440 
Canadian Agriculture. 
fortable-looking farmhouses, the whole forming a picture which 
might be equalled but not often excelled in England. Near 
the flourishing town of Truro, again, some excellent farming 
may be seen. In Nova Scotia, as in the more western Provinces, 
the instinct for pioneer farming has a strong hold upon the 
people, and hence there are numbers of good farms for sale on 
account of their former occupiers having moved westward, or 
having perhaps embarked in other of the local industries to 
which reference has been made. Several tidy farmsteads were 
pointed out to me which, land and buildings together, might be 
bought for sums varying from 160Z. to 200/., according to the 
degree of cultivation. Improved farms of 100 to 150 acres, 
with house and buildings, are to be purchased at from 100/. to 
500Z. Uncleared Crown lands are offered by the Government 
at 8/. I65. per 100 acres or less, so that 20 acres would cost as 
much as 100. Any quantity over 100 acres can be paid for at 
the rate of Is. IQd. per acre. 
I cannot conclude my brief notice of this charming Province 
without expressing my thanks to His Honour the Lieutenant- 
Governor of Nova Scotia, to the Mayor of Halifax, and other 
gentlemen, for their kindness and hospitality, which had the 
effect of making my visit as pleasant as it was instructive. 
The Select Committee on Agriculture. 
The Dominion House of Commons last year appointed a 
Select Committee to inquire into the best means of encouraging 
and developing the agricultural interests of Canada. For this 
purpose the Committee took the evidence of persons who had 
made special study of the various branches of industry comprised 
under the more general term of Agriculture, of others possessed of 
wide scientific knowledge having a direct and important bearing 
upon agriculture, and of others again, who, being pi^cticai 
Canadian farmers, were well qualified to express the general 
feeling as to the wants and disadvantages experienced by agri- 
culturists in Canada. The Committee further sent out a series 
of questions to agriculturists in all parts of the Dominion ; 
these questions are too numerous to reproduce here, but it is 
worth noting, that the subject which, perhaps more than any 
other, has for the last year or so been prominently before the 
agricultural public in England is not in any way referred to, — 
that, namely, of ensilage. The leading subjects in the answers 
to the questions, as well as in the oral evidence, relate to de- 
ficiencies in the cultivation of cereals, roots, and grasses ; in 
stock-raising and wool-growing ; in dairy products, fruit culture, 
and fertilizers ; to the importation of seeds, fruit-tree scions, 
