268 
Canadian Agriculture. 
1)oia, the other important towns being Moosomin, Broadview, 
^a'Appelle, Moose Jaw, and Medicine Hat. Here it should be 
mentioned that Bishop Anson's Farm for the instruction of 
intending colonists in the agriculture of the Province is at 
Qu'Appelle. After leaving Manitoba, the railway traverses the 
length of Assiniboia for a distance of nearly 500 miles, and then 
enters the district of Alberta, which is bounded on the south by 
the United States, on the north by the district of Athabasca, on 
the west by the Rocky Mountains, and on the east by the dis- 
tricts of Assiniboia and Saskatchewan, the latter lying to the 
north of the former. Passing in a north-westerly direction out 
of Alberta, the Canadian Pacific Railway enters the Pacific 
Province of British Columbia, and almost immediately attains 
its summit level of 5300 feet above the sea in the beautiful 
Kicking Horse Pass of the Rocky Mountains, at a point 9G0 
miles from Winnipeg. Had the line continued its westerly 
course, instead of trending to the north-west, it would have 
passed through the heart of the ranching country which extends 
southward from Calgary. The chief towns in the district of 
Alberta are Calgary, Fort McLeod, and Edmonton. In Sas- 
katchewan the leading centres are Battleford and Prince Albert. 
It is not within the scope of this paper to enter into further 
•details of this nature, but I have elsewhere given a fuller 
account of the young cities of the prairie.* 
In seeking to obtain information as to the agricultural features 
of the great North-West, the inquirer experiences considerable 
difficulty, for, vast as this territory is, it possesses as yet no 
history, and such official records as do exist are meagre and 
insufficient. Originally the whole area was under the juris- 
diction of the Hudson's Bay Company, and it is only within the 
last two years that there has been any influx of population 
from beyond its borders. But though Captain Butler, in his well- 
known book, correctly calls it " the great lone land," it is destined 
to remain lone no longer, for the irruption into its area, of the 
well-laid track of the Canadian Pacific Railway has placed it 
within easy reach of settlers from the East, who will invade its 
solitudes, and cultivate the wilderness which was till so recently 
the home of the countless herds of buffalo which have now 
well-nigh disappeared. And yet it is twenty years since 
Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle advocated — 
" the opening out and colonisation of tlie magnificent regions of the K«l 
Iliver and vSaskalchewan, where 05,000 .square miles of a country of unsiu- 
passed fertility, and abounding in mineral wealtli, lies isolated from tlie 
world, neglected, almost unknown, although destined, at no distant period 
* ' Across Canada : A Report on Cnnada and its Ap;rieuUural Resources,' 
obtainat)li' nt tlie office of the High Counnisiioncr forCauada,9, Victoria Clianabers, 
London, S.W. 
