266 
Canadian Agriculture. 
and while there received a letter from a friend in Scotland, con- 
taining a few grains of Ghirka wheat taken from a vessel that 
had arrived from the Black Sea, and was discharging her cargo 
at Glasgow. They sowed the grains, and kept on cultivating 
year by year, till they obtained a sufficient quantity to carry off 
the first prize for spring wheat at the Provincial Exhibition at 
Cobourg. The grain was improved by its cultivation in Ontario, 
and has still further advanced in quality in its nearer approach 
to the northern limits of cultivation in Manitoba. This inci- 
dent is further of interest in showing the value of the Provincial 
Exhibition as a stimulus to improvement. 
The average yield of barley in Manitoba from 1876 to 1882, 
both inclusive, was 39 bushels per acre. The report of the 
Ontario Agricultural Commission places the yearly average of 
that Province at 25 bushels. In the decade from 1870 to 1879 
the yearly average in the United States was 21 "9. During the 
last two years the yield of barley in Manitoba — 30 bushels and 
33 bushels respectively — shows a falling off as compared with 
the average of the preceding seven years, but this may really be 
accounted for in part, perhaps, by the greater care with which 
the estimates are now made, and the more thorough collection 
of statistical information. 
Similar remarks apply to the yield of oats. For the seven 
years, 1876 to 1882, the average is reported at 57 bushels per 
acre, whereas for the last two years the numbers have been 
44 bushels and 40 bushels respectively. The Ontario Agricul- 
tural Commission reports the y early average of that Province at 
33^ bushels. In the United States the average yield for the ten 
years, 1870 to 1879, was 28*3 l)ushels. 
Indian corn has been but little cultivated in Manitoba, the 
comparative shortness of the season and the cold spring being 
unfavourable to its mature growth. But when it was urged 
against the Province that maize could not be successfully grown, 
the Board of Agriculture retorted that there was no reason why 
it should be grown, that wheat-raising pays better, an'd that 
corn is only cultivated to-day in many of the western States of 
the Union because of their inability to raise wheat. This, 
indeed, was frankly admitted at the convention of agriculturists 
held at Washington, D.C., in January, 1882, under the Presi- 
dency of the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, when 
Mr. Blount, of Colorado, in speaking of the improvement of the 
cereals, said of the wheat crop of the West : — 
"Wheat is full of eccentricities, made up of whims and freaks. In some 
sections it promises one day to make the farmer a millionaire; the next these 
jjromises are all blasted by blasted heads and rusty blades. In money value 
wheat is king. Every man can raise corn, but every man cannot raise wheat." 
