Climate of the Canadian West. OR 
northward to the forests beyond the Saskatchewan — an 
area as spacious as Ontarioand Quebec together. Over all 
this area a fair uniformity of climate prevails, characterized 
by a rigorous, but comparatively short winter, early spring, 
an intense and fairly rainy summer, and a prolonged dry 
autumn. The air is dry, healthy and invigorating, the 
warmth and rainfall favorable to agriculture, the winter 
weather and light snowfall well adapted to success in raising 
live-stock. Indian-corn and apples can be grown to the 
50th parallel of latitude in Manitoba and still higher farther 
west; while wheat, barley and all the hardy vegetables 
attain full ripeness on the banks of the Peace River, in 
latitude 50°, —the parallel which touches the southern ex- 
tremity of Greenland. 
At Fort Dunvegan, on Peace River, thirteen degrees 
north of Toronto, or nearly as faras Cuba is south of it, the 
winters, as I have said, are milder than those of Manitoba 
or Ontario; and for the seven months, from April to Octo- 
ber, constituting the period of cultivation, Dunvegan and 
Toronto do not vary more than about one-half a degree in 
average temperature; while, as compared with Halifax, the 
difference is in favor of Dunyegan. The frosts there do 
not linger in the spring as late as here in the neighborhood 
of Montreal, nor do they begin so early in the fall;—and 
everything which will grow here will ripen there, in many 
cases with greater luxuriance. Out of 212 species of plants 
seen along Peace River, near Dunvegan, 138 grow in the 
vicinity of Toronto, and the rest are such as belong to the 
Saskatchewan plains. The list includes a native cactus ! 
In view of these facts, it is evident that mere difference 
of latitude is of small account; and when we come to 
examine the isothermal lines marking similarity of mean 
summer temperature, we find that they curve far northward, 
the isotherm of an average summer temperature of 65°, 
which is that of this part of Quebec, curving through 
Georgian Bay, along the south shore of Lake Superior, and 
swinging northward through Manitoba and north of the 
Saskatchewan almost to Peace River. In other words, the 
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