Canadian Agriculture. 
421 
the Laurentians have been scooped out by innumerable streams 
which abound in fish, and their slopes are thickly covered with 
the timber which supplies the extensive lumbering trade of the 
Province, the value of the timber exports in 1883 having 
amounted to 2,105,990/. 
The historic city of Quebec, the administrative capital of the 
Province, occupies a magnificent site, and has a population of 
63,000. Montreal, the commercial capital, is 180 miles higher 
up the river, and has nearly 200,000 inhabitants. During 
winter the St. Lawrence is frozen over sufficiently to permit of 
traffic being carried on across it between the two sides of the 
river, and everybody has heard of the ice carnival at Montreal 
in February. " A visitor in winter is sure to be impressed 
with the weird scene in early morning or evening, when, from 
a sky as warm with rosy tints as in midsummer, the level beams 
of sunlight, glancing and brightening over the sea of quiet 
snowy furrows, and glittering icy crests, strike along the line of 
evergreens marking the ice roads, upon the trains of sleighs, 
and light up the tinned roofs and steeples of the distant city 
with brilliant splendour." And yet, such is the summer, that 
maize is a certain grain crop in nearly the whole of the Province. 
Spring wheat gives an average yield of about 10 bushels per 
acre, and, besides the ordinary crops of the farm, fruit is largely 
cultivated, especially in the south. Improved farms may be 
purchased at from Al. to 6/. per acre, including dwelling-house, 
outbuildings, and fencing. 
The following Tables are from the Census Returns of 1881 : — 
Animals and their Products, Province of Quebec. 
Horses 225,00fi 
Colts and Fillies 48,846 
"Working Oxen 49,237 
Milch Cows 490,977 
Other Horned Cattle 490,119 
Sheep 889,833 
Swine 329,199 
Cattle killed or sold 160,207 
Sheep „ 436,336 
Swine „ 333,159 
Pounds of Wool 2,730,546 
Pounds of Hay 559,024 
As in the following figures the acreage is only given in one 
or two cases, I am unable to make up the average yields, but 
the numbers will serve to indicate the relative extent to which 
the various crops are cultivated : — 
