IO 



Economic Position of Wheat Growing. 



crop. The advice of the experimental farms, the Governmental 

 encouragement of mixed farming, and the experience of the States 

 immediately south of the international boundary, are all counter 

 to continuous single-crop culture. 



The writer makes the net gain in the North-West Provinces by 

 immigration and by natural increase of immigrants between 

 1901-06 a total of 369,000, and adds that there being no reliable 

 available statistics of either births or deaths in the North-West, 

 the actual natural increase cannot be stated. In 1907-08 immigra- 

 tion had largely increased— the number received that year being 

 the largest in the history of the country. 



The policy of the distribution of immigrants in small isolated 

 groups is then discussed, and a careful analysis given of the 

 available statistics of immigration and the progress of cultivation 

 and the relation traced between the increase of cultivation and 

 the growth of the population. Professor Mavor puts the cultivated 

 area per head of population as 8'6 acres in 1901, of which 5*9 

 acres was in wheat, whereas in 1906 the cultivated area was 

 9'9 acres, of which 6*3 was in wheat — i.e. 62 per cent., as against 

 68 per cent, at the earlier date. He traces the diminished pro- 

 portion of wheat growing to the total acreage under all grain 

 crops, which he puts as declining from 62*56 per cent, in 1905 to 

 55*44 in 1909, the drop being greatest in the latest years, 1908 

 and 1909. Oats, on the other hand, had shown the greatest 

 proportional increase, from 24*86 per cent, to 33*57 per cent. 

 This, however, he attributes chiefly to the amount of railway con- 

 struction and employment of horses that has been going on in the 

 three provinces. 



The unsatisfactory condition of the collection of agricultural 

 statistics in Canada at present, and the inconvenience of the 

 periodic presentation of two differing sets of statistics — one 

 compiled by the Dominion Government and another by the pro- 

 vincial authorities — is illustrated by Professor Mavor in the 

 discrepancy of 16 per cent, between the wheat crop of 91,853,000 

 bushels given in 1908 by the former and that of 107,002,093 

 bushels by the latter for the three prairie provinces, while the 

 latter figures seem to be adopted by the Dominion Department of 

 Trade and Commerce. He advocates the employment of more 

 expert statistical officers and an adequate agricultural survey of 

 the whole region. Without this, only " fanciful " conclusions 

 could be reached about the future productivity of a vast and very 

 varied country. 



Professor Mavor points out that the yield of wheat since 1898 

 per acre exhibited a fluctuation of from 9*11 in 1900 to 25*16 in 

 1901, being twice above 20 bushels and four times below 16. He 

 finds no justification for multiplying the estimated acreages by 

 the arbitrary figures of 20 bushels. 



