Economic Position of Wheat Growing. 7 



and no increase in the estimates of the last line of this table is 

 presumed to have taken place, the localities where the greatest 

 development of wheat-growing has occurred may be readily traced, 

 and the accelerated rate of the extension in the most recent 

 decade offers an assurance that the apprehended shortage of bread 

 supplies is not yet in sight. 



Estimates of the world's aggregate production are even less 

 complete and reliable than those of acreage, but, comparing the 

 figures forthcoming for the average of the three years 1895-7 with 

 those for the last three harvests 1907-9, a total of 2,444,000,000 

 bushels of wheat would appear to have risen to 3,236,000,000 

 bushels, an advance of nearly 33 per cent, in this interval. This 

 movement is certainly much greater than that of population in 

 the period covered. 



In view of the concern of the United Kingdom in the expanding 

 imports of wheat, the following statement emphasises the changes 

 which have occurred in the chief sources whence its supplies have 

 been received, and illustrates the growing importance of the 

 Canadian contribution to the needs of the Mother Country. 



Annual Average Imports of Wheat and Wheat Flour {expressed as grain) into 

 the United Kingdom and the Countries from which these Imports were 

 recorded in the Trade Accounts in millions of cwts. 



Periods. 



Total 

 received. 



Of which from 



U.S.A. 



Argen- 

 tina. 



Russia. 



India. 



Austral- 

 asia. 



Canada. 



All 



other. 



1881-85 (5 years) 



77'3 



41-4 



OI 



9'0 



9*4 



4'o 



27 



I07 



1886-90 



77-8 



37-4 



12 



I4-5 



9'2 



1-9 



3'4 



I02 



1891-95 



96-6 



507 



77 



13-8 



9-2 



2-9 



4'9 



7'4 



1 896- 1 900 „ 



96*0 



57-3 



8-i 



9-2 



4"i 



r6 



7-5 



8-2 



1901-05 ,, 



1 1 1 '6 



42.3 



14-6 



15-0 



15-5 



7 -i 



10:5 



6-6 



1906-08 (3 years) 



112-5 



3 6-8 



24-4 



IO'2 



M'3 



77 



15-2 



6:9 



After illustrating- the records of this renewed advance, the 

 distinctively Canadian features of the movement were discussed 

 in the address, and the difficulties which an investigator encoun- 

 tered in forecasting the future was acknowledged. Some illustra- 

 tions of the widely divergent conclusions of competent experts 

 were found in the discrepant estimates which Professor Mavor had 

 collected (without himself adopting) from acknowledged authorities 

 in his exhaustive Report of 1904. One of these estimates, it will 

 be remembered, placed the land fit for settlement or "susceptible 

 of cultivation," in the North- West as low as 92,000,000 acres, 

 and another as high as 171,000,000 acres. One skilled estimator 

 restricted the surface likely to be annually available for wheat to 

 an aggregate of 13,750,000 acres, while another offered more than 

 three times that figure, or 42,750,000 acres. The resultant produce 



