312 APPENDIX A 



Grasses of many kinds are so rich and rank on the prairies 

 of the Buffalo River that one may cut hay anywhere with a 

 horse mower. The characteristic flowers are the same as those 

 of central Manitoba; the Anemone, or Spring Crocus, is par- 

 ticularly abundant. 



Early in July of 1907, while in the Salt River country, I rode 

 through hundreds of square miles of undulating country, which 

 was sparsely covered with poplar from a foot to two feet thick, 

 under which the ground was overgrown with pea-vine, two or 

 three feet high; the soil was clay loam, the land dry, and there 

 were brooks every mile or two; in other words, the most beau- 

 tiful cattle range possible to conceive, and evidently suited 

 equally for agriculture. 



2. A scientific study of the climate of internal America has 

 demonstrated the remarkable north-westward trend of the 

 summer isotherms, to which the north-westward trend of vege- 

 tation corresponds exactly. 



The map (p. 4) shows these better than any description, and 

 we should remember that: 



Where Balsam Poplar grows, we can grow potatoes. 



Where White Poplar grows, we can grow barley. 



Where Jackpine grows, we can grow wheat. 



These terminal lines, it will be seen, are far beyond the 

 north-west part of the Peace River region. How remote, 

 then, from such limitation is the south part, five hundred miles 

 away. 



Summer frost was the curse of the Ontario Peninsula at one 

 time, and of the Bruce Peninsula, and of southern Manitoba, 

 but now in these same regions, excepting in abnormal years 

 like 1907, it is unknown. With the opening of the country 

 the curse was removed. The theoretical reason is that the 

 ground, everywhere shaded by vegetation, cannot absorb much 

 of the sun's warmth and get thoroughly stored with the heat, 

 but ploughing the land gives it direct contact with the sun's rays 

 and enough heat is stored to raise the temperature a few de- 

 grees, enough to carry it over the danger point. This is the 



