APPENDIX A 315 



I think that both the Macouns are right in their descriptions 

 of the country. Professor John Macoun says there is a great 

 agricultural future for the Peace River Valley. James Macoun 

 says: "True, but let us be frank about it; there are also areas 

 on the high southern part of the Peace Uplands, where the 

 elevation is too great for the successful growing of cereals. 

 The northern part of the region is so low as to offset the high 

 latitude, and offers a fine field for agriculture." 



Doubtless wheat may be grown beyond the wheat-line, as I 

 have drawn it, but there the unfavourable conditions become 

 very frequent, and indeed the rule. There are obviously no 

 hard and fast lines, but on the whole these shown do give us 

 the broad facts. Each decade, however, is cutting down the 

 time required for the growing of wheat, by providing us with 

 hardier kinds, and thus they are extending its area. 



This same is true not only of the other various staples of 

 agriculture, but also of live stock. Breeds of cattle improved 

 for our northern ranges have been produced, and a search of 

 other lands has discovered two other creatures, the reindeer and 

 the yak, whose natural habitat is a far colder region than the 

 coldest part of that under discussion, and whose beef and other 

 products have long been the principal wealth of other countries, 

 where they are indigenous. 



This great new province is abundantly supplied with minerals, 

 water, timber, wild fruit, fish, fur, and game. It is, moreover, 

 a white man's climate, one of the most salubrious in the world, 

 and all that its detractors can say is — it is too far north, it is too 

 cold. Which of us, they ask, would be willing to settle in a 

 land that has admittedly four months of hard winter? 



One may be sure of this: that no settler will readily leave a 

 warm, sunny climate to go to a cold and frosty one. I do not 

 expect that any Ontarian will cheerfully go to dwell in those 

 northern climes. If a Floridian goes to live in Ontario, he 

 thinks he is in a polar region, and suffers. So an Ontarian 

 coming to Manitoba or Alberta thinks he is far enough north, 

 and any farther would be too cold; but after a generation born 



