462 
Canadian Agriculture. 
Thus, while the value of the exports of cheese has more than 
doubled during the decade, the value of the butter export has 
fallen off nearly 40 per cent, in the same period. 
Hitherto, agriculture has been the main industry of Canada, 
and, in so young a country, it will probably for some time 
remain so. The great lumbering trade of the older provinces is 
less than it was, and the decline in wooden ship-building must 
make itself felt in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The 
magnificent facilities for transport the Dominion possesses in its 
splendid rivers and lakes, have no doubt greatly accelerated the 
removal of the forests ; but these facilities, supplemented by 
such great arteries of railway communication as are afforded 
by the Grand Trunk, Intercolonial, and Canadian Pacific systems, 
have resulted in placing the Canadian farmer, even though his 
dwelling may be on the distant prairie, in close contact with 
the great markets of the world. Indeed it is not too much to 
say that, but for the opening up of the great North- West by the 
Canadian Pacific Railway, the colonisation and development of 
the prairies of British North America must have been in- 
definitely postponed. Even now, more railways are needed out 
west, to tap the resources of the fertile valley of the great Sas- 
katchewan, and to put Winnipeg in communication with the 
southern coast of Hudson's Bay. The western prairies of the 
United States have been accessible since 1840, while those of 
Canada were first reached by railway only about five years ago. 
The pioneers in Canadian agriculture were, in most cases, 
men who possessed but little knowledge of farming, and their 
number has been steadily increased by the accession of others 
whose knowledge was similarly defective ; and it is but fair, in 
passing judgment upon the present condition of farming in the 
Dominion, to bear this fact in mind. That some generally 
applicable system of instruction in the theory and practice of 
modern agriculture would exert a powerful influence for the 
better is beyond doubt. That the Canadian farmers recognise 
the weakness of their position in this respect is sufficiently 
evidenced by the tone of the replies obtained by the Select 
Committee on Agriculture, the majority of which were in favour 
of the establishment of a Central Bureau, of an Agricultural 
Experimental Farm, and of a department devoted to Agriculr 
tural Statistics, besides advocating the circulation of handbooks 
and reports, and the issue of crop bulletins. It is much to be 
hoped that before long these suggestions will be realised, and that 
the Central Bureau will be supplemented by a local one in 
each Province. The Canadian Government, however, has not 
been unmindful of the agricultural interests of the Dominion ; 
and in a young, and therefore a poor, country it has, by subsi- 
