August 30, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



267 



extent to which she has impoverished her 

 soils by continued cropping with potatoes 

 and oats and who now is endeavoring to 

 restore lost fertility by the development of 

 dairying and the more extensive growth of 

 clover; of Nova Scotia and her world- 

 famous orchards in the valleys of the An- 

 napolis and Cornwallis, her dyked lands 

 which she shares with her sister province, 

 New Brunswick, and from which hay has 

 been cut for many a decade without ap- 

 parent deterioration of the soil ; of the pic- 

 turesque province of Quebec, on either side 

 of the St. Lawrence, peopled for the most 

 part by the thrifty "habitant" who has 

 tilled faithfully, if at times not over-wisely, 

 the land that has descended from father to 

 son for many a generation; of the banner 

 province of Canada, Ontario, with her 

 strong, productive soils, her immense wealth 

 in live stock, her splendidly developed 

 dairying industry, her cereals and fruits. 



Again, in the West there is the province 

 of the Pacific coast, British Columbia, as 

 yet but sparsely settled, where mining and 

 lumbering are more important industries 

 to-day than agriculture, but which never- 

 theless is daily gaining prominence from the 

 great success that has attended fruit grow- 

 ing within her confines. This industry is 

 still in its infancy,- but already the Okan- 

 agan, the Kootenay and other similarly sit- 

 uated districts in the semi-arid belt of the 

 interior are exporting large amounts of 

 fruits of the finest quality to the settlers 

 of the northwest provinces. 



It is to these latter, comprising Manitoba, 

 Saskatchewan and Alberta, that we now 

 turn our attention, though I can only give 

 you the merest outline of them and their 

 possibilities. The cry for some years past, 

 and still is to-day, "Westward, ho !" Peo- 

 ple are going in, one might say rushing in, to 

 possess and to till these vast, fertile western 

 plains. The first to enter in and to possess 



this great lone country were farmers from 

 Ontario and eastern Canada. Of late years, 

 however, while the exodus from the east has 

 continued, these provinces have received 

 thousands from Great Britain, northern 

 Europe and lastly we have welcomed from 

 the great republic south of us, and more 

 particularly from the northwestern states, 

 large numbers of experienced farmers. 

 This area in the west, containing probably 

 more than 170,000,000 acres of arable land, 

 is being fast occupied by an industrious, 

 intelligent, law-abiding people— a progress- 

 ive, ambitious people, imbued with the 

 spirit of the west, who are not content 

 merely with the methods that satisfied a 

 past generation, but who are anxious, as 

 far as may be possible, to farm their land 

 according to the principles of modern, eco- 

 nomic agriculture. Our room for expan- 

 sion will be evident from the consideration 

 of the following estimates collated from offi- 

 cial sources by Dr. Wm. Saunders, director 

 of the Dominion Experimental Farms, and 

 given by him in a paper on "Wheat Grow- 

 ing in Canada," in 1904. Dr. Saunders, 

 I may add, has always been considered as 

 a well-informed and most conservative au- 

 thority in his statements regarding agricul- 

 tural matters: 



Land fit for settlement in western Canada 

 (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) : 171,000,- 

 000 acres, of which there is now under cultivation 

 5,000,000 acres. 



Present production of wheat and other grains, 

 about 125,000,000 bushels. 



Possible wheat production (one fourth under 

 crop annually), 800,000,000 bushels. 



With these facts before you it will not 

 be surprising to learn that the past two 

 decades have witnessed great activity on the 

 part of our governments, both federal and 

 provincial, in providing means and estab- 

 lishing machinery for education in farming 

 matters, for the solution of such agricul- 

 tural problems as require scientific re- 



