Canadian Agriculture. 



i59 



extent by the inclemency of the winter climate, which makes 

 it necessary that cattle should be kept in the stalls for 

 periods varying from six to eight months in each year. In 

 some parts of Ontario and Quebec this difficulty has 

 rendered feeding for meat unremunerative in recent years ; 

 but in the case of dairy herds attempts are being successfully 

 made to meet the situation by the cultivation of cheap 

 fodders for winter-keep, maize being largely used for this 

 purpose and fed either in the form of weather-dried stover 

 or as ensilage. On the other hand, the outlay for fodder 

 in the west during the summer months is almost confined 

 to the expenses of keeping a herd-boy, and in some districts 

 in this part of the country, and in the lower mainland of 

 British Columbia, cattle graze at large during the winter 

 season. 



The number of live stock in Canada as enumerated at the 

 census of 1891 included 1,471,000 horses ; 4,12 1,000 cattle, of 

 which 1,857,000 were milch cows; 2,564,000 sheep; and 

 1,734,000 swine. Ontario then possessed nearly half of the 

 total stock of cattle, two-fifths of the sheep, and two-thirds 

 of the pigs ; Quebec followed with nearly a million horned 

 stock, and about three-quarters of a million sheep ; and 

 Manitoba and the North- West Territories accounted for 

 nearly half a million cattle and about a hundred thousand 

 sheep. The estimates since published annually for Ontario 

 show that there has been an increase in all classes of live 

 stock, except horses, in that province ; and the latest returns 

 for Manitoba show some increase in the number of horses 

 and pigs, and a decrease in cattle, while sheep have apparently 

 remained stationary.* 



The export trade in live and dead meat between the 

 Dominion and the United Kingdom has grown up within 

 the past twenty years, although the first shipment of 

 Canadian live cattle to British ports was made in 1872 

 through the United States. For some years, however, prior 



* The estimated number of live stock in Ontario on July ist, 1S96, included 

 2,182,000 cattle, of which 920,000 were milch cows; 1,849,000 sheep ; and 1,270,000 

 pigs. In Manitoba the live stock estimates for 1896 comprised 95,000 horses ; 

 211,000 cattle ; 34,000 sheep ; and 73,000 pigs. 



