694. TRANSACTIONS OF SUB-SECTION K. 
manurial expenditure in that direction, but poor in their percentage of 
phosphoric acid, while the climatic conditions as regards moisture have 
proved remarkably difficult. Efforts have been made, and apparently, if 
recent experiences be confirmed, with success, to breed new varieties of the 
wheat plant adapted to the peculiar climatic conditions of Australia and 
likely to increase the low average yields hitherto obtained. It is obvious 
that under Australian 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 1902-1907 the Australian 
average yield was only half that of Manitoba, or nine bushels per acre; 
but this included one year of disastrous drought (1902-1903), wherein the 
Commonwealth average fell below two and a half bushels to the acre. In 
New South Wales and Victoria, wherein more than half the acreage lay, 
it was even below this, according to the official figures. Such instances 
offer the strongest evidence that could be offered of the extreme variability 
of Australian 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 
1,886,000 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 1898 was surely unduly pessimistic. The 
opinion then quoted by Sir William Crookes as that of trustworthy autho- 
tities 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 popula- 
tion 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 
country had more than nine per cent. of the area been devoted to wheat 
culture. But error of estimate in one direction or another is quite inevit- 
able when the available data on which to form a conclusion are so scanty. 
Replying later to journalistic criticism, Sir William, it must be remem- 
bered, acknowledged the undoubted fertility of portions of the North-West 
provinces ; but, basing the conclusion on official meteorological statistics 
and on supplementary data supplied by Mr. Wood Davis 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 
