930) REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCH. 
3. Personal aptitude on the part of the cultivators and their 
experience of methods of farming suitable for the soil in question. 
4. Prices of grain and fluctuations of demand. 
5. Facilities for transportation. 
6. Variations of meteorological conditions. 
7. Risk of damage from insect pests. 
Conclusion.—No one who examines the statistics of agricultural 
production in the North-West since 1883 can fail to be astonished at 
the truly marvellous progress which the country has made during the 
snort period of twenty-six years which has elapsed since then. In 
1883 the population was insignificant. One railway line had just been 
constructed—indeed, at that date it was not completed to the coast. 
Now in the three provinces there are three great lines of railway, with 
another forcing its way in from the United States. The population 
is upwards of a million, and agricultural productivity has been 
advancing by leaps and bounds. The country needs no fantastic 
exaggeration to draw attention either to its achievements or to its possi- 
bilities. What it needs at present is cool estimate of these and consoli- 
dation rather than excessive expansion. A vast amount of energy and 
much capital have been wasted in attempts to exploit regions which 
are and must for long remain distant from markets, while fertile soils 
easy of access have remained under cultivation of a highly primitive 
character. The immense natural resources of the rich soil of Manitoba 
and of portions of Saskatchewan and Alberta are not even yet being 
fully exploited. Very considerable improvements in agricultural 
methods must yet take place if these resources are to be fully utilised. 
The Development of Wheat Culture in North America. 
By Professor ALBERT PERRY BRIGHAM. 
[Ordered by the General Committee to be printed in extenso.] 
In the year 1602, on one of the Elizabeth Islands, off the present coast 
of Massachusetts, Bartholomew Gosnold made trial plantings of wheat 
and other grains. The Spaniards had earlier brought wheat to Mexico, 
but this was probably the first wheat sown within the boundaries of the 
United States. Nearly twenty years later wheat was sown at Plymouth, 
without success the first season, but with returns afterward. The grain 
extended itself among the New England colonies, and about 1700 there 
are records of shipments, as from Norwalk to Boston and Boston to 
Virginia. As the eighteenth century progressed, however, wheat 
declined, except as sown on fresh clearings, and was brought in from 
New York and the Southern colonies. That wheat was already moving 
westward is shown by the fact that New England traders bought New 
York wheat, ground it in their own mills, and sold it in the West Indies. 
To revive wheat culture Massachusetts laid a duty on the product to be 
paid as a bounty to farmers, but Weeden tersely says that ‘ the duty 
could not counteract climate and soil nor feed the fishermen.’ 
There is early record of wheat in Virginia, for in 1607 the Council 
informed the Council in England that they had fortified themselves 
against Indians, and had ‘ sown good store of wheat.’ The first sowings 
