262 
Canadian Agriculture. 
The reason I have confined myself to the two years 1883 and 
1884 in this brief survey of the agriculture of Manitoba is that 
official figures for previous years were not recorded. In fact it 
was not till 1882 that railway facilities rendered immigration 
into the Province possible on a large scale, and the organisation 
of the Manitoba Department of Agriculture was not commenced 
till the June of that year, and the first report issued by the 
Department bears date, March 31, 1883. But as a country 
covering an area greater than that of the British Isles, and pos- 
sessing a soil whose wheat-growing capabilities are of world- 
Avide fame, is far too important to be ignored by English agri- 
culturists, it seems desirable not to omit any essential details in 
the history of this remarkable Province. The Department, by 
various means which need not be detailed, secured records of 
the average yields of the various crops for each of the years 
1876 to 1882 inclusive, and they are embodied in bushels per 
acre in the following table : — 
1876. 
1877. 
1878. 
1879. 
1880. 
1881. 
1882. 
General 
Average. 
Wheat 
32 
27 
26 
27 
29 
30 
32 
29 
Barley 
42 
41 
36 
38 
41 
40 
37 
39 
51 
60 
60 
58 
58 
59 
51 
57 
32 
32 
34 
32 
38 
38 
34 
Potatoes 
229 
304 
308 
302 
318 
320 
278 
294 
Rye 
30 
30 
40 
40 
35 
35 
Commenting on the yield of wheat in 1882, the first annual 
Report contains the following observations : — 
"The harvest of 1882 has added another link to the long chain of evidence 
which proves Manitoba to be the premier wheat district of the world. The 
practical results of the threshing, giving an average yield per acre of 32 
bushels, have shown that the theories previously advanced were founded on 
fact. Nor could it well have been otherwise, for climatologists have long 
since sntisfactoiily demonstrated that the cultivated plants yield the greatest 
product near the northernmost limit of their growth. Hence the perfection 
of wheat here, where, instead of being developed too rajiidly, as is the case 
farther south, the undue luxuriance of the stem or leaf is restrained by the 
cool late spring, and the chief development of the plant thrown into the 
ripening period. The assertion of the distinguished American climatologist, 
Blodgett, ' that the basin of the Winnipeg is the seat of the greatest average 
wheat product on this continent, and probably in the world,' has been proved 
correct by tlie record of a j early average of over 29 bushels per acre from 1876 
to 1882. In Ontario, the 1882 spring-wheat crop jnelded but IC'5 bushels 
])er acre, while the three great wheat States uf the American Union yielded as 
follows: Dakota, IG'7 bushels; Minnesota, 13'o bushels; Iowa, 11 bushels. 
Minnesota is the empire wheat State of the Union. Its averages for 12 years 
were: 1809, 17-70 bushels per acre; 1870, 15-07; 1871, 12-28; 1872, 17-40: 
