature and precipitation. It is hardly 
necessary to lay emphasis upon the well-established scientific fact that 
the occupation of a country does not influence the climate. The 
erection of buildings and the planting of trees may affect, within certain 
narrow limits, the currents of air on the immediate surface, and culti- 
vation may render the soil less impervious to moisture, and may thus 
alter the quantity of moisture held by the soil; but none of these 
changes has any influence upon the rainfall or upon other phenomena 
of a cosmic character. This, at all events, is the general conclusion 
of meteorologists, who alone are entitled to be heard upon such a 
question. 
Average Daily Maximum Temperature. 
| | 
—— April July Sept. Nov. | January 
’ Calgary . 53°2 74:7 63°7 35°3 23:1 
hana rel Edmonton . | 529 | 737 | 621 | 39:5 | 162 
Winnipee .| 501 | 776 | 65:3 | 305 8:0 
Bar: earl bf Medicine Hat| 446 | 681 | 561 | 284 | 11°8 
ons | 
—— =. ih 
P 2 
