Canadian Agriculture. 
423 
a share in the export cattle trade of the Dominion. The country 
is well wooded, — hard and soft maple, birch, elm, ash, basswood, 
butternut, hickory, cedar, and spruce being the chief trees. 
Besides extensive beds of peat, the Province possesses immense 
deposits of apatite, in which a very large trade is growing 
up, the export from Montreal having reached 19,000 tons in 
1883, and 20,000 tons in 1884, whereas in 1877 it did not 
amount to 6000 tons. The chief deposits are in Ottawa 
county, where, however, the mining of apatite was not com- 
menced till 1875, since when the operations have steadily 
increased, and some of the phosphate lands have sold for as much 
as 250Z. per acre. Raw Canadian phosphate will contain as 
much as 88 per cent, of tribasic phosphate of lime, and pure 
specimens of apatite contain about 92 per cent. Cargo samples 
analysed in England have yielded from 85 to 86 per cent, of 
tribasic phosphate, but the most usual average is from 75 to 
80 per cent. Prices have fluctuated widely, ranging between 
5/. I65. and 3/. per ton of 80 per cent, quality. Low freights 
are sometimes obtained by ships taking apatite for ballast 
under timber cargoes, at from 2s. ^d. to IO5. per ton. As it is 
believed that much of the superphosphate exported from 
England to the United States, — 7766 tons in 1883, — is worked 
up from raw phosphates imported from Canada, it is not 
unlikely that efforts will be made to establish manufactories in 
the Dominion, whose trade in phosphates with the States is 
very limited. It is worthy of note that the grain exported from 
Montreal in a single year has been estimated to contain 2574 
tons of phosphoric acid, which implies the total exhaustion, so 
far as phosphates are concerned, of 75,000 acres of land, the 
renewal of which would necessitate the application of some 
6000 tons of phosphate.* 
That there is room for improvement in the practice of the 
French Canadian farmers of Quebec may be gathered from the 
following evidence of Mr. G. Larocque, of Beaumont, Belle- 
chasse County, before the Select Committee on Agriculture. 
*' The land is too little worked over, the ploughing is too super- 
ficial, made in haste, often at unseasonable times. The har- 
rowing leaves much to be desired — one often sees wooden 
harrows. The ditches and trenches are neglected. Noxious 
weeds appear in masses in many of the fields. In general, the 
stables are not sufficiently spacious or well lighted. The 
ventilation is faulty, and cleanliness is not the order of the day. 
But animals are better treated than in the past. Fresh manure 
* Vide Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada for 
1883. 
