410 
Canadian Agriculture. 
character of the American product is somewhat inferior to that 
of the Canadian. The crisp flesh, copious juice, and fine 
flavour of a Canadian russet, or of a Nova Scotian Graven- 
stein, are in marked contrast to the dry texture and insipid 
flavour of very many of the American varieties. Apples form 
the great bulk of the green fruit exported from Canada ; this is 
a rapidly extending industry, for in 1869 the value of this 
export was less than 5000/., whereas a dozen years later it 
exceeded 100,000/. The peaches are delicious, if I may judge 
by some I purchased near Niagara at the rate of two a penny. 
Peach orchards, containing from 3000 to 10,000 trees, are 
common. The summer trade in strawberries is enormous ; 
they are delivered in shiploads at the lake-ports. The culture 
of grapes is increasing, and the largest vineyards are in the 
counties of Wentworth, Welland, Lincoln, Kent, and Essex. 
The manufacture of wine from the grape is a growing industry. 
The southern part of the Province, embracing an area of 
about 25,000,000 acres, is highly favoured, both in its climate 
and in its soils. Mr. John Carnegie, of Peterborough, Ont., 
has pointed out that the last Census Returns of Canada and the 
United States show that, when compared with the seven largest 
producing States, in each of seven cereals, Ontario, notwith- 
standing that she is thus brought into competition with twenty- 
two States, secures a first place as a producer of barley, of peas, 
and of beans ; a third place as a producer of oats and of buck- 
wheat ; a fifth for rye ; a sixth for yield per acre, and an eighth 
for quantity, of wheat ; thus obtaining an honourable position in 
six out of the seven — a position not attained by any State of the 
Union — while the great State of Illinois only obtains three first 
places and a second, and then disappears from the comparison 
altogether. 
The Hon. D. A. Wells makes the following statement re- 
garding Southern Ontario : — 
"North of Lakes Erie and Ontario, cast of Lake Huron, south of the 
forty-sixth parallel, and included witliin the Dominion of Canada, there is 
as fair a country as exists on the American continent — nearly as lari;e iii 
area as New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio combined, and equal if not 
suj^rior as a whole to those States in agricultural cajjacity. It is the natural 
habitat on this continent of the combing-wool sheep, without a full, chcJip, 
and reliable supply of the wool of which species the great worsted manu- 
facturing industries of the country caiuiot prosper, or, we should rather say, 
exist. It is the region where grows the finest barley, which the brewing 
interests of the United States must have if it ever exjiects to rival Great 
Britain in its ])resent annual export of over eleven million dollars' worth 
of malt products. It raises and grazes the finest cattle, with qualities 
especially desirable to make good the deterioration of stock in otiier sections, 
and its climatic conditions, created by an almost encirclement of the Great 
Lakes, especially fit it to grow men." 
