408 
Canadian Agriculture. 
I have included wool in the foregoing Table, and may add 
that the average weight of the fleeces in 1884 was : coarse wool, 
5'55 lbs. ; fine wool, 5'12 lbs. 
The following Table of average yields of field crops in On- 
tario in 1883 and 1884 is also made up from the Agricultural 
Returns to the Bureau of Industry : — 
Bushels per Acre. 
Bushels per Acre. 
1883. 
1884. 
1883. 
1884. 
Fall Wheat .. .. 
10-5 
21-0 
Buckwheat 
25-2 
Spriug Wheat . . 
lG-7 
20-0 
Potatoes 
96-3 
Barley 
24-7 
25-0 
Mangolds 
361 0 
Oats 
3U-0 
36-0 
349 0 
Eye 
16-0 
160 
Turnips 
298-0- 
19-8 
240 
Ton s. 
Tons. 
20-7 
220 
Hay and Clover 
1-75 
1-50 
Although it is only about twenty jears since the first herd of 
thoroughbred Shorthorns reached Canada, the improvement 
which has taken place in the cattle of the Dominion since then 
is very marked, and nowhere more so than in Ontario, where 
the business of raising and feeding stock for the market has 
led to necessary and considerable modifications in the primitive 
stvle of agriculture which formerly prevailed there. In face of 
the vast wheatfields now opening up in the West, the premier 
Province will have to take a second place in the extensive and 
cheap production of cereals, and to turn more attention to the 
development of stock-breeding and dairy-farming. On some of 
the older farms the limits of the unaided fertility of the soil 
have been reached, and even exceeded, so that the subject of 
fertilisers is now exercising the minds of the leading: «s:ri- 
culturists of the Province. Professor J. T. Bell, of Albert 
College, Belleville, writes : " The fertiliser in general use is 
barnyard-manure, much of which loses most of its efficacy by 
being allowed to lie for months in the open, exposed to the 
action of the sun and rain, which alternately vaporise the 
volatile and dissolve out the soluble parts, until only the 
caput mortuum of the dunghill remains. There is also a de- 
ficient supply of artificial manures." Professor Brown, on the 
other hand, writes that the result of experiments on the use of 
apatite, gypsum, and other fertilisers "goes to establish what 
might be matter of gratification to the country — that its wonder- 
fully fertile climate, in conjunction with system and the best 
management and use of farmyard-manure, renders the extensive 
use of special fertilisers comparatively valueless. I am aware 
