CANADA WEST. 27 



trees are immensely tall, and show tlie rapid growtli -wliicli 

 only a fertile soil could produce. Thous:!! tMs district is quite 

 wiin tte limit of the profitable c^dtnre of Indian corl, a 

 small proportion only of the land seems to he occupied by that 

 crop. _ Its great value is everywhere admitted, but on this de- 

 scription of soil its cultivation demands too mucli labour. The 

 last grain crop can hardly have been great, for in very few 

 instances indeed are any ricks to be seen outside the barns, 

 and they are not capacious enough to contain large crops. 

 There has been, in fact, a very short crop in Western Canada. 

 The young wheat is already green, as it is found necessary to 

 sow very early in order to have the plant strongly rooted be- 

 fore frost sets in. On the best land wheat and clover are often 

 taken in alternate succession, the clover being ploughed down in 

 the hot summer weather, when the weeds are easily and cheaply 

 destroyed while the clover gives condition to the land for the 

 vrheat crop. All agricultural operations in this country are ne- 

 cessarily f?overned by the high price of labour. The principle 

 which guTdes the American farmer is to take tihe most payig 

 crop which can be grown at the least cost of labour. Being the 

 owner of the soil, he has no landlord to consult as to its man- 

 agement, and he regulates his cropping by the cost of labour 

 and the value of the produce most in demand. In every coun- 

 try men differ in their ideas on these points, and here as else- 

 where some farmers find it most profitable to have their land 

 chiefly under tillage, while others in the same locality think 

 they realise a larger net balance from stock farnnng. The 

 wheat crop on the best soils yields here from eighteen to thirty 

 bushels an acre, and year old South Down sheep, where well 

 managed, weigh 20 lbs. a quarter. 



Up to the time of the money panic of last autumn the 

 value of land in the best parts of Canada West had been for 

 several years constantly rising. There was now a complete 



