AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN NORTH-WEST CANADA. 229 
ignore that this ‘ invasion’ of Canadian territory by Mr. Hill may not 
only result in competition with the Canadian railway lines, but must 
necessarily bring the manufacturers of the Middle West into com- 
petition with the manufacturers ef Eastern Canada. The conditions 
in the United States are resulting in the westward development 
of manufactures, so that the western manufacturers in the United 
States would compete with the eastern manufacturers in Canada at 
great advantage, in respect to distance, in a market in the development 
of which Eastern Canada has incurred considerable sacrifices. 
Estimates.—In my report of 1904 I quoted, among other estimates, 
an estimate of the maximum productivity of the North-West of Canada, 
which had been made for the purposes of the report by two highly 
responsible and well-informed experts in North-West settlement and 
agriculture. This estimate (referred to in the report as Estimate No. 1) 
ascribed to the region a possible total area annually available for wheat 
cultivation of 13,750,000 acres, and a possible total yield from this area 
of 254,375,000 bushels. The authors, however, desire me to say 
that although the data available in 1904, and the conditions, so far as 
they could be foreseen at that time, did not justify a higher estimate, 
they now consider that, provided ‘ intense cultivation, coupled with 
summer fallowing,’ be applied consistently to the western portion of 
Southern Saskatchewan and to the whole of Southern Alberta, it would 
be possible to add to their original estimate of 13,750,000 acres annually 
available for wheat production an area of 3,500,000 acres. They think 
that this area might be calculated upon ultimately to produce, at 
18 bushels per acre, a quantity of 63,000,000 bushels. If this quantity 
be added to the quantity formerly estimated, the result will be 
317,375,000 bushels. This total quantity would be sufficient, in the | 
opinion of the authors, to provide ultimately 232,250,000 bushels 
available for export. But they do not say at what period this is at all 
likely to be realised. I did not assume any responsibility for the 
original estimate, nor do I do so for this amendment. 
The reasons why the anticipations of the more sanguine of the 
prophets of the North-West with regard to wheat production have not 
been realised may be generally ascribed to the fact that due attention 
was not paid to the number of factors which were necessary to produce 
the desired result. 
Apart from the variability of the seasons and the liability of the 
crop in any and every year to damage from deficiency or from excess 
of precipitation, from hailstorms and from insect pests, there is the 
inevitable influence of the prices of the various crops upon their pro- 
portional cultivation, and there is also to be taken into account the 
circumstance that an increase of the acreage under cultivation is not 
always accompanied by maintenance of the yield per acre. 
The principal factors to be taken into account in forming an 
estimate of the productivity of any country in the future may be 
classified as follows :— 
1. The increase of the rural population. 
2. The suitability of different portions of the area for cultivation 
of a particular character, and the appropriateness and purity of the 
seed, together with the degree of its acclimatisation when in a new 
habitat. 
