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From

BRITAIN

BRITISH COLUMBIA,

CONTENTS.

1 !
I* I '

IntrodiiPtion ... ... ... ••• •••

'The Allan Lino

The Canadian Pacific Railway

Montreal ...

Ottawa ... ... ...

To \Vinnij)eg

The City of Winnipeg

Westward IIo I

f ruit ... ... ... ■.. ... .••

Ranching

British Colambia

The City of Vancouver

The Island of Vancouver ,

The Manitoba and North-Western Railroad
Minnedosa ... •>• .•• ... ..

Shonl Lake «

Binscarth ... ... ... ... ..

Langenbnrg ... ... ... ... ..

The Commercial Colony

Experimental Farms

Ontario

Quebec and the Maritime Provinces

Trade and Commerce

Wages, &c., &c.

Concltuion ... ... ... ••• .<

PAGE 1

... 3 I

• ••

• t*

• ••

...

• •■

• ••

...

• «.

...

• at

• ••

...

• ••

.••

FROM BRITAIN TO BRITISH COLUMBIA;

OB,

CANADA A8 A DOMAIN FOR BRITISH FARMERS, SPORTSMEN,

AND TOURISTS.

INTEODUCTION,

To the average Engliihman the Dominion of Canada, as it is now eompre-

iiensiTely and properly termed, was a terra incognita, just aa the North-West

Derritory was to the average Canadian, not very many years ago. In other words,

ie knew little or nothing about it. It was vaguely understood that a country

Iforming a considerable portion of the British Empire, lay to the north of the

iTTnited States, and stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; but it was supposed

■to be a land of forests and fur-bearing animals, with long and severe winters,

land of second-rate importance from an agricultural point of view The great

I North-West was the happy hunting ground of the Hudson's Bay Company, who

[naturally desired that it should remain so. Twenty years ago the British North

America Act united into one Confederation the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New

I Brunswick, and Nova Bisotia — in themselves an empire— and at the close of the Bed

Biver Bebellion, three years later, the Province of Manitoba was formed, and the

whole of the North- West Territory brought within the pale of the Dominion ; in

yet another year, 1871, British Columbia came in, followed two years after by Prince

Bdward Island ; but Newfoundland still remains separate and autonomous. The

I Act of Confederation did away with the Hudson's Bay monopoly^ and opened up the

I country. A flood of light was thrown over the North- West Territory, which was

found to contain a vast area of land, free for the most part from forests, and

eminently well fitted for farming operations and for emigration. The Dominion

of Canada, occupying more than one-third of the area of the British Empire,

naturally occupies the front position among Her Majesty's ubiquitous colonial

posflessions. It is more extensive than the United States, and has a wonderful

I diversity of soils and climates, along with timber and mineral wealth so vast as

{almost to defy eomputation.

With my readers' consent, I propose in the following pages, to take them, in
[mind, through a trip which I have recently taken in person, and to introduce them
I to a people who are genial, hospitable, and loyal to the empire which is the mother
lof us all. The journey 'vcill be rather a long one, for it covers a stretch of land and
■water whose extent can only be realised in full by th'^se who have passed over it ;
land I can only hope that the recital of my impressions and of the information I
■have collected at various times and in many places will be as little tedious to them
las the trip was to me. I propose to describe what I have seen, and to repeat what I
|have heard, at all events in part and so far as it relates to what is properly the
lomain and scope of this report. Not to the experience of this last journey alone
Ishall I confine myself, but I hope to convey to others the essence of what I have
lleamt in several visits to Canada. The physical features of the Dominion are so
■ vast and varied that I cannot undertake — indeed, the limits of my report will not
■admit that I should undertake — even to touch, however slightly, on every point
I and detail in them; yet, as I have in all travelled nigh on thirty thousand miles
I in that country, noticing things as closely as I could, refreshed by the influence of

npeatcd visita, I may ventnre to tell my tale for what it !■ worth. The flora and
fauna of the country, as they are seen in a nntural and nncaltivnted condition, I
■hall npcak of only inuidently, as Riiitn my purpose, and it niii8t ho nndnrstood that
I write from the standpoint of a farmer, chiefly. AVith the b'-'".iy, the peolony,
the natural history of no vast a territory it is expedient that I si dd have little or
notliinj; to do, first, because they mi^ht well occupy volumes upon volumes; nnd,
second, because others will describe them and have already done so in part, and tlicv
form a va'<t study and eu(|iiiry in theuiselvcH. Fimil and t'.nishcd opiniouH even un
the fanning ])rHctices of C/'anada, or on Canada as a country to farm in, I shall not
presume to ofiFer. Opinions, indeed, of my own I shall hardly venture to give at all,
save in reference to broad and general questions, and to special pointa on which I
have definite and ample knowledge; and I shall rather recite impressions, drawing
or elMe ttuggesting inferences which appear to me to be tolerably clear and obvious,
in any case it would not well become a traveller to go on hard and fast, on cut ']
and dried notions of his own in reference to farming customs and practices in ii
country thruugli which he has passed to some extent as a tourist, even though the
express object of his journey was that of making enquiry on the spot, and of the
men themselves, into the condition of the farmers, and as to the character of the
soil they cultivate, and of the climate under which they live, and of the practices
which they follow. I shall therefore give to some extent the opinions of men who
have had more or less of residential experience in the country— enough of it to |
entitle them to be heard — but not necessarily myself endorsing all or any of such
opinions. I have on all occasions, alike in the last us in previous journeys, made it
my business to enquire and examine as closely as I could into various agricultural
features that came within my ken, and it is therefore competent for me to tell a
tale which, if erring at all, will err without intent. Away from Halifax to
Victoria, from Prince Edward Island to the Island of Vancouver, from the Atlantic
coast to that of the Pacific, in every province of the Dominion save those ot
BaHkatchewan and Athabasca, which are not yet touched by any railway, and
so are hardly available for emigration, I have taken pains to investigate the
position of farmers and the state of agriculture generally, and have personally
inspected a greater number of farms than I can now remember. Soils differin^^
greatly in character, systems of agriculture much diversified, many breeds of
the different species of domesticated animals, all sorts and conditions of men
have come under my notice, so far ai they are to be found in Canada; and as
to all this I may say that such an enquiry as I have made is intensely interesting ;
while Canada as a dependency of Great Britain, as a child destined perhaps to
outstrip the parent not in population only but in wealth, as a country in fact whose
potentialities are beyond estimate, fills the mind of an Englishman with pride on
the one hand and with thankfulness on the other, that the swelling population of
Great Britain have such a vast and grand domain as their home, if they like, through-
out all future time. A man may wander, indeed, in that vast country for weeks on
foot and scarcely have passed its fringe ; with horses he will practically achieve hut
little more, even where horses are able to go ; and it is only by the aid of steam that
he can, in any reasonable time, fairly grasp its immensity. For hundreds of years
there will be room enough, and to spare, for all who may care to go. The idea of
over-population, and of consequent distress and poverty, is one at which, figuratively
speaking, Canada seems to one to snap her fingers. Starvation is a word which, for
a long time to come, will not force its way into the vocabulary of the Dominion,
save by the people's fault, and so far it has, or ought to have, no reason at all Ut
fexist in any practical form of expression. Canadians, as it seems to me, have reasou

[for a feeling of Batisfaction, lo far ai agriculture in concerned, in t1u<Ri' timcit of

I (lepreuion, when they compare their lot with that uf people elsewhere, in the Uritish

Itilands for example; and I heard thin feeling expressed in various placeN. I heard

the opposite too, at times, but I have ground for a belief that, in these instances, the

I fault lay less with the country than with the men. I hold an opinion indeed— not

hastily formed or on insutflcient information, not the outcome of a pre-conceived

idea, or even with a wish as father to the belief— that emigrants of the right sort,

luien of toil with wives of care, steady, industrious, and frugal folk, may do very well

I in Canada, may live contentedly year in and year out, may start their ciiildren fairly

lin the race of life, and may put by a store to sustain old age or "against a rainy day."

]■' Man," we know, '* is doomed to toil like the polype of the ocean," as someone has

[said, and this is true in Ganada as in any: o^her country ; but the reward for toil is

[greater in the New World than in the Old, while the cuvse on idleness is the same in

I both. I am, in fact, convinced that men who fail in Ganada fail through some fault

lof their own which is natural or acquired — through want of sense or conduct, through

Ifeeble health or lack of application. These general views I hold firmly enough, and

I shall try to give my ground-work for them as I proceed. They are of the nature

lof impressions, broad and comprehensive no doubt, which may be regarded as the

I boiled>down essence of a great mass of evidence. They do not pretend to be in-

Ifallible, and must be taken earn gramo talis, subject to approval or disapproval by men

I whose experience of Ganada is as wide or wider than my own. Even as I write these

words I have received a letter from an £ns;lishman in Manitoba who consulted me

before he went out, now six years ago; he had little or no capital to go with, save

what is embraced in a wife and family of young children. True, he is not a farmer

there, though he whs to some extent in Eoglaud, and he has succeeded well in

business. He is now worth more than fifty thousand dollars, which sum in his

hands will go on increasing. He says, in his letter: — " We have done very well since

we have been here ; we have a nice home of our own, a solid br.ck house ; so you

! see I have every reason to be thankful that I came." Testimony such as this is, of

course, very gratifying to me ; but I am aware that he could not have Aont so well in

I farming. He is, of course, a steady man, and, I need not say, has quite his share of

brains and application. He speaks of Englishmen who have done no good as farmers

land thinks the fault is chiefly their own; the fact remaining that the canny Scot

land the German or Russian Menonites succeed better as farmers in Manitoba than

[the average Englishman. For this, however, it is obviously the average Englishman

Iwho is to blame.

THE ALLAN LINE.

Under this designation runs one of the largest and most successful steAuiship
leompanies so far known to the world. In skill allied to caution lies the secret of its
succesH, as in safety lies its reputation. For five and thirty years its steamers
Uiave earned the mails under contract with the Canadian Government, and the
bumber of people — emigrants, business men, and travellers — who have crossed in
jthose boats is simply and literally enormous. The part and lot it has had in
uuilding up the Dominion of Canada, in adding to the population of that, va.st
country, and in developing its resources so far, suggests a train of thought that is
full of the deepest interest. The Allan Line, in fact, is contemporaneous wilh
Canada's rapid progress in modern times. It has taken out the produceri>, and
prought in the products. It has woven the warp and woof of a fabric which binds
|together very strongly the peoples of the Old World and the New, and it is weaving
Btill! With the history of Canada it is, and will remain, inseparably aaiociated.

h!'

!|p

The TMt work Already done by it i* an uarnest for tha future, to whoae requirementi
it will b« found adaptire and equal. I ipeak of the Allan Line thus, because it haa
ciirried me pretty often across the Atlantia, and always pleasantly — always safely.

On my last way West I travelled in the "Sarmntian," which is known as the Boyal
boat, because H.R.H. the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lome, repeateiily crossed
in her during the Uovernor-Oenaralskip of the Marquis of Lome. The •<Harmatian"is
known as one of the most strongly-built vessels afloat in uur merchant marine ; and
I am able to speak of her sea-going qualities and of the comfortable quarters she
supplies. Ther? are faster ships than the " Sarmatian," though her ofHcera speak of her
at' " tlie yacht,"— but none mure seaworthy, or safer in a gale on the Atlantic. The
oillcers and heads of departments sustain, with their subordinates, the reputation
which British merchint sailors have won for courtesy and consideration toward
those who travel with them, and our veyage out was as much in the nature of •
holiday as a trip across the Atlantic can conveniently be. We had no less than
615 passengers, consisting of 105 saloon, 85 intermediate, and 325 !<teera^'i besides
wiiom there were a crew of 111, and one mail ofTlcer — in all, 627 persons.

Tlie voyage was without any incident of an uncommon nature, and we did not
see even an iceberg on the way. In eisht days' time we were in the mighty St.
Lawrence river, and in less than nine bad reached the pictureaqaa Oity of Quabeo

■ '*ltfusH.^8*.rt

QUBBBC.

The well-wooded banks of this wonderful waterway were, of course, very welcome
after so much of the restlesf blue of the ocean, and everybody's spirits rose at the
prospect of land. Four or fiv'3 hundred miles of a sail in a noble steamship on the
bosom of such a river, from its mouth below Bimouski, where the mails are landed,
to the handsome City of Montreal, is, alone, a treat worth crossing the Atlantic for,
even if none other of the many wonders of the vast continent of America were
visited. The approach to Quebec, the shores of the river dotted with villages and
the white farmsteads of the French Canadians, the ;. ' "> graos fields and the yellow
ones of grain, the vast ranges of mountains on j ' li<u- side — all of th-^m clothed
with trees to the very tops — the pleasant isla^uh oj. .';j way, the striking water-
fall of Montmorenci, the numerous houses of gentlemou not far from the city, and
the clear and balmy atmosphere everywhere, form o^l of the most pleasing and
animating of panoramas, perhaps the most so of £.>iy iu the world that is approached
trom the sea. The Citadel of Quebec, standing uu a commanding promontory

between ihe two i^ven Bt. Lawrence and St. GharlcR, with itrteta eluiterinf< Ixneath
HR if fur protection, and with ini|)uaing buildin(i;s aruund, formH a most Htrikii)|; and
imp<^)iing spectacle ai we approacli } and if we atuy till evening tlie electric lif^ht, hif^h
up aloft, addn a new element of beauty to the icene. To the nu-inory of Wolfe, who
won Caii.ida for us at the coat of his life, a monumiMit BtiindB plainly in view, and on
the rock beneath the Oitadel in a tablet to indicate where Mont({uiner7 full. For a
ilistiince of nearly two hundred miles from Quebec we speed onward to Montreal,
wliere, if they wish it, saloon passengei e now landed, instead of at Quebec as
heretofore. Thii portion of the river, the b , « being; low and flat for some diHtance
inland, and more thickly populated, is difTe-ent from that east of Quebec, but it if
very interesting, and the river is wide -^na noble to a degree. Lastly the spires and
roofs of Montreal come into view, ^ t.r ling cosily beneath the great Mount Koyal
from the summit of which one of the finest vie 's imaginable is obtained of the city and
the broad, shining river beneath, and, soinowl: 'it reluctantly, we prepare to go ashore.
During the voyage I had an opportunity of going vith the purser on a tour of
inspection through the ship. My object v,a,a to notice the accommodation given to
steerage passengers, and the food with which they were supplied. Necessarily the
space allotted to each passenger was limited, but everywhere cleanliness and order
prevailed, and I was struck with the complete absence of impure air or unpleasant
oilours ; the ventilation indeed was perfect, and the Mght sufficient. Dinner was
bt'ing served as we passed along, consisting first of soup, which I tasted, followed by
flsh, then by beef, with vegetables ad lib. — the mealy potatoes bursting through th<)ir
skins in a manner most inviting ; puddings to follow, and plenty of everything, with
appetites to match! It is doubtful indeed if many of these steerage passengers ever
fared so well on food for a week together in any previous bit of their lives, for every-
thing was good, and there yraa no stint of anything. The steerage passengers land <t
Quebec, where they are taken charge of by officials of the Dominion Oovemment, at
whose head is Mr. Stafford — genial and painstaking as ever— and sent to their destina-
tions by the Grand Trunk or else the Canadian Pacific Railway. The system under
wliich emigrants are forwarded to any part of the Dominion they desire has stood
the test of many years, and works with a minimum of friction. It is a most
important system, and has been well perfected in all its details, — necessarily so, for it
has to deal annually with many thousands of emigrants, numbers of whom would be
ir sad straits but for the help thus beneficially afl'orded. The landing of some
hundreds of men, women, and children from an ocean steamship, on a shore so far
from home, is a sight full of interest. Where are these people goirg P and how will
they fare in the new country P are questions which rise spontaneously in the mind,
to be answered later on as we travel through the provinces and the great North-
west. Each of these people has left a home in the old country to find another one in
the new, has parted from friends and associations, from native place and fatherland;
each one has known the sorrows wii^ h come of such a parting; each one hopes to
make new friends and to establish a new home, and these are hopes which can and
will he realised by those who try. I have spoken at some length on this branch of
the subject, because it is the first great step which is taken by each and every
emigrant.

THE OANADLA.N PACIFIC BAILWAY.
I come now to the next great step in our journey — the most recent and wonder,
ful of railway corporations From its eastern terminus at Quebec to its western one
at Vancouver, this marvellous road of steel rails stretches over an unbroken distance
of more than three thousand miles. It is the longest railway in any country under
the control of one company and one board of directors. No other line can compare

HHIHtBPBHt

I ■ ,

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In '<

I I !

with it in rapidity of oonstruotion. No body of railroad magnates ever surmounted so
many gigantic obstacles in so short a time. No enterprise of the first magnitude was
ever put through with such energy and so successfully. Failure was predicted in
many places; and, lo! the world is dumb with admiration of a grand achievement.
But there are croakers still — men who were enemies from the first; men who cannot
brook predictions falsified ; men who, having told one big lie to begin with, consider
their consistency demands the telling of a hundred more ; men who have not the
nirti,'nainniity to say a word in favour of that which they hastily condemned at first.
Vtt tlie Cnnadian Pacific Railway is an accomplished fact, several years anterior to
tlie (late stipulated for. And it is a fact of the greatest National and Imperial
moment. It is, indeed, a stupendous monument of engineering enterprise, the extent
unci character of whicli must needs be seen to be realised. But for profound belief in
its feasibility, in the teeth of many sinister predictions of failure, the men who made
it could not have made it. It is one of the few mundane enterprises for which
admiration grows with familiarity. Personally I have, and have had, no fiscal
interest in it. I speak of it as I know it, wholly free from bias, pro or eon. My
interest in it is that which may be shared by every Briton who is proud of the
achievements of his raue. More than once Itave I gone over it from Montreal to
British Cohimbia, and, after an interval of three years, I am much impressed with
the measure of consolidation which has been attained. The road is now firm and
thoroughly well ballasted, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and heavy trains run
over it smoothly, saiely, and expeditiously. The trains are punctual, well appointed,
and replete with accessories to luxurious ease in travelling. The Pullman cars are
unsurpassed, and probably unsurpassable, in comfort, day and night. Sleeping in
them is pleasant and easy in all respects, and at any time; the rattle of the wheels is
nuifileil by a double floor with packing between, by double windows, and so on, and
the Ixiat-like motion induces slumber in the night ; it is as if one slept on the bough
of a trte in a gontle breeze, or in a hammock on the ocean. A dining car is attached
to the train ia the morning, in time for breakfast, and runs with it until after
supiHir ; these cars are elegantly and excellently appointed, marvels of ingenuity and
taste ; and ca'pital meals are supplied at 75 cents, or three shillings, each. The officials
of tlie roail, ipecially the conductors and porters, are civil and obliging to a degree
which, un v-iriuus railways in America, might be copied with great advantage to all
conctrneil, even to the officials themselves. The uuiiorms worn by conductors and
I'ulliuan porters, particularly the latter, are singularly neat and pleasing in material
and design. The "Colonist" cars are Pullmans, minus the luxurious fittings in
velvet and the elaborate carvings in wood, plain but pleasing, substantial, and very
coiut'ortiible. The seats are transformed into beds at night, and above tlient are
other bt;ds, folded up in the day and let down at night, from the side-roof of the car,
in a most ingenious manner. The baggage arrangements relieve the traveller uf all
troubltj and anxiety: he "checks" it to his destination, where, on producing his
checkfi, his property is handed over, sooner or later, as he may want it, and he has
nothi ng to pay for storage, as he wouid have on some lines in England. As a matter of
fact, he is treated much better in various ways in Canada than he is in £ngi .nd-liy
the 1 ail way companies. In the matter of baggage the Cana<lians justly claim to be
aheiid of us ; and the elasticity of their ticket system, under which (he traveller may,
in most towns of importance, book his journey, and even his seat, in the Pullman —
l)ook them at the company's office in town, and so avoid the crush which commonly
occurs at English booking-offices at the stations — is certainlj' another boon conferred
on travellers on the western side of the Atlantic. Of tlie famous Hell Farm, at Indian
£iead, I have spoken at some length in my re|)ort of I8S I.

»:

surmounted so
liignitude was
B predicted in

achievement,
in who cannot
with, consider

have not the
mned at first,
rs anterior to

and Imperial
ise, the extent
'ound belief in
len who made
ses for which
lad, no fiscal
or eon. My

proud of the
Montreal to
npressed with
DOW firm and
vy trains run
'ell appointed,
man cars are
Sleeping in

the wheels is
ind so on, and
on the bough
;ar is attached
it until after
ingenuity and
, The officials
ig to a degree
vaiita^^e to all
inductors and
[)g in material
)us fittings In
tial, and very
)ve tliein are
jof of the car,
raveller of all
producing his
it, and he has
As a matter of
n Engi '.iitUliy
y claim to be
; ravel ler may,
lie Pullman —
cli commonly
I'lon conferred
rin, at Indian

In the preface to the first edition of " Th« North-West Passage by Land" — one of
the most charming books of travel in the English tongue, ' nd the sequel of a journey
undertaken by Tiscount Milton and Dr. Ohaadle five-and-twenty years ago — the
authors state that " the true North- West Passage is by land." Many attempts have
been made, in times gone by, to discoyer a North- West Passage by water, and all of
theii without success. No further attempt is likely to be made in that direction, for
the Canadian Pacific Railway baa solved the problem of the North-West Passage, and
solved it in accord with the prophetic words of Milton and Cheadle. It is an extra-
ordinary achievement, and Canada has provided the world with a work of wonder o!
which the Empire at large may well be proud. With the fiscal consideratiuim
involved in it I have nothing to do, and about them little to say, but it is com-
petent for me to declare my conviction that it is a work of first-class Imperial
importance. It is cementing the provinces of the Dominion together as nothing eloc
could have done, and it is another and a most valuable and important string to the
bow of the Imperal Government in reference to possible complications in the East,
in the future.

A trans-continental railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific was a hope in whi<jh
sanguine and far-seeing Canadians had been indulging for a good many years. These
men were not numerous at first, but their number increased as the time went on.
The confederation of the provinces of Canada, twenty years ago, gave a powerful
impetus to the scheme, for it was found to be indispensable on high political grounds,
and was laid down as a leading condition in the Act of Confederation. The newly-
formed Dominion Government set about shortly to redeem the promise which induced
British Columbia to join the Confederation, though it was a work whose magnitude
was enough to make an Empire pause. Various political complications arose in
connection with it, and at length the fact became clear that the machinery of a
Government was not well-calculated to perform such a work. In 1875, iiowever, the
work was begun in earnest, and went on with varying energy until 1881, \vhen the
Government wisely chartered the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in order to
have the task well and punctually completed. Meanwhile several sections of the
road were in progress of construction, and portions of them in operation, and ten
years were left of the period at the expiration of which the entire road had to be
completed. More than half the time had already gone, and less than half the work
was done. But the new corporation contained men well up in railroad enterprise,
who approached the huge task with faith in its feasibility, and wit!i all the necessary
energy, and the result was that the entire line was in actual operation in the spring
of 1880, no less than five years before it was necessarily due The contributions
made by the Dominion Government to the company, for the accomplishment of this
great national work, were $25,000,000 in cash, 712 miles of road already constructed
at a cost of $35,000,000, and 18,000,000 acres of land alongside the read. For the
remainder, scrip was issued, and the capital oi the company stands at about
$130,000,000. It was hardly expected that the line would be a paying concern for
several years at first, but I have authority for stating thai it pays aire; dy a con-
siderable sum over working expenses, andwe may confidently assume that its record
will improve year by j'ear. The first railway in Canada, a short one of sixteen
[ miles in the province of Quebec, was opaned in 183G, and now — fifty years later — we
may step from the ship to the train in Montreal, and, without a change, go right
through to the Pacific !

Each evening of the week, except Sunday, a train leaves Montreal for the Pacific
Coast at 8.20, and arrives at Vancouver aft«r a lapse of 5 days, 17 hours, and 10
minutes, which is at the average rate of just about 500 miles per day of 21 hours.

'1'

ii'ii
•it

After a time th«M trains will C0T«r the distance in four and a half days. The west-
bound train is called the "Pacific Express," and the east-bound train the "Atlantic
Exprens," and the distance each way is covered in the same time The all-rail route
runs up the Ottawa Valley to the city of Ottawa, a distance of 120 miles, and forward
due west to Port Arthur, at the head of Lake Superior, a further distance of 873
miles. The Lakes route is by train to Toronto and Owen Sound, a distance of 469

I! '•!

11. 1

II' ■:

; '1

1)! *■

lii'-ii

CANADIAN FACmO LAKB STBAUBU: OWBN BOUND AMD FOUT AUXUUU.

miles from Montreal. At Owen Sound, passengers embark on one or other of the
company's powerful (Jlyde-built screw steamers which run t6 Port Arthur, a distance
of 521 miles, in 40 hours, passing through a great deal of beautiful lake and river
scenery. In the section indicated — that is, between Montreal and Port Arthur — it
will be seen that an alternative route is provided ; and I may say that the Lakes
route is well worth doing, when the weather is favourable.

The Canadian Pacific Bailway, howeyer, affords another alternative route, of
much greater scope than the one just described, viz., from England to China and
Japan, and it is a route which will shortly command its share, or perhaps more than
its share, of the through traffic between the countries named. I will give my
reasons for this last statement. Already, it must be understood, the Canadian
Pacific Bailway has chartered steamships running from Vancouver to Hong Kong
and Yokohama ; these will shortly be replaced by first-class steamers belonging
to the company, and subsidised by the Imperial Qovernment for the conveyance
of mails; these new steamers will shorten the voyage on the Pacific by two or
three days at least, though the time occupied from Liverpool to Yokohama is
already shorter than by any other route, My authority for this statement is Mr.
Yamio, a Japanese gentleman, who went out with us to Quebec in the " Barmatian "
and who had repeatedly travelled between England and Japan by the Suez Canal
and the Ban Francisco routes. Mr. Yamio informed me that by taking the
Canadian Pacific, he would save five days as compared with the San Francisco, and
ten as compared with the Suez Canal route, while he would be £10 in pocket as
compared with either of them. The new route, therefore, is tolerably certain to be

a favoarite one with Oriental travellera, not alone because of the economy in time
and money, but also on accouni of ltd greater Bcenic attractlTenesa.

THE CANADIAN PAOIPIO RAILWAY COMPANY'S LANDB.

Tlie Canadian Pacific Bailway Company offer for sale some of the finest agri>
cultural lands in Manitoba and the North-West. The lands belonging to the
company in each township within the railway belt, which extends 24 miles from
each side of the main line, will be disposed of at pricer ranging from $2 60c.
(lOs. sterling) per acre upwards, according to location and quality, without any
conditions as to cultivation

Detailed prices of lands can be obtained from the Land Commissioner at
Winnipeg, J. H. McTavish, Esq. These regulations are substituted for and cancel
those hitherto in force.

Tkrhs or Payment.

If paid for in full at time of purchase, a deed, of conveyance of the land will be
given ; but the purchaser may pay one-tenth in cash, and the balance in nine annual
instalments, with interest at 6 per cent, per annum, payable at t.\e end of each year

SisTKif OP Survey.
The Canadian North- West is laid off in townships 6 miles square, containing
36 sections of 640 acres each, which are again sub-divided into quarter sections
of 160 acres. Each square on the land map represents a township of 640
acres. A road allowance, having a width of one chain, is provided for on each
section-line running north and south, and on every alternate section-line running
east and west. The following diagram shows a township with the sections numbered
and apportioned : —

Township Diaokam.
a41i acbkr. n.

33
0. N. W.

sis

0. P. E.

Got.
1

or
O.P.B.

Gov.

0.1

'.B.

Gov.
:

90
Gov.

29
Soboois.

28
■ Gov.' ■■■

O.P.E.'"

6
B." ■

O.N.W.

or
0. P. E.

21
0. N. W.

;
24

0. P. E.

Gov.

or
O.P.E.

Gov.

O.I

>.E.

Gov.

1
18

;
17

1
18

IS
0. N. W.

Gov.
1

b. P. E.

Gov.
I

•O.P.B.
:

Gov.

or
0. P. E.

1
8

9
O.N.W.

0. P. E.

H.B.

or
0. P. E.

Gov.

Bch

ooU.

Gov.

i
6

:
:

:
8

0. N. W.

GoV.

0, p. B.

Gov.

■ d.p.E."

JV.

or
O.P.B.

■ Ji!;
I ! 'Si,

1 5ii

, . '01

IM "■■

lit 1.

'HI

'11

!) '^'

i! '!

C. p. H.'-CanatUan Pacific Railway Company's Landx. GOV.— Govarnmsnt Uotr.eRtead and
Pre-emption Lands. bOHOOLS.— Sections renerved for support of BcIiooIh. H. B.— Hiidooii Hay
Company's Landn. 0. N. W.— Canada North-West Land Conipany'n Landx for a« far wast from
Winnipeg as Moo«e Jaw only. Sectionn 1, 9, 18, Sl, 26, and S3, from Moose Jaw westward, stlU belong
to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.

It will thus be seen that the sections In each township are apportioned as
follows : —

Opin ?or Homestead and Pek-khptions. — Nos. 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24,
28, 30, 82, 34, 36.

Canadian Pacific Railway Sections. — Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25.
27,31,33,35.

Nos. 1, 9, 13, 21, 25, 33, along the main line, "Winnipeg to Moose Jaw, sold to
Canada North- West Land Company, the balance of their lands being in Southern
Manitoba ■ ' ' '

School Sections. — Nos. 11, 29 (reserved by Government solely for school
purposes).

Hudson's Bay Sections. — Nos. 8 and 2G. . i r i

General Conditions.
All sales are subject to the following conditions:—

1. All improvements placed upon land purchased to be maintained thereon until
final ])ayment has been made.

2. All taxes and assessments lawfully imposed upon the land or improvements,
to be paid by the purchaser.

3. The company reserves from sale, under these regulations, all mineral and coal
lands ; and lands containing timber in quantities ; stone, slate and marble quarries ;
lands with water-power thereon ; and tracts for town sites and railway purposes.

4. Mineral, coal, and timber lands and quarries, and lands controlling Avater-
power, will be disposed of on very moderate terms to persons giving satisfactory
evidence of their intention and ability to utilise the same.

5. The company reserves the right to take without remunerjition (except for
the value of buildings and improvements on the required portion of land) a strip or
strips of laud 200 feet wide, to be used for right of way, or other railway nurposes,
wherever the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, or any branch thereoi, i& or shall
be located.

liberal rates for lettlers and their eflects will be granted by the company over
its railway.

1 will now invite the .eader to accompany me on a trip over the Canadian
Pacific Railway — the '• C. P. R.," as it is universally designated in Canada — from
Montreal to Vancouver, noticing the more remarkable scenes and places on the way : —

I 1!

• - MONTREAL, ■ ' ' ;

Two and a half centuries ngo the Indian village of llochelaga occupied the
site of the city's park of to-day and now the handsome city of Montreal has, with
its suburbs, an estimated population near upon a quarter of a million. The name
of the place is an abbreviation of " Mount Royal," the commanding eminence
beneath whose shelter the city stands. With the broad St Lawrence in front, and
the lofty Mount Royal behind, the city occupies one of the finest sites imaginable.
From the summit of the mountain a majestic view is obtained of the city, the river,
and the country beyond; probably this view is, of its kind, unequalled in the world,
and no one visiting Canada ought to miss it, Montreal is known as the " City of

jr for school

thereon until

nprovements,

jompany over

Churches," of which there are a great nuralier, and the ecclesiastical jiroiMrty in and
around the place ia immensely valuable. There are also very many iiiie buildings
of a secular nature, amongst which the Windtior Hotel stands first and furemost.

CITY OP MONTKBAIk

To a great extent the city is built of the limestone which abounds, and a large
proportion of the buildings are of a kolid and substantial character. During the
summer, and up to about the middle of November, a great number of steam and also
sailing ships go up to Montreal, but in winter the Bt. Lawrence is frozen up, and
Halifax is the port until spring. Montreal, in fact, is the chief Canadian port for
almost everything, a good deal of the trade of Quebec having retreated inland thus
far, and it is consequently a place of comnaanding commercial importance. In this
age of canals for shipping, it is quite feasible, I think, that means will be found for
steamers to run from Manchester to Toronto, and possibly even to Chicago. Many
men believe that Toronto will eventually become the largest city in the Dominion,
and its growing importance will probably demand that ocean ships shall have
access to it; such access, indeed, would not require works of a very formidable
character. All this, however, is in the air at present.

OTTAWA.

The vr.lley of the Ottawa, through which the Canadian Pacific llailway takes
its way to the west, is well worth seeing ; but the steamboats up the river afford
by far the most comprehensive access to the scenic charms of the valley. The
river^ indeed^ with its lake-like reaches here and there^ should be travened once bjr

!' :i

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I) :

thoK who like Ane views of land and water oombined, for the Ottawa it indeed one
of the several very fine rivers in Canada. The valley, generally speaking, is well

H
H

<
Hi

Mtf led, and a largje acrea(?e of land has had its heavy primeval forest cleared away.
The city of Ottawa ia the political and adiniiiistrative capital of the Dominion, and

i ■!

It indeed one S j, situated just within the province of Ontario, at the junction of the Bideau riyer

|king, !• well fl ^ith the Ottawa. The HouBes of Parliament, flanked by Departmental BuUdings,

are perhaps, all things coniidered, the handsomest set of buildings in any country

and they occupy an unrivalled position on a high and handsome promontory,

PART.IAHaWT H0U8I, OTTAWA.

round which the Ottawa flows. These buildings are Tery striking indeed, of
magnificent proportions, and of Gtothlc architecture highly ornate in character
They are built of cream-coloured sandstone, with red sandstone comers and casings —

'•A.BJII.C*

DBPAKTMBNTAL BCILDIMOS, OTTAWA (WBST BLOCK).

Ifl

II combination which falls with a pleasing^ effect on the eye. The foundation itone
W.18 laid by the Prince of Wales in 1860, and the cost of them was about £800,000

I! •
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111

It' ;;

ilia

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UBPAUTMKNTAL BUILDINGS, OTTAWA (KA8T 11L0CK>

Sterling Save and except the Canadian Pacific Railway, there is no great work of
man in Canada of which the Canadian people may be so justly proud as of the
Public Buildings at Ottawa The annexed view of the Parliament Buildings shows
the main building and the west block, the east block lying as far on the other side
as the west block lies on this side of the central structure. It may be doubted if any
city in Canada is, relatively speaking, increasing in population as rapidly as Ottawa,
BO far. Formerly a mere lumbering town, to which industry it is still very largely
devoted, it is rapidly becoming a place of general commercial and manufacturing
importiince ; and it has already, because it is the administrative centre, become the
leading home of the social and political aristocracy of the Dominion.

TO WINNIPEG.

Away from Ottawa to Winnipeg, a distance of 1,114 miles, the railway runs for
the most part through a rocky and well-timbered country, containing here and there
greater or lesser areas of land suitable for agriculture, once it is cleared of timber
and drained. Numerous rivers are crossed, and lakes, great and small, are skirted on
either hand. The course of the line is more or less sinuous all the way to Port
Art hur, accommodating itself to valleys which lend facilities for the construction of
a railway. Save for lumbering and mining industries, which await certain and very
extensive development, the country along this portion of the route would not ever be
likely to become thickly populated. It is known, however, that vast stores of
minerals, whose extent cannot yet be even estimated with any approximation to
correctness, are in existence in various parts, while the wealth of timber is there to
be read by him who runs. Approaching Lake Superior the scenery becomes beauti-
ful and even magnificent in places, and there are many examples of bold and
difficult engineering. The northern shore of Lake Superior is extremely rocky and
precipitous, of volcanic origin, deeply indented with bagra of irregular lise and shapti

mdation itone
ibout jC800,000

arid withal WTicommoTily bold nni Rtrikinpr from a Rcenio point of view. The rocky
•oinmtions are of vavioiis l<iTids and colours, and often rise to a p:rcat and dizzy

great work of
roud as of the
iuDdings sliows

the other side
doubted if any
idly as Ottawn,
11 very largely
manufixcturing
.ra, become the

ilway runs for
lere and there
ired of timber
are skirted on
e way to Port
onstruction of
rtain and very
Id not ever be
vast stores of
roximation to
Mr is there to
comes beauti>
of bold and
ely rocky and
ise and shaiw,

[leight, perpendicularly. Granite, sandstone, ignetnis conglomerates, columnar
basalt standing on end like the pipes of a lofty organ ; rooks that are grey, or brown,
\\ blood.ved, and some of colours mixed— this is the sort of chaotic geology through

i •»'.

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which the line ii laid. And the train ulipe along through nuinnrous tunnela.cuttingii,
natural gorges, over bridges, viailucts, and vast embiiiikuientB ; sometimes along the
foot of a precipice, and again high up among the crags ; soinetimi-s along the shore of
the lake or one of its numerous bays, and again a mile or two away. Perhaps the
prettiest if not the finest scene in this pqrtion of the route is where the Nepiffon
river is crossed, but it is difJlcult and possibly invidious to pick out one portion from
so much that's beautiful.

The thriving town of Port Arthur is situated on the shore of the lake, away
from the rocky region, the const being flat and tame. When I saw it first, seven
years ago, it consisted of a few houses and stores little better than huts; now it is a
town of nigh on 4,000 people, with many large and substantial buildings, long piers and
wharves ■unning out into the lake for the convenience of the great shipping trade
that is done, and a large grain elevator for the storage of wheat. Port Arthur, along
with Fort William, at the mouth of the Kaministiquia river, a few miles away to the
west, form together the shipping point on the lake for the Canadian Paciflo Hai'way,
and turn a considerable portion of the North- West traffic down to Owen Bound, Colling-
wood, Sarnia, and other places to the south. At Tort William is another elevator,
whose capacity is 1,200,000 bushels of grain. These places have been evolved as it
were out of the overflow of the Canadian Pacific Railway, for they were insignificant
before the railway came along. To the west the country is again rocky, for the nujst
part, and heavily timbered as usual. The district is rich in minerals of various
kinds, a valuable silver mine having very recently been opened out. At Rat Portage,
297 miles west of Port Arthur, the line skirts the northern end of the Lake of the
Woods, perhaps the handsomest of Canada's great inland sheets of water ; it is
nearly a hundred miles in length and of varying width, thickly studded with wooded
islands, hardly numbered as yet, and of great beauty everywhere. Here too is seen
a geological curiosity in the form of a junction of the vast Huronian and Laurentian
systems of rock. The province of Manitoba is entered at Rennie, 1,222 miles from
Ottawa, the whole of which distance lies with! a the pi-ovince of Ontario. At Selkirk
the jiniirie and farming region begins, and stretches for a thousand miles right away
to the Rocky Mountains. Canada is, indeed, a country of magnificent distances !

THE CITY OF WINNIPEG.

Tlie city of Winnipeg is situated in the wide and level and extraordinarily fertile
valley of the Red River, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.
Twenty years ago the old Fort Garry, a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company,
was solitary on the spot, save for a few huts and wigwams; now it is a handsome
city of nearly 30,000 people, and constantly growing. It is the distributing centre
and the eastern focal point of the great North- West, and is probably destined to
remain the chief city of that vast region. The growth of the city, for a few years on
either side of 1880, was quite phenomenal; then occurred a period of reckless inflation
in land values, known as the " boom," whose collapse checked alike tiie expansion of
the city and the prosperity of the province. The boom did immense harm all round,
and the reaction from it carried everything into a slough of despond much farther
than there was any need to go. The city and the province are both well on the road
to recovery at the present time, and their progress, it is to be hoped and expected,
will be wisely directed in the future. The Manitobans have " touched sand " in these
fiscal matters, and a boom, alike unreasoning and unreasonable, is not likely to lead
the people astray again for some considerable time to come. They have had their
period of rampant but unhealthy prosperity, followed by one of adversity, and the
lesson will not soon be forgotten. These violent fluctuations seriously impeded for a

inelB,cuttin|i^,
lies along the
ig the sill ire of
Perhaps the
i the Nepigon
portion from

he hvke, away
it first, seven
I now it is a
long piers and
shipping trade
Arthur, along
es away to the
iciflc Rai'way,
JoundjColling-
)ther elevator,
n evolved as it
e insignificant
f, for the must
als of various
t Rat Portage,
e Lake of the
f water; it is
d with wooded
[ere too is seen
nd Laurentian
!22 miles from
o. At Selkirk
les right away
distances !

dinarily fertile
liboine rivers.
Bay Company,

is a handsome
•ibuting centre
bly destined to
a few years on
ckless inflation
e expansion of
larm all round,
i much farther
'ell on the road
i and expected,
sand " in these
, likely to lead
have had their
ersity, and the

impeded for a

time the tide of immigration and the settling of the province. The boom had cauMsd
II rush in one direction, and the panic which followed sent it off in the other. Men's

I heads were turned by the speculative spirit of the day, and had to be restored to

[position. The few who were wise and cautious came well out of the trouble; the
many who were otherwise were "stuck," with greatly depreciated property on their

I hands. This is now all a thing of the past, a matter of hisUjry, but the efiPects of it
have not yet disappeared. Men have had, of course, to shake themselves down the
best way they could, or submit to be shaken down, into harmony with the new order
of things, and a casual observer would think they had done so with considerable
success. For Winnipeg is quite a busy hive, the people are evidently in good heart,
and the place is increasing in size and improving in various ways, and the province
is raising more grain than before and is already going pretty extensively into stock-

I breeding and the manufacture of cheese and butter. In 1880, 1 spent some little time
in Winnipeg, again in 1884, and yet again in September ot the present year. Un
each occasion I saw, for no one could help seeing, very striking advances achieved,
alike in the size and the architecture of the city. There are now very many

[ excellent buildings, public and private, hotels, warehouses. Governmental and
municipal buildings, and so on, some of them very large. Main Street, one of the
finest and broadest thoroughfares in Canada, is now well paved with blocks of wood,
and the volition and comfort of the people have recently had considerable facilities
1,'ranted. The cloud, indeed, is lifting — has already lifted to a great extent — and the
]Manitoban8 are people who « never say die." Farms may be bought on very
ruasonable terms within sight of Winnipeg, as the following advertisements, copied
from the Manitoba Free Presi of Sept. 19, will plainly show : —

FOR SALB— 228 ACRES OF LAND, WITH pOR Hai.« — 240 ACRES EXCELLENT

a mile froniuge on the Red River. 60 acres J? Lnnd for Mixed Farming, snrronnded by

busli. Almut lut) acrns high rollini; prulrie ; bal. wood and a river ; 12 miles from the city ; only

aiice, hay. 40 uores caltivated ; two log houses; $600. Owner leaving Manitoba next week.
log Htalile for abont 40 head. Good looklity ;
only $1,UU9 oa«h, worth $2,600.

WESTWARD HO!

"Go West, young man," said Horace Greely many years ago; and it must be
admitted that Americans and Canadians alike have obeyed the injunction tolerably
well. Ontarians have gone to Manitoba, and Manitobans have gone to Assiniboia,
and Britons have pone everywhere. .Indeed, the injunction has been too much
obeyed, and many have gone farther only to fare worse. A curious spirit of
restlessness pervades, or did pervade, the people of Canada, but the spirit is tamer
than it used to be. A larger proportion of emigrants have remained in Manitoba
this year than in several previous ones. Ontarians go west, and should go west, a
ji;o()d many of them ; but the Manitobans have discovered that there is no province
e([ual to their own ; so at least, many of them say. And, indeed, it is true enough
of Manitoba, and of the eastern half of Assiniboia, that there is nothing west of
tliem to induce farmers to go at present. Millions upon millions of acres of good
land there are in Manitoba and eastern Assiniboia still to be taken up, so what is
the good of going farther west f Thousands of acres of good land there are west
and east and south and north of Winnipeg, within sight of the spires of the city,
that is being held by speculators who are now tired of holding it, and would be glad
to sell out at a price which is really intrinsic for agricultural Lind. Farther away
there is plenty of land which may be homesteaded from the Government, free of

j cost, to the extent of a quarter section, or 160 acres ; and an additional quarter
section may be pre-empted at a moderate price per acre. I have driven over vast

I areas of such land in Manitoba and eastern Assiniboia, in the north of both provinces,

II. 't

l,il-

Bl-i'

nil of it ftCcrsRil)l<! by r railway, anrt it woulil fipem to be undesiraM*' for notHern to
m> fiirtlier west at present. 1 shall probably liave more to say on tliis subjiu-t later
oil, and inj-aiitiiiK^ we must gn west on »Mir jonrney,

IjOiivinK Winnipeg for the west, the train strikes out into a preat plain, wliicli
appears to be perfectly level for scores of miles. Murh of this land, alongsiiie the
railway at all events, has never yet been under cultivatimi. Hundreds of hay ricks,
however, are seen upon it, and thousands of cattle i\nd sheep grazing, and also
many horses Many railroads radiate from Winnipeg, but my remarks at present
rcliiti) to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Torty-flve miles west of Winnipeg stands
the town of Portage-la-Prairie, in the midst of a district which may, I fancy, be
regarded as the cream of the province, so far as quality of land is concerned.
Portage- la-Prairie is so named because in old times it was known as the nearest
point on the Aasiniboine river to Lake Manitoba, and goods were carried or
" portaged" from one to the other. Fourteen miles away ta the north lies Lake
Winnipeg, an extensive sheet of fresh water, which moderates the climate in
respect of unseasonable frosts; and the immunity of the district from this most
serious enemy of the arable farmer in many other places, stamps Portage-la-Prairie
as one of the most fnvourable sections of country in the whole North-West. The
valun (.f the lanil is from $10 (or two pounds) per acre up to $70, according to
situation, ([uality, and nature and extent of improvements in the form of build,
ings, fences, and cultivation. Virgin prairie of excellent quality runs from $20
to $80 jier acre, favourably situated, but without improvements. This land is
not, properly Kpeaking, the prairie, but the widened-out valleys of the Red
and Assiniboine rivers, which mingle their waters at Winnipeg. The course of
the last named river is marked away to the south by a belt of trees, and scores of

,„»,,S!llii!;H!iiSS;;i,..

. ,|.|iHl.:ilii!h'i5ii!:!ii,l

h 4 1

A BAILWAT STATION ON THK PRAIKIB.

well-tiH.d farms are seen in that direction away from the line, -with pleasant,
looking honpes peeping out from among the trees; while to the north are vasi
meadows and pastures, and cattle without number. Away a few miles from the

for KPtHern to
I gubj«c,t. Inter

t plain, which
alongsiile tlie
I of liay ritkH,
ing, and also
rka at present
nnipeg stands
y, I fancy, he
is concerned,
18 the nean-st
ire carried or
irth lies Lake
le climate in
•cm this most
bage- la-Prairie
bh-West. The
>, according to
orm of build-
runs from $20

This land is
I of the Red
rhe course of

and scores of

•with pleasant-
iiortli are vasl
iniles from tin;

Itiwii lives my old friend, Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie of Burnaide, who came to

LMiiiiitoha from Ontario some twenty years ago and located himself before the

|l,iiid was taken up, or the town, or even the city of Winnipe.', had any practical
. xixtence. The district from I'ortape and Burnaide to Carberry is called the
'• licautiful Plains," and beautiful indeed it is to him who has an eye for wheat. In

1 my two visits to this locality, going to and returning from tlie west, the wheat was
'.>eing cut and stacked, and afterwards thrashed. As far as the eye could reach,

I Hided by a strong fleld-glass, the plains were one vast sea of grain, lazily waving to
and fro in the bright sunlight ; later on, the landscape was thickly dotted over with
ricks, many of wliich were being put through the thrashing machine and turned
into cash. It is a valuable peculiarity of the wheat in the North- West that, owing
to the dryness of the atmosphere, it is tit for thrashing even out of the stooks, and
almost the day it is cut. The straw is set on fire when the thrashing is done, to get
rid of it, for at present it can be put to no profitable use. Vast quantities of clean,
bright straw are annually burnt — straw that would fetch £3 to £4 a ton in England
lit the present moment. To burn the straw in this fashion, vast heaps of it, where

[it was thrashed, looics like wanton destruction; all the same, however, there is at
present no help for it, though in course of time the straw will be utilised in cattle
sheds in winter, and turned into manure to enrich a soil which then will need it.
As we are now in the Portage-la-Prairie counti ,, I may as well transcribe notes taken

[ of the farming experience of an old settler : —

Mr, James Bowman bought in 1882, in the boom period, a farm of 320 acres for

I $9,000, or $26 per acre, say £5 10s., nearly. There was a stable, granary, and small
house on the farm, and 204 acres had heen ploughed and backset. Two men put in
the seed, IJ bushels per acre ; in the fall, 3,600 bushels of wheat at 8oc. and 3,000 ot

I oats at 60c. were sold; the thrashing cost 5c. a bushel, and other wages, for
harvesting, Ac, and a son's time not reckoned, caaie to $250 ; 67 acres were in oats,
1 m roots, and the rest in wheat. The account stands thus : —

Cr.— By 3,600 bushels of wheat at 85o $3,060

3,000 „ oats

„ 1 acre of roots, say...

Dr — To thrashing

„ other ex^/enses, say

50c.

$330
370

l,5t0
40

8,600

700

$2,900

Here, then, wo have nearly one-third of the cost of the farm repaid in produce in the
Hist year. Mr. Bowman had the farm in his own hands and " ran it/' as the
Americans say, until October 1886, when he let it on lease; terms: landlord finds
one-half the ed, pays half the cost of thrashing, and receives half the produce.
This year's cro> has yielded 3,500 bushels of wheat, 2,300 of oats, and 1,050 of barley.
Wheat was w( . ih 53c., oats 25c., and barley 30c. per bushel at the time. The account
therefore would be as follows : —

Yield.

3,500 bushels of "'heat at 5Sc,
2,300 „ oats „ 25c.

1,060 ,1 barley,, 30c.

$1,K.".5
575
815

2)2,745

Half cost of seed, say ..

„ „ thrashing, say ..

Landlord's share in gross...

.. $100
170

Landlord's share, net

1,372
170

.'$1.'-'02

I -ii.

hi!.

J- 1

Ki'li

ri ■■:i

If we set aside the ^202 to meet repairs and taxes, &,c., there is the net sum ut' $1 ,000
accruing to the landlord, which, as he said, would he 11 per cent, on the original cost
of the &rm. Mr. Bowman is an agent and has farms to sell which will do equally
well with his own, he says, if men with capital will come out and work them
properly. If the landlord gets 11 per cent, as rent in times like these, with wheat
scarcely more than half a dollar a hushal, land at the current rate, which is perhaps
ahout one-half what Mr. Bowman paid for his, ought, as it would seem, to return a
very handsome percentage to an occupying owner, who would do his work well, in the
form of owner's rent and occupier's profit. Land is summer-fallowed once in a
while, by the better fanners, in order, chiefly, to kill the weeds, of which " lamb's
quarter " is the most common This particular weed, though tall and vigorous in
growth, ought not to bea very difficult weed to deal with ; it certainly is not comparable
with oouch or twitch grass (Triticum repetu), which gives so much annoyance to arable
farmers in the Old Country, The summer-fallowing which the land in Manitoba
gets, certainly does not err on the side of being too much of a good thing ; it consists,
as a rule, of one ploughing only during the summer, ^he weeds being turned under.
Once-harrowing at least should be done after the ploughing, in order to close up the
teams and cracks in the furrow-slices, and to cause the weeds to rot all the more
thoroughly. As the matter stands, with once-ploughing only and no harrowing to
follow, we eee the weeds rearing up their heads along the furrows and ripening their
seed with impunity. Thoroughly buried, these weeds, ploughed under before they
have arrived at their tall growth, will form a good green-manuring; and one year's
rest in four would be none too much for land which is devoted entirely to wheat.
Here is a list of prices that were current in Poitage-la-Prairie in tiept., 1887 : —

Wheat, 53 to 66 cents per bushel of 60 lbs.

Oats,

25 „ 27

Barley,

30 „ 86

>«

Potatoes,

20 „ 25

Beef,

4„ 8

>»

per lb.

Mutton,

12 „ 15

Pork,

8„ 12

Cheese,

12 „ 16

Poultry,

8„10

Eggs,

U „ 16

per dozen.

Away to Carberry and Brandon are seen, on both sides of the line, farms which
are excelled by those in the Portage country only, if indeed by them. Crops that
would be called good in England, so far as bulk is concerned, are seen all along the
road ; and it must be borne in mind that a crop of wheat in Manitoba will yield a
great deal more grain, probably one-third more at least, in proportion to the balk of
the straw. At Brandon I saw growing in a garden, potatoes, cabbages, beets, turnips,
carrots, onions, and " green com,'* the last named a species of maize whose ear of j
gr:iin is eaten as a table vegetable. The land is rolling, the soil black, and as far ai j
uiie could see there was wheat, wheat., wheat— nothirg but wheat, but plenty of that.
It was estimated that over a million bushels of wheat would this fall be trained from
Brandon alone. The straw is shortish, very bright and clean, with an almost I
complete absence of weeds ; yet, as there is nv purpose at present to which it can be
put, it is simply burrt. Prom Qriswold 260,000 bushels would be marketed, u
against 140,000 last year. The best sample of wheat (No. 1. Hard) was worth from 64 to
680. at harvest time, the first week in September, in many parts the wheat crop <
was estimated to «zceed 40 bushels per acre, and the oat crop 76. Summer-fallowing

[i^ found to 1)6 very beneflcial to the land, with fall -ploughing after it, or cnltivatini?

' in iprinjo;. A furrow eight or ten inches deep, the dry surface soil turned under and
fresli sul)soiI brought up to the surface, to be operated on first by the mellowing
influence of the sun, then by the disintegrating and mellowing pi)wer of frost, is ni)
doubt a good feature in a sound system of cultivation. New soil brought up from
bi'low nei'ds oxidising, and is all the better for a good roasting under a September
sun, before llie seed is put into it. This need — this law of vegetable nutrition — is
recognised, though perhaps not consoiouBly so, in the practice which prevails on the
prai rie of " backsetting" the first ploughing that is done. This is what it is : a shallow
iiul broad furrow is turned first of all, early in the summer, and in the autumn it is
iiiriied back again with two or three inches thick of subsoil on the top of it; con-
sequently, what was the grassy, original surface of the prairie is now a few inches
below the surface, with soil over it tha*'. was originally under it. And herein occurs
the recognition spoken of, for the backsetting is done in the autumn as a preparation
of the seed-time of the spring to follow. When land has been autumn-ploughed, as
soon as possible after the crop has been removed, and a downpour of rain occurs, the
soil is saturated to a considerable depth ; tliis moisture freezes solid, and, when
spring time comes, gives off moisture to the growing crop — gives it off slowly for
weeks as the subsoil thaws. Early in the spring, so soon as the surface of the land
has thawed a couple of inches deep, the seed-grain is put in, and its moisture is
supplied by capillary attraction .'rom the softening frost below. Besides which, the
frost has mellowed the soil, am', the air has oxidised it, and the tender rootleto of the
young wheat plant can fieely permeate a mellowed soil which has also, chemically
speaking, been specially prepared for them by the atmosphere. All this is very
beautiful, no doubt, when rightly understood j but it is something mure — it is very
useful and beneficial to man

SE'riLER'S HOUSE.

Sheep are being cultivated with success. They are found to be very prolific in
so fine an atmoapliere, with thousands of acres of prairie grHss to pirk and choose
from. In summer thev cost, absolutely nothing, save for shepherding, for they run
at large on unappropriated prairie. It used to be said that " spear grass," whoie awns
are sharp and spear-like, and have a knack of penetrating into things, would make
sheep farming impossible on the prairie where it grows. This, however, is found to
have been a scare, with little or no foundation, and that "spear grass" ii a bugbear
whom nobody now -o frightened at. Anyway, the sheep themselves don't seem to
miud it, and nobody else has need to. In these dry regions, where water is scarce,

?'1

I I ' . i 'it

lib

|l 'Hi

,il^

tod creeks and lakes and rivers are few and far between, sheep are far less trouble
than cattle or horses, for, comparatively speaking, they are independtut of water.
In winter they are in sheds surrounding an open yai'd, into or out of \vliicii they
run or not as they like, and are fed on hay. A ton of hay — Canadian ton, 2,000 lbs. —
will winter three sheep ; and any quantity of hay is to be had for the harvesting of it
in the swampy land. The ewes commonly bring tw'> lambs each, and sometimes
three ; and I heard of spring lambs being sold to '. butcher, in September, at
$8 each. The Qu'Appelle Valley and vicinity, a disinct of very large extent, is
found to be well adapted to sheep husbandry as wtiil as to other branches of
agriculture. The continued low price of wheat has civused farmers to turn their
attention what is vaguely termed "mixed farming" <»nd the settled parts of the
Nortb-West are gradually becoming the home of cattle, sheep, and horses.

Thrifty, hard>working settlers, who understand how to farm, get along well in
the Qu'Appelle district. Four years ago a German, with three sons and $300, came
into the country. This year they have 300 acres of land under wheat, from which
they have a yield of 11,000 bushels. An average of 36 bushels per acre, throughout
the district, is estimated for the current harvest, and some crops will reach 50 bushels.
The crop of 1887 i? certainly a very good one, and it thrashes out unusually well.
The grain, as a rule, is well fed, plump, bright, and of very good quality. Frosts
occur some years in late Au st and early September, doing considerable harm to
the ripening grain; but it is expected, and I think reasonably so, that such early
frosts will become rarer, and, perhaps, disappear altogether, when the country
becomes more thickly populated and the land is more widely and generally
cultivated. A remarkable fact in reference to the province of Manitoba is the
recent drying of many swamps, which the people think will remain dry. This
phenomenon, which I found to extend to many parts, is supposed to be owing to a
progressive system of surface draining, which has influenced swiiinps at a distance.
It is, however, more probably owing to a cycle of dry seiisons, and will most likely
be altered by a cycle of wet ones — wet, that is, for Manitoba. Anyway, the fact
exists ; and I heard of one farmer who this year sowed with oats the dry bed of what
was till recently a shallow lake, simply harrowing them into the bare, dry mud.
The crop is said to be very heavy — as might, indeed, have been expected — and,
though sown late in the spring, it will probably have ripened in the very line
tieptember which the people have enjoyed. The drying up of tliese damp places is
supposed to have had soitething to do with the absence of early frosts.

In reply to a series of queries propounded whilst I was in the North-West, I liave
received the following letter : —

" AssiNiBOiA, October 25), 1887.

" Dear Siu, — In accordance with your request I write you respecting my
experience and views of tliis country; and in the first place I must state tiint my
experience will not coincide in evei-y respect with tiiat of every one else, though 1
think it will with the majority

"I came out from England in April, 1884, three and a half years ago; and I
t iiink early in that month is by far the best time of the year for anyone to come out.
Seeding begins in this country about April 10th, and if a labourer arrived here the
lirst week in April the chances arc that he would get work without nuicli trouble, as
it is an exceedingly busy time, and extra hands are rtquired on a farm. l''iirm
labourers as a class are not likely to do well in this new country, although a few
more than we liave at presiiit would be very desirable.

"The class of emigrants that are likely to do best are tho^u with caiiital and
•onxe knowledge of farming; and the minimum capital an emigrant fanner — a single

[man — should bring out with him is i,'4lH). To try to begin farminfj; on lesn than tlmt
would be hurd, misur.iblc work. A married man, with a family of course, would
liiive to bring out more; and [ should certainly advise married men to come out, even
with young children, as the climate, so far as I can see, seems to suit tlitnx splendidly^
und, more than that, schools are sp'inging up in all parts of the country, for which
inuit efficient teachers are obtained. The younger an emigrant is the better chance
he has to get on — it is difficult to put a limit as to age. As to wheat-growiny, my
oi)inion is that it is going to be one of the chief features of this country, as the climate
and soil are admirably adapted for it; mixed farming, though, is a mi>;e piomising
pursuit. The question as to how the fertility of the soil is to be raaintc.ined is a
diflicult one, unless fallowing after every crop will do it. After a few more years'
experience we shall know.

" Horse-breeding is likely to be exceedingly profitable, as the climate is dry, and,
when running out ail the year round, they keep fat and healthy.

" Taking this country all round, it is one of the best of the British Colonies for
lirilish emigrants, if not the best. It has a splendid climate, and diseases incident to
man and beast ai'e almost unknown. Cyclones, hurricanes, and earthquakes, which
visit the States at intervals, never appear on this side the border. The winters, of
course, are cold, but not so much so as to prevent them being exceedingly enjoyable.
Cereals, and all kinds of root crops, grow to perfection; and cattle running on the
prairie grass all summer are rolling-fat in the autumn.

"I remain, faithfully yours,

"J. F. M."

The writer of this letter is a son of a manufacturer in the Staffordshire Potteries.
He, no doubt, would take out with him X400, or even more, and he naturally thinks
every emigrant ought to have a similar sum in his pocket when he lands on Canadian
soil. This, however, cannot be, and I may remark that I have conversed with many
prosperous farmers in Canada who started with much less than X400, and even with,
in some cases, nothing at all. Instances of such men are given later on in this report,
— not selected instances, but such as happened to come in my way. All the same,
however, an ample capital is, no doubt, a great help to an emigrant, if he knows how
to use it wisely ; but ho may, if he likes, get on very well with one to which the tei ni
" ample " would hardly be properly applied. Mr. Malkin does not think there is room
for many farm labourers as such, and that farm labourers as a class are not likely
to do well " in this new country." Well, if a man goes out as a laliourer and remains
ii labourer, that is primd, facie and conclusive evidence that he has not done well ; but
farm labourers of the right sort will become farmers ere long; and men go to Canada
to rise, not to remain stationary , and if they do not rise it is, as a rule, their own
fault.

I herewith append a letter from another Staffordshire man, who is settled in
Slanitoba : —

"Sm, — As there are so many enquiries made regardiig Canada as a field for
eniioiration, I have taken the liberty of endeavou.ing here to j^ive the very besf,
information I can respecting the Province uf Mmiiioha.

"The steauisliip rates for passengers are now made so reasonable that it is not
siK h a very great item to muster up enough to bring one to Manitoba, if only for
experience. But it is chiefly tp those bent on working their way up, with or without
I'.ipital, that this province offers the greatest inducements; and to this class, if they are
prepared at the first to rough it a little and not afraid to work, the prairies offer such
chances lor line soil tiut can be made by labour into the very best of farms. Thii

i II*

"I*
u

I 'lit
■ ':«

I
in

fine land, at first prairie-grasi land, is generally clear from any obstructions that wuuld
make it any way difficult to improve and work; the roupfheat of unimproved lands
have often more than half that can be ploughed without stones or ponds ; wood and
water are seldom so very difficult to get.

"I am four years out in Manitoba, and from South Staffordshire, England, end I
am well prepared to gay, without exaggerating, that strong farm workers come here,
and without capital, or not more than £10 ; they secure their 160 acres horaesteiid
by paying the fee of £2 Is. 8d. and work for other farmers, do their land duties,
etc., and often make the best of settlers here in course of time. But if they have
about £100 it will at the first enable them to have their own house, stable, team of
oxen, cow, pigs, plough, harrows, and waggon — so that, whether it be a married man or
single, you haveyour home on what will be your own land; besides, you will be able
to derive some benefit from your land after the first year. And, until your f;irm is in
shape for cropping, there are chances (quite plentiful) for earning money in many
ways, helping other farmers, and with boys or young women too — the demand for
them is great — the particulars respecting wages for males and females can be easily
ascertained. So that, if you have a class of people for farm work, there are plenty of
chances for them here. A young man has written to me, stating he has £10 and the
clothes on his back, and wants to know if by any honourable means he could be his
own master, and I have given him everything as straight as possible, with the chief
thing — that he must not be afraid to work, and, in return, he would have the chance
held out to him of being his own master on his own land. Of course it is two or
three years before any man accomplishes all this, so that during this time one must
exercise patience, be careful, and keep clear of any debt or encumbrance, look well
what is before you, and, no matter whether your capital is much or little, you must
economise in every way at the first and not lay out more money than you see some
return for. So that it is not always the amount of capital that is the most important
thing; in Manitoba it is by working your way up, whether you have capital or not.
I enclose my address in Manitoba, and will at any time give any further information.

" I am, yours &c.,

" A. H."

li.
'I

V V

The farmers of the North-West have been and still are discussing, with much
interest, tiie reputed merits of a variety of Russian wheat which has been introduced
into the country on, I believe, official authority and recommendation. It was
introduced, in the spring of 1886, small experimental parcels of it being sent out to
farmers in various districts. I have seen reports from several of the.se men, all of
them speaking highly of the early maturity, the cropping capacity, and the
apparently high quality of the new wheat. The early maturity side of the question
in the most important feature in the estimation of Canadian farmers, and this wheat
is said to be from ten to fourteen days earlier than the Eed Fyfe, which is the kind
universally grown in the North-West. That it will be superior, or even equal, in
quality to the Red Fyfe may well be doubted until proved by the highest practical
standard, viz., that ot its milling properties. The Red Fyfe has, I understand, the
highest reputation of any wheat known to the great millers of the United States,
for hard and " flinty " milling properties. This is believed to be owing to the
singularly high proportion of gluten which it contains. Gluten is an elastic
substance, which becomes brittle when dry ; it has the. same percentage composition
as the albuminoids, but it may be separated into two distinct substances, the one
soluble in alcohol and the other not so, and it is therefore not a simple proximate
principla or element. It coutributea greatly to the nutritive properties of tli«i

^ris that vuuld
iproved lands
lis ; wood aud

ngland, and I
jrs come here,
•ea homestead
: land duties,
t if they have
table, team of
arried man or
a will be able
our farm is in
ney in manj'
e demand for
can be easily
are plenty of
8 £10 and the
could be his
rith the chief
ve the chance
se it is two or
me one must
ice, look well
tie, you must
you see iome
ost important
ipital or not.
information.
;c.,
" A. H."

t, with much
m introduoed
on. It was
U sent out to
8 men, all of
ty, and tlie
the question
d this wlieat
I is the l<ind
i/en equal, in
est practical
lerstand, the
nited States,
wing to tlie
s an elastic
composition
ices, the one
e proximate
irtiea of tlit*

flour of wliuat, and gives the much-valued toughness and tenacity to its paste — hence
its superiority from a confectioner's point of view. These properties, or rather the
high proportion of them, possessed by the Red Fyfe wheat of the North-West, are,
we may safely assume, the result partly of the soi' in that region, but chiefly of
the climate. It is understood to have been introduced, in the early part of the
current century, by the Earl of Selkirk's colonists in the Bed lliver Valley, nnd has
been grown ever since in Manitoba. It has thug become, to all intents and purposes,
thoroughly acclimated to the North- West, and possesses whatever properties the
soil and climate of that great and peculiar region can confer. The Red Fyfe, as
its name would indicate, is popularly understood to be a Scotch variety of wheat,
but no wheat grown in the British Islands to-day can compare with that of
Manitoba and the North- West in the properties indicated. There is, however,
some diversity of opinion as to the origin of this special kind of wheat,, and my
friend, Professor Fream, is inclined to believe it to have been originally obtained
from lUissia. It is said that the best quality of wheat is produced at the
northern limit of its profitable production, and so it is that American millers
buy Canadian wheat to grade up their own in the rollers. Supposing and
admitting, therefore, that the Russian wheat so much spoken -^bout in Canada has
the property of early maturity to a degree superior to that of the Red Fyfe, the
question arises — will it retain that property after having been grown for some
j'ears in the North.West? or will the climate bring it to the level of the Red
Fyfe? This can only be proved by the lapse of time and by experiment. The Red
Fyfe, indeed, has early maturity enough under favourable conditions ; it has been
twice in the sack in 90 days, the seed and the crop. This can only be done in a
country whose climate is uncommonly stimulating, and whose soil responds to the
climate. In Manitoba this is essentially the state of things, and so it is that the seed
time and the harvest are separated by so short an interval of time. The merit of
early maturity claimed for the Russian wheat is probably, if substantiated, its only
one in comparison with the Red Fyfe, for, while it is said to be quite as heavy a
cropper, it is inferior in quality. But in any case its early maturity is the point on
whic: the question of its suitability turns, because t«n days will often save a crop
from destruction by frost. Ten days, indeed, are of ti'u everything to the wheat
farmer of the North- West at the close of the ripening p-jriod. Once quite ripe, ^.he
wlieat is sate ; but while the grain is immature, a frost will greatly injure it, or
perhaps ruin it outright. This Russian wheat, in one instance, was sown four days
later and was ripe eight days earlier than the Red Fyfe, side by side on the same
soil; sown on the same day the Russian variety might, by parity of reasoning, have
l)een ripe twelve days before the Canadian, and these twelve days might make all
the difference needed betv.'een succefis and failure in years when early frosts come on.
In any case, there is reason an encouragement for experiments lasting long enough
to get the Russian grain acclimated to Canada. Time and patience will demonstrate
the question in all its bearings, and will prove whether the foreign grain is or is not
equal to the native in early maturity, in yield, and in quality. Northern grain is
found to deteriorate in England, after the first two years ; but its growth in those
two years is commonly so vigorous as to pay for importation of seed from Scotlaiul.
The vigorous growth and early maturity of the Russian wheat in Canada may be and
probably are owing to the stimulating influence of a change in soil and climate
Recent enquiries in Russia, published in St. Petersburg, have elicited the fact that
wheat grown in the northern provinces of that empire ripens in about sixteen days
less time than that grown in the southern. This points to the enervating influence
of a southern climate, and will be found to hold tru« in other countries than Russia.

II..

and with ruspuut to utlier things than wheat. Canadian farmers ought by this time
to know thai the 14ed Fyfe wheat will be earlier ripe when earlier sown, and tliey
will be well advised to have the land so far prepared in the autumn tliat when spring
comes the seed can be put in without delay. This in any case will be a good practice
to adopt, whatever may be the result of experiments with Russian wheat.

I saw many excellent crops of wheat all over the place ; the North-West wheat
crop of 1887, indeed, has been good all through the country, as a rule. My good
friend, Mr. Acton Burrows, estimates — in the Winnipeg Morning Call — the Manitoban
wheat-yield to amount to upwards of twelve million bushels, of which ten millions
are available forexport. His estimate of barley is two million, of oats live million,
ot flax one hundred and eighty thousand, and of potatoes two million seven hundred
and iifty thousand bushels.

FRUIT.

Portions of the eastern provinces of Canada have long been famous foi fruit ot
various kinds, specially the larger kinds, as a^ ><!8, pears, plums, and peaches; aod
the people of the North-West, where such fruits have not hitherto been successfully
grown, naturally feel themselves at a disadvantage. Severe as the winters are on
fruit trees in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces, they are more so in
the North-West, and in many of the Northern States of America. Efforts are now
being made to procure varieties of apple and other fruit trees that will stand the
winters of the West. It has long been known that European Russia possessed certain
very hardy kinds, and America has obtained some of her hardiest kinds from that
country. Five years ago Professor J. L. Budd of the Iowa Agricultural College, and
Mr. Charles Gibb, an eminent horticulturist in the province of Quebec, paid a visit to
many of the northern fruit-growing districts of Russia, and found in some of them
dwarf kinds of trees which resist winters whose severity is greater than that of the
winters of America and Canada. During a period of no less than six to eight hundred
years apple trees that are mere bushes, yet bear an abundance of fruit in favourable
seasons, have been gradually acclimatised in the northern part ot Kasan, which is 600
miles nearer than Quebec to the North Pole As a result of this journey, upwards of
100 varieties of apples, about 40 of pears, 30 of plums, and 40 of cherries, are now
being tested in the experimental grounds of the Iowa Agricultural College, and it is
confidently expected that many ot these will be found suitable; for any or all of the
coldest habitable jMirtions of the American continent.

The question of fruit in the North-West naturally correlates with that ot
forestry I have aforetime called attention to the need of tree planting on the
prairies, with the view not only of improving the climate and increasing the i .tiufall
but also of beautifying the country. The permanent success of agriculture in its
varied branches depends, to a greater extent than is generally understood, on the
climatic and hydrologic influence of woods and forests, and the reafforesting of the
North-West ought to proceed alongside of the settlement of the country. The
ecor omio value ' t trees is at all times great in settled countries, besides which they
are of great service in breaking the force of the wind, and in reducing the fury of
the blizzards, which, however, appear to be niore frequent and disastrous in some of
the Western States of the Union than in the North-West of Canada, A humorous
American informed me that he believed there were farms in the North -West on
which were raised the blizzards which swept down into the States with such pitiless
fury. On the great plains of the States, he said, the people have cellars into which
ti.ey Ciin dive, like gophers, when they sue a blizzard approaching! Well then, the
best way to disestablish blizzards, to break the winds, to increase the rainfall, to

irrigiitu the Cfuintry, to promote the growth of grass and green crojis, ami to beautify
till- landscape, is to plant trees wherever they are wanted. There can he no doiilit
that the barren and arid character of certain extensive areas of prairie in tlie North-
west 18 owing cliiefly to their treelessness ; for tlie land is not all naturally bad.
Jo iilant an empire with trees sufficient for the purjxjses 1 have indicated is of course
a task of enormous magnitude, easier said than done. The spontaneous efforts oi
individuals cannot be relied upon or expected to perform sucli a tusk, and it should
thi'iefore be taken in hand by Government. As a condition attaching to grants of
land from the public domain, the Government might wisely require, wherever needed,
tlie planting of trees, and would do well to supply the necessary encouragement and
Ru;icrvisiou. The young trees themselves are procurable in limitless numbers in tlie
Canadian forests; and the most suitable and profitable kinds should be supplied U>
Settlers on easy terms. The treelessness of the pi-airies probably is owing to the
fires which for ages have swept the plains in autumn ; yet, on this point, certainty
of opinion is hardly obtainable. Commonly, where rivers are found, there are
belts of trees which the rivers, forming a break, have protected against the
prevailing winds which carry the prairie fires along. Naturo, indeed, would soon
cover the plains with trees, but for one of nature's most destructive agents — fire.
Prevent the fires, if possible, and trees will soon appear; and, indeed, in many parts
of the country, reafforesting will be aided by the cultivation of the land, because
cultivation checks the fires. This, however, will not be enough, for the best sorts of
trees will hardly come by natural means. Yet, after all, the prairie fires — repeated,
for aught we know, annually for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years — have
saved incalculable labour on the part of the North-West farmers. But for these fires
the prairie might for the most part have been covered with a forest, to clear away
which would have involved enormous toil; now tie land is bare, save for dwarf scrub
here and there, and the plough meets with but little obstruction.

EANCHINO.
In the vast district to the south and north of Calgary, and lying in what arc
called the "foothills" of the Eocky Mountains, is found the great vanching country
of C uiada. There are minor ranches elsewhere, but this is where all the great and
most of the smaller ones are located. South of Calgary there is a ranching country
said to contain upwards of four million acres : north of it the area is also very
extensive, though, perhaps, less so than in the south. In the genial company of
Major Milliurne, of Brighton, and Dr. Edmunds, of London, I drove some 200 miles
in this very interesting country, visiting one of the largest of the ranches, which I
shall ])resently describe. The district has considerable altitude, being from tliree to
four thousand feet above the sea level. The town of Calgary, the connnercial and
social metropolis of the ranching country, is situated in a saucer-like hollow, near
the junction of the Bow and Elbow rivers, and is 3,388 feet above the sea. It is the
capital of the province of Alberta, and is reputed to contain the finest shops and the
most wealth of any town of its size in Canada. Its population is said to be 2.000, a
not excessive estimate, I imagine. The town and tin; surromulioj^ fnnitry are not
by any means attractive to the eye, chiefly because of the absence of trees; it is
hilly enough ai'ound to be pretty, but it has a look so cold and bare, so forgotten and
desolate, that I wonder the authorities of the place do not bestir themselves and
plant some trees. An "Arbor Day" would be a fine institution in Calgary. The
town is Well arranged, and fairly well built, but its sanitary arrangements are, I
fancj', susceptible of some improvement. Its water supply is limitless, powerful, and
of the finest quality — cold and clear. To what extent the water is laid on in the

i^m

\ j>ti

"ill 4

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li' i^

■'I

IMS

town I am not a^fare, but its potentialities are equal to any demand. The place is,
of course, supported chiefly by trade with the ranchers, of some of whom it is the
frequent haunt. Not a few well-bred young Englishmen, whose friends suppose they
are leading the sweet, pastoral life of a cowboy, spend a good deal of time in it.
They linger there day after day, always about to go but never going. That their
minds are good to go finds proof enough in the fact that all the while they are in
tlieir "war paint," ready for the saddle. With legs encased in leather, and heads
thatched by wide sombreros, these dilettanti cowboys look picturesque enoug:h for
anything. Well, how can they. help it? — help lounging around the town, I mean?
On a ranch there is little to do in summer, no round-ups, no cutting.out, no
corralling, no branding; and the time is pleasanter killed in Calgary. His "cuyuse".
IS in the livery stable, and he thinks nothing of a canter of 60 miles away to the
" shack " on the ranch. His " pater," no doubt, supplies him with shekels, and so the
time goes merrily on in learning the business of ranching. " These young English,
men," said a shrewd and experienced rancher to me, « are well-spoken and polite.
They can give you some Latin and Greek, but they know nothing about hitching a
horse or making a Are ; they know how to dress. Still, they are willing, as a rule,
to learn their work, and would be more so if they had no allowance from home —
this spoils some of them."

The " Red Deer Country," north of the town some sixty miles, is said to be one
of the best in the province for stock. All the way up to Edmonton, indeed, the
country is, I am assured, a good one for stock farming. Pastures are good, hay is
plentiful, and roots can be grown to any extent. Still is there room for men with
capital in the ranching line, in a country as yet but barely touched. The editor of
the Alberta Live Stock Journal — a very useful paper, printed in the interests of
ranchers— says, •« A few years more will develop the Red Deer Country into one of
the best farming districts we have; "and he speaks highly of it as a country with
plenty of wood, grass, hay, water, and natural shelter. So far north as Edmonton
good crops of wheat are grown, and this is owing to the fact that the isothermal
line runs in a north-westerly direction along the great prairies east of the Rockies,
giving to Edmonton a climate which is not enjoyed all along in the same latitude
It is said that wheat would be a success in the foothill country for a considerable
distance, if only the farmers would plant it in the autumn, so as to give it an early
start in the spring ; the frost, too, I was informed, does not throw the young plant
out on the surface during the winter or in early spring. "Wheat, indeed, is grown
in sheltered and low-lying portions of the foothills, here and there in places. As a
<i;eneral thing, however, wheat will not do for that country, because of the frosts of
summer and early autumn ; oats, too, are precarious for the same reason ; and potatoes
are frequently cut down in summer. Mr. Martin, one of the big ranchers south of
Calgary, informed me that his potatoes were cut down on June 6, and again on
July 7. He fs getting his oats and potatoes from Manitoba. The fact seems to be
that these crops, owing to summer frosts, are altogether too unreliable to be vorth
growing in the ranching country. Mr. Martin hag cowboys, he told me, who cannot
even read, to whom he pays up to $800 or $900 per annum — rather a handsome
salary for illiterat,e men. Surely he has not many of these, perhaps only one or two,
for cowboys earn elsewhere $40 a month, plus bed and board.

"The big ranchers make no money," said a man of experience one day in
Calgary to me ; " they live away, and have too much expense to meet." The small
rancher, living on the spot, and looking after his own stock, can k&ep down
expenses, and do the best in other respects. On the other hand a young English
rancher said, -Not enough money in 2,000 cattle; you want at least 5,000 to do

■UPl

,^1

(any ffood." 'I'liia is from the standpoint of a inrtn accustomed to wealtli from
Iliis joulh, ii nun who goes into ranching as he would into silver mining or
Istock-exchange speculations. But the days of ranch gamhling are over, and tlie
[country wants only plodding men who are practical, and who will make fortunes
j from the miir{,'in, which, under the present system, is only too commonly dissipated
in losses ot c:ittle during winter. The calves, amongst which the losses chieHy
occur, must be looked after in a way which will save them from destruction in the
storms of winter. The losses on some ranches are hahitually ten or fifteen per
cent, more than they ought to he, or would he under a proper system, and herein a
lnuidsonie profit is thrown awa}'. The Montana ranchmen have almost collapsed, I
wss told, a winter of unparalleled severity having followed three dry summersj
the ranches, too, were overstocked, and herein lies a constant peril. The Canadian
ranches have suffered less, chiefly because they were not overstocked ; still were their
los-es revere last winter, varying from 20 per cent, downwards. All this is a
question turning on management chiefly. The losses sustained are not from cold
and starvation only, but also from straying and destruction by coyotes and otlier
carnivora. Cattle require to be fed with hay most winters more or less, sometimes
for weeks together; all depends on the snow, whether it "packs" or not. The
grass has the property of being « self -curing " for winter feeding ; if the snow packs,
the grass is buried ; if it remains loose, the winds blow it off the grass and the
cattle can feed. In all cases it is advisable to "put up" — that is, harvest — all the
liay needed for the worst winter that may come ; if it is not wanted, well and good,
but in any case it should be there. All the same, it is not a good thing to feed the

UANUUING SCENB.

cattle in season and out of season, for they then learn to depend on being fed, and
will not "rustle" for themselves. Cattle in good condition will, if they get food
enough, keep up their flesh all winter; lean cattle are liable to perish. It is
beginning to be thought that the ranches should be fenced, to prevent straying ; this,
no doubt, will come in time, and the ranches will be subdivided. A great thing
with ranch cattle, on the big ranches, is to know when to leave them alone in winter.

'■'V ;

They I: now wliere to go for Hlielter and food, (iiid will po if lei, alone j litit llicy iniic:
be kt-pt out. ol the forest, or they will stay there with backs up and starve.

1 8p(.nt a few most interesting days at Pekisko, the snug little home of JMv,
Stimson — (who in Canada has not heard of or does nut know " Fred Stimson," as lie is
popularly called, one of the most companionablo of men, and a cowl)oy all over !)—
the manager of tlie North-West Cattle Company's great ranch, some sixty to seventy
milfs south of Calgary. Mr Stimson is known as one of the most successful of
ranchers, as he is certainly one of the most experienced. 1 saw there vast herds of
well-bred and well-fed cattle. Hundreds upon hundreds of noble steers there were,
behind which any salesman would be proud to stand in Smithfield or Salford. I was
astonished to find such cattle so fat on nothing but coarse-looking prairie grass; this
grass, however, must certainly be much better than one would think, or it would not
put on beef in the way it does. I noticed wild flax, wild vetch, lupin, and sage
among the grass ; the last named gives a pleasant odour to hay. Anyway, there the
catile are, magniflcunt beasts, and there is the grass they feed on I There are son)e
0,000 cattle on the ranch, which occupies 140,000 acres, and about 400 breeding mares
as well. The great bulk of botli classes of stock are of excellent quality. They run
at huge over this vast territory, and do not confine themselves to their own domain.
A few thousand of somebody else's cattle feeding on one's ranch don't seem to matter
much in Alberta ; but then, one's own cattle return the compliment !

The winds were very bitter and very frequent last winter, hence the unusually
heavy losses in ranch cattle. Ho soon as the cattle went out to feed, the winds drove
them back into the shelter of the bush and the coulees and the hollows among the
hills. There was plenty of grass on the prairie, but the cattle simjily could not stand
out to eat it; and so the weak ones went to the wall. Winters generally, though severe,
are not long. They commence about Christmas, and in March the sun is pow(!rful|and
the grass begins to grow. Spring storms, even through April, are to be expected,
and these play mischief with early calves. Pedigree cattle do not make good
mothers; this quality has been bred out of them. Instinct does not tell them, as it
does the native cattle, the best and moat sheltered spots in which to calve ; they v. ill
commonly go away from their young for several hours at a time ; they are, in fact,
indifferent, not to say poor, nurses, and quite inferior in this respect to Montana
cattle and ranch stock generally ; the young calves, indeed, need shelter and good
nursing, and fashionable, blue blooded mothers in the bovine world, and elsewhere
too it seems, have no instinct worth speaking of in that direction. It is odd how
instincts, even, as well as form and qualities of a physical nature, can be "improved
away " by breeding. The coulees, and the dales among the hills, even the lee-sides
of the hills themselves, form «' land-shelter " of a most valuable kind. It is a dictum
somewhere that land-shelter is the best of all, and by this is meant the lees and
hollows which are under the wind, '•Pilgrim cattle" are those that come in from
distant parts, and have tramped some hundreds of miles; many of these, of 188(!,
perished in the bitter winter of 1886-7. They lose flesh on the tramp, and sometimes
come in too late in the summer or autumn to get it up again before the winter.

The genuine and bond fide cowboy has a good deal of professional pride and even
dignity. His outfit is his own — horse, Mexican saddle, bridle, lasso, " blaniiets," every,
thing he uses— in many instances; and he will sometimes give $30 for a tip-top
sombrero — a broad-brimmed felt hat, the best that can be made, with ornamental trim-
mings. His saddle is very heavy for the horse, though most comfortable for the rider;
the bridle bits are barbarously cruel, though perhaps nothing milder wcu'd hold a
broncho. His duties are hard in the winter, and commoni}' reipiire the exercise of a
good deal of skill and judgment. He is exposed to ail sorts of weather, and he is

r«Hdy at a minute's notice. He ban a good deal of contempt for ** tender-feet,"— men
who show the white-feather in work) and he "looks down on a granger"— «n
ordiuary farmer. He is at home in the pig-skin — not the English "pancake saddle,"
as he calls it, but in the ponderous Mexican Cheyenne ; his skin is tanned by the sun,
the dry and raretied air, and the storms of the year ; he is wiry, indeed, as a wolf, and
br.iver by far, George Lane, the foreman at Fekisko, is a good specimen of his class,
t<pare uf flesh, brown as a cent, and lithe as the horse he rides. A band of wolves
atliicked him one winter's night as he rode home over the rolling foothills of the
llockies; they sprang at his legs and bis horse's throat, and would have made mince
nuat of tlm pair in no time, if they could ha^e dragged them down ; but Ueorge shot
five or six of them with his revolver, and these made food for the rest ; it is a story
you get from his comrades, for you can hardly get the man himself to talk about it
at all.

Mount Head lianch — township 16, range 2, west of 5th meridian — lies to the south
of the Fekisko Ranch, and extends to some 23,000 acres, under a 21 years' lease from
the Dominion Government, at one cent an acre. The North-West Cattle Company
liuve this ranch to dispose of. There are various buildings on it for horses and
cattle, ample accummodation for the men, and a very good loghouse for the manager.
Some of the land is fenced, and the whole of it is admirably suited to ranching or
to dairy farming. There is plenty of shelter — land shelter — on the ranch, plenty
of grasH, plenty of water. I fancy that a " pot of money " could be made on it by a
man of judgment and capital. It will carry 2,600 cattle, and almost any quantity of
liay may be put up for winter. This country of the foothills is very picturesque in
its way, and the snow-clad Rockies shammer in the distant sun — it is all hills and
dales witli sheltered plains among i the lakes, and ponds, and hill-side springs — the
latter never freezing— are numerous; the herbage is of a superior character and
abundant, and the climate is tempered by the genial Chinook winds. There are, in
fact, springs, and streams, and ponds, and lakes all about the place, with dales and
coulees for shelter. The High River is fringed with a strong belt of poplar, willow,
and Cottonwood trees; and among the ducks and prairie chickens the sport8m;:ii finds
plenty for his gun to do.

The " round-up " of the herds is a spectacle worth a long journey to see. Here
the cowboy is in all his glory, arruyed in sombrero, buckskin jacket, and chapprajos,
—the last-named hit outer trousers of leather. The "outfit" for the round-up is a
rather . formidable affair: two or three waggons with tents and blankets, with
cooking stove and provisions for the crowd. Two or more ranches join and camp
together, and each cowboy has several horses for remounts. In the outfit I was
attached to there were over 70 horses, and these were " night-herded " on the prairie
by one of the boys. Our camp was at High River Crossing, on the trail to McLeod.
With the dawn of day next morning each man was astir, First comes breakfast,
and then the horses are lassoed and saddled. Our old friend, George Lane, is in
command, and not an order is given till each man is in the saddle. Two by two the
boys are sent off in different directions, and they scour the country at a gallop,
bringing in the cattle from afar. On the plain the "cutting-out" occurs — ilie
separating of one man's stock from another's; in the adjoining corral the cows and
calves are gathered, and the latter are branded. Within the corral two mounted
cowboys fiing their lassoes round the calves' hind legs, and drag them to the branding
spot. It is all quickly done, with a minimum of pain to the calf. The branding is
done with heated irons, and the mark is permanent — no other kind of marking will
do, and, even as it is, brands are sometimes ineffectual. Each owner has his own
special brand, which it duly registered ; it is also published in papers devoted t«

'i '

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rtnohing int«rMtfl. Eaeh aTening; mm th« pitohing of the camp— 4sach moming uei !
it Rtnick ; and each succeeding day the worli liei in a difTerant part of the country,
Corrali have been built at certain points, and it is there tliat the round-ups take j
place. The cowboys are full of glee on these occasions. Btill, the work is hard, and
each man uses up four or five horses every day But it is an interesting time — tliS j
harvest, so to speak, of the ranchers.

- The number of acres held under grazing leases in the districts of Alberta and j
Agginiboia was 3,793,792, and the total number of stock on them, as reported by the
leflsees up to Slst December, 1886, was as follows, the figures for the preceding year
being givon for comparison :—

IneretM

IBM.

1886.

or
I)«creM«.

Cattle ...

46,936

74,999

+28,063

Horses ...

4,313

6,318

4- 2,005

Sheep ...

9,694

16,431

+ 6,737

Pigs

+ a

Poultry ...

845

679

— 166

" When the stock owned by the settlers is ttiken into consideration, it ia
estimated that there are in the district of Alberta about 90,000 head of cattle,]
and their numbers are said to be rapidly increasing" — [Staiistieal Abitraef],

A steady cowboy soon becomes a rancher himself in a small way. He begini |
by owning a few cattle, which are pastured along with the rest } if he is a good
man, he can practically run-as many as he likes and can get hold of. John Ware,
a massive negro, came in from the States five years ago $100 in debt; he is a cow.
boy still, on wages, but he owns 140 head of stock, valued at $35 per head.
Presently this man will have a ranch of his own, or go into partnership with
somebody, and \ii, is tolerably certain to amass a sum of money. I made Jobn'i j
acquaintance at tl^e round-up, and found him quite a character in his way!

One rancliei, from the Isle of Skye, came out from the old country five years
ago, without W'.rMj, and worked on the railway for a time. He was too poor to
bring out his iHmily. After a time he began ranching in a small way, west of the
Cochrane ranch, buying a few cattle as he made the money to pay for them. Last |
winter he had 100 head, and, looking after them himself, lost only one, and this
down a cleft in the rocks. His family are now with him ; and it is such as he who
will be the ranchers of the future, who will make money by careful management of
stock, and who, having made it, will take care of it. As a matter of fact, the more
we look into farming in Canada, in any or all of its phases, the more we find that
the practical, shrewd, industrious man is he who makes money and who saves it,
A dashing man will make money ; only a thrifty one will take care of it. It goes |
without saying that this man is a plodder.

Hurse ranching will probably pay very ■^ell. The North- West Cattle Company I
have, as I have said, some 400 breeding mares, many of which are calculated to
breed excellent army and carriage horses, and even hunters. Several superior sires
have recently arrived from England, and among them " President GarfieM," a
thick-set, strong-boned Norfolk horse, with capital action. Horses, indeed, are less
trouble than cattle in winter, for they can paw the snow ofiF the grass so much
more effectively. Mr. McPherson, son oi the late General McPherson, who died in
Burmah, has a horse ranch on the High Biver. His companion is Mr. Boss, a
grandson of the famous Wimbledon rifle shot of thirty years ago. We were put up
and hospitably entertained, men and horses too, by these two young ranchers, and
passed the night in their " shack." Now a shack, it is expedient to explain, is a but

Jbuilt. of lORt, having only one Htxiry (the Rround itory), and in fact only one room.
ItIih Hlmc.k of a rancher, who in a bachelor, ii, as may be expected, icarcely a
Imoilel of iieatnem and order. It differs more or lenn, and in various ways,
Ifniin the home of our friend Sfcimson at Pekisko j but then, Mrs. Stimson is
■ there, not only to make the house really charming, but also to dispense genial
land courteous hospitality to her husband's guests. Men indeed are, as a rule,
Ijiiiit about as handy ai elephants in a house, and usually failures. Even
1 where they do it well, it is ludicrous to see them— unless they are Chinamen.
iBcotchmen and Englishmen, in any case, are frauds as housekeepers. In the
Iniitles of those remarkable nations, there is no instinct for domestic neatness,— or
Iwliiit li'tle there is is not worth the name. They make poor Bohemians, indeed,
Idespite the charm there is for man in that pursuit, and our two friends are no
lexception to the rule. All the while, too, there are lots of single young gentle-
I women in England and Scotland who are plucky enough to face colonial life; and
lin point of fact I saw one bright and rosy.cheeked young Englishwoman of that
IcIhhs at friend Stimson's house at Pekisko, who had decided to throw in her lot
I with a rancher close by. Mr. McPherson bought his mares in Oregon, I believe, and
among them are several very superior animals. He, too, has imported welJ-bred
I Knglish sires. He will aim to breed high-class saddle and driving horses.

Bheep ranching i<! being pursued with success, and the land in the foothills —
I some of it, at all events — seems to be well adapted to sheep husbandry. The shepherd
in some cases has his tent along, in Eastern style, never being away from the sheep.
This is done on account of the lynx and the coyote, to which an unprotected sheep
falls an easy prey. It appears to me that something ought to be done on a com-
prehensive scale, under direction and encouragement of the Dominion Government,
ti) promote the destruction and eventual extinction of these and other carnivora,
which prey on sheep and cattle when they can. No doubt the ranchers, who lose
hcav.Uy by the depredations of these brutes, would be only too glad to subscribe
hapdsomeiy to any well-directed crusade against them.

Another enemy of the rancher is fire, which very commonly in the autumn,
I when the grass becomes very dry, destroys a large quantity of the food which should
be available in winter. Fire, indeed, is an agent which is to be dreaded in a ranching
country, for it not only burns the dry grass but the roots as well, and often large
patches of the black soil. The prudent rancher is ou the look out for it, when the
time of the year comes round, and fights it with all the force be can command. A
prairie fire runs along the country in a thin line, burning off the grass pretty quickly
even when the air is still ; when there is brisk wind, the fire proceeds at a rapid rate,
and there is great difficulty in putting it out. One of the most effectual extinguishers
is said to be a raw hide — cow or horse, or anything else that is big enough — which,
with a rope to each end of it, is dragged along the ground, on the line of i-.e, by two
men on horseback. This is a sort of a wet-blanket expedient, no doubt effectual ; but
it is not apparent where the bide should come from just in the nick of time. People
would hardly like to kill a cow or a horse for its hide at the time ; and, indeed, they
would scarcely have time to do so. A prairie badly burnt is sometimes injured for
years as a pasture — that is, when the grass roots are destroyed.

Many young Englishmen go out to Canada knowing nothing whatever of
fanning. Some of them fall into the hands of men who will — so say advertisements —
teach them farming on payment of a moderate premium. This premium is usually
£60 or £70, and it covers bed and board, for which, however, the work done by pupils
is expected to make a return. But these young men would be well advised to keep
their £60 or ^0 in their pocketa and hire tbemselve* out to farmera on wage. In this

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way they will learn better and faiter than when they pay a premium to be tanght, ^
simply because they are expected to work and they know it. Indeed, when they go ;
out to Canada to farm, they must themselves expect to work if they are to do any I
good. On his farm in the Qu'Appelle Yalley, Mr, Blackwood employs two young
Englishmen of this clasfi, and pays them ^160 each per annum — ^just such young
fellows as are fleeced under the premiimi system.

In various parts of the North- West ther* are reserves of land for the Indians,
who, it was hoped, might be taugbt some of the simpler forms of agriculture, I
and so be able to maintain themselves, ai. all events in part, in food. They do not,
however, take kindly to work, nor do they like living in houses or in one place,
"The noble Bed Man" is, with sorrow be it said, doomed to disappear, like the
bufifalo he loved so well In the process of civilisation they will gradually fade away,
though they are being supported by the Dominion Government. The fading away
may perhaps be less in the form of extinction than in that of merging into the
encroaching and prepotent white population ; and, as a matter of fact, there are
already numerous half- and quarter-breeds in the North-West, Good land may be
bought from these people, in the settled districts, at $1^ to $2^ per acre, plui
improvements. They are restless, incapable of plodding work, and their nomadic
instincts overpower every other consideration. The ««herd law" now requires that
cattle shall be kept within limits, and a school tax is in force ; neither of these
regulations do they like, so they will sell out when they can and move away into j
wilder parts of the country. Well, after all, the Bed Man is more curious than
admirable, and he is not one of the " fittest" who are destined to survive.

BEITISH COLUMBIA.

This, to a vast extent, is a province of great mountains, and deep valleys, and
mighty rivers, and magnificent timber, and sublime scenery, and of untold mineral
wealth ! The area of the province is vast, being no less than 841,305 square miles, or
nearly three times that of the United Kingdom. It is nearly twice as large as the
province of Quebec ; and its surface is mostly " set up on edge." To a limited extent
only will it ever become an agricultural province — limited, I mnn, in comparison
with such a province as Manitoba. On the eastern side of it, in the Peace Eiver and the
Kootenay countries, there are coni.'iderabie areas of good agricultural land, I believe,
and there are cultivable portions if country elsewhere, while in the delta of the
Fraser and the Columbia rivers there are considerable areas of alluvial land whose
quality is excellent. All the same, liowever, the actual and potential wealth of the
province lies, and will continue io lie, far more among trees and minerals than
among the products of agriculture. In the Shushwap and Okonagon districts there
are said to be 200,000 acres of land which will ultimately be brought under
cultivation, and a railway will probably run up into the district from the main line
of the Canadian Pacific Bailway at Sicamous narrows. There are, no doubt, in
many of the valleys and on soma of the table lands — as I was assured by men
who knew the country well — tracts of excellent soil which in time will be utilised
for agricultural or pastoral purposes. But for the most part these lands are more or
less covered with a heavy growth of timber, which will take time to remove; and
while there are immense areas of land in the North- West — in Manitoba and Assiniboia,
in Alberta and Saskatchewan — which impose no obstacles to the course of a plough,
the clearing of land in British Columbia, with the object of farming it, will proceed
somewhat slowly. At the same time it must be borne in mind that a heavy growth
of timber is in itself very valuable, and that to realise this will be one of the leading

jbjocts in tlie clearing of land ultimately fit for agricuiuare. The province, indeed,
jliHs been not inaptly termed «• a sea of mountains; " but where there are mountains
there are also valleys, and valleys commonly helong, in a special sense, to the world
){ agriculture.

Until the completion of the Canadian Pacific Eailway, British Columbia was
, terra incognita — shut off by the Rocky Mountains from intercourse with the rest of
Itlie Canadian Dominion. It is now opened out to the tradesman, the tourist, the
kliortsman — so far as accessibility is concerned — out it is still a country not half
explored; a country so extraordinary in its conformation, so fertile in suiiuises, so
IvHst in extent that no one can at present pretend to state what its capabilities are,
[even from an agricultural point of view. But of one of its possessions we may speak
[with confidence, viz., its marvellous scenery, and this is a possession which will not
jiliminish, but rather increase with time! In any case, however, British Columbia
lliiis a most favourable climate, and it possesses natural harbour accommodation un-
I rivalled on the Pacific Coast, whl'" its salmon and other fisheries will be a most im
|p )rtant sc arce of wealth for a 1) time to come. The climate is tempered by the Pacific
loceau and, particularly on the coast, is mild and genial, and free from extremes,
Ito an extent seldom found elsewhere, if indeed found elsewhere at all in the world.

■ Or) the mainland the heat in the deep and sheltered valleys will be considerably
{liigher in summer than it is on the island, and in these portions of the country it
luught to be feasible to raise fine fruit of various kinds. On the islaud of Vancouver,
land in many portions of the coast<line on the mainland, it is known that fruit and

■ vegetables will grow luxuriancl>. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, grapes
I nectarines, strawberries, and so on have an inherent ridaptability to the climate, cr it
I tu tliem ; and the soil in many parts is, I feel sure, just the soil to suit the taste of a
Igardener, Bo far, at all events, as my own observations go, I am free to confess
I my belief that in the future the province will be known — as Ontario now is — as a

,'reat fruit-pvoducing country. It is time, however, now 10 make the trip from

[t^ulgary to the coast.

The railway follows the valley of the Bow River right into the heart of th»j

I Kocky Mountains, disclosing at every turn stretches of magnificent scenery. The

I outline of the Rockies, as seen from the plains, or from anywhere else, is broken and
seriated to an extent which, as we may well think, could not be exceeded. The
valley of the Bow, leading up to the Kicking Horse Pass, widens and narrows, turn
and turn about, as we go along, in a manner which lends yeicy striking variations to
the views of the mountains. Sometimes it is a narrow gorge through which the

[snowy peaks are peering down upon us, so to speak; then it widens out into a
natural amphitheatre of vast dimensions a J of wild and striking boundaries. Tlie

[ i)yramidal and castellated mountains — ^many of which pierce, as it were, the sky —
;ire thrown up in the grandest confusioii, and to an altitude which is almost
l)e\vildering to look at. Not pyramidal and castellated mountains only are there,
liowever, but all shapes and sizes into which enormous geological masses can be
thrown. Not only are the outlines vild and fantastic, but the strata are twisted
and contorted into every imaginable form of which tliey are susceptible. lu tlie'r
cold and awful solemnity these cnow-clad peiiks, the glistening glaciers, the cold
liare rock, the dizzy gorges, the rushing torrents, fill the mind with a sense of
ilazed fatigue. J. have repeatedly heard it said that no tongue, or pen, or pencil can
convey an adequate idea of the sublimity of the mountain scenery in the province of
lii'ili«h Columbia; I endorse the declaration, I have also heard, on more than one
occasion, the confession that man really feels how little and insignificant he is in
scenes like these ; this, too, 1 endorse. Here, indeed, it must have been that Natura

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left off making a world, with no end of materials to spare— material! thrown
together in vast heaps and in the wildest confusion. If a man wants to see how
prodigal the geologic ages can be in this sort of thing lee him go to the Bockies,
or, better still, to the Selkirks I And what, indeed, do not these mountains oontain P

The National Park at Banff is on the line of the Canadian Pacific Bailway, on
the eastern slope of the Bockies. The following paragraph is copied from an official
publication : —

"National PAEK,?\NfF. — A large tract of land enclosing the hot mineral springs
at Banff, N.W.T., was reserved and set apart as a National Park, under an Order in
Council passed 25th November, 1885. The reservation has been surveyed and plans
made for the construction of roads and bridges, while the grounds are being laid
jut under a Government superintendent. Numerous applications have been made
for the purchase and lease of building lots and sites, and several hotels have already
been erected. The hot springs, the use of which is subject to Government regulations,
have been found to possess most remarkable curative and sanitary qualities, and it
is believed that this park is likely to become before long the most successful health
re-sort on the continent. Over fifty persons spent the last winter there for the
bHnefit of their health. Four othe- park reseivati jns have been made in the Eocky
Mountains, under an Order in Counoil passed 10th October, 1886."

In the pass through which the railway surmounts this stupandous range of
mountains there are two streams, almost from one source; ono of them finds its
way into Hudson's Bay, and the other into the Pacific Ocean. The Bockies, indeed,
are the great water-parting of, at all events, the Canadian half of the great American
continent. The highest point touched by the railway is at Stephen, which is about
100 feet more than a vertical mile above the level of tha ocean. Near to is Mount
(Stephen, named, like the station, after the President of the Canadian Pacific
Company — a peak of vast height and size, whose summit is said to be 8,240 feet, or
more tlian a mile-and-a-half above the railway track. At Stephen we are met by
"Jumbo," a huge locomotive monster, weighing 112 tons, who is sent to escort us
down tlie western slope, and whose arm we metaphorically take until we are well
down in the valley below. And thit Jumbo is a terri>ile fellow to push, either
backward or forward--the one going down and the other going up this western slope
of the Bockies. The grat'e is said n places to be 4| per cent., but Jumbo thinks
nothing of that I When he puts h-s shoulder to the wheel, as one may fairly say,
something has got to move along the track I

Grand as the Bockies are, however, the Selkirks are grander still ! I give this as
an opinion, in the holding of which I am not at all solitary. The rear end of a
Pullman car, out on the platform, is the most effective way possible of seeing the
niounUin scenery. In no other way is the sublimity of those vast solitudes to be so
impressively perceived First, because, by way of contrast, a railway train is a mere
worm pursuing its sinuous course; and, second, because successive scenes come
quickly into sight, and are ever changing as in a veritable panorama. " But the
llockies and Selkirks j/row upon you," people say sometimes, " when you remain in
one spot for hours at a time." True enough this, no doubt, but we don't want them
to grow; they are quite sufficiently overwhelming as it is! All the same, there are
spots where I should like to remain, not hours but days at a time !

The chief spot among them ah is the station called the "Glacier House," iust a
milts or two west of the summit of the Selkirks. At this point the scenery is superbly
grand, whichever May we turn. A very pretty Swiss cli&let has been built for the
accommodation of passengers and guests, and the grounds around it are being laid
out in a very tasteful maui.er, so that anyone may stay thero for a week y«ry

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delightfully. Behind the ch&let, less than a mile awa}', and not many hundred feet
above its level, crawls the biggest of the Selkirk glaciers , it is a very thick and wide
ice-river, and the foot of it, in the clear mountain air, seems almost within a stone's

MOUNT STBFHXN, MBAB THX BUHUIT OF TUX KOOKIBB.

throw. In front of it is a vast valley full of splendid pines, and on either side of it
prodigious mountains. Here the line runs round a double loop, a gigantic letter "8,"
with its ends extended ; and the letter leans against the side of the mountain,

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■ forming a sinuous path by means of which the train climbs down into the valley,
|iiiany hundreds of feet below the chalet. The train travels nearly seven miles in
loii'er to advance two and a half 5 but it has got down in this way into tlie valley
where it can go straight ahead. To go round these loops on lofty trestle bridges, to
•slb tiie foaming torrent hissing down below, to crane one's neck in order to catch the
■uiiuiits of the mountains, to hear the roar of the train, to feel the grip of the breaks
' lii^litening on the wheels — to do these things all in the space of a very few minutes
s, 1 submit, something in the nature of a sensation. This is in the gorge of the
lllicilliwaet, a mountain stream fed by the glacier, whose pea-green mud colours the
water for some miles below. Later on the Columbia River is crossed, and we skirt
t hi: i^reat Shushwap Laive, following its sinuous banks for half a hundred miles, and
•<) Oil to the Thompson River, down which we run until we strike the Fraser, which
is i he chief water channel of the province. The scenery down the Fraser Valley, for
A long distance, is very fine, the banks being for the most part very lofty, bold, and
|)iecipitous. The Fraser, indeed, has cut its way through a province of rock, and its
( reamy waters tell that it is still «' on thecut." The engineering probleir'.s to be solved
in tliis region were large and numerous, and one wonders how it was a line came to be
liuilt tluough such a country. On the equally precipitous banks on the other side of
tiie river we see, however, the old "Cariboo" wagon road that was built by the
Government many years ago j and the sight of this unique piece of macadam, fit
i>nly for rabbits and goats as it seems, points to the fact that it was this route or
none in the south of the province. We call at North Bend, where is another of
the very pretty Swiss chalets, whose dining-room is uncommonly tasteful in decora-
Mon and arrangement; at Yale, beautifully situated at the head of the niivigabie
portion of the Fraser; at Harrison, famous already for its hot medicinal springs; at
Iliimniond, where the handsomest farm in the world is seen, surrounded by lofty,
snow-capped mountains, and sheltered from eveiy wind that is not vertical ; and
aw.ty We go, by the New Westminster Junction, past Port Moody, which was at first
tlie western terminus of the Canadian Facifie Railway, and on to Vancouver, th^
most wonderful city on the American continent — which is saying a good deal.

THK CITY OF VANCOUVEft

Three years ago the primeval forest covered the peninsula on which the city of
Vancouver stanas to-day \ And it is primeval forest down there — something worth
the name of i'orest ! For five hundred miles the line runs through a forest whose
trees keep getting bigger as the coast is approached. All things considered, I am
not clear that I did not admire the trees most of all, and I was cei'tainly saddened
to see thousands of acres of them that had been wantonly or carelessly destroyed by
fire. These tre'^s, indeed, are marvellous. The Douglas Kne is the king of the
forest, and is seen in all its majesty from Yale to Vancouver. We may write
accounts of this tree, of i(s habits, its size, its perfect straightness, and men may
read them, but no one can properly realise what the trees are like unless he sees
them. The following is a perfectly fair account of them, copied from an illustrated
ijuide to British Columbia : —

" Douijlai Spruce (otherwise called ' Douglas Fir,' • Douglas Pine,' and, com-
mercially, 'Oregon Pine'). — A well known-tree. It is straight, tuough coarse-
^'rained, exceedingly tough, rigid, and bears great transverse strain. For lumber of
ill sizes, and planks, it is in great demand. Few woods equal it for frames, bridges,
ties, and strong Avork generally, and for shipbuilding. Its length, straightness, and
strength especially fit it for masts and spars. Masts, specially ordered, have been
s'.iipped 130 feet long and 42 inches in diameter, octagonally hewn. For butter

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anu other boxes, that require to be sweet and odourless, it is Tery useful. There is I
a large export of the Douglas spruce to Australia, South America, Ohina, etc,
Wuodmen distinguish this species into two kinds — red and yellow — but these are
not separated in manufacture or in scientific nomenclature. The one has a red,
liiird, knotty heart ; the other is less hard, and with a feeble tinge of yellow — the
hitter is supposed to be somewhat less lasting, though both are very durable. The
Douglas spruce grows best near the coast, close to the waters of the bays and inlets.
There it frequently exceeds eight feet in diameter, at a considerable height, and
reaches 200 to 250 feet in length, forming prodigious, dark forests. Abounds on
mainland coast, as far north as about the north end of Yancouver Island ; also in
Vancouver Island, but not on Queen Charlotte Island. In the arid southern
interior of the province, grows on the higher uplands, and here and there in
groves, on low lauds, where the temperature, rainfall, etc., are suitable. Occurs
abundantly on the Columbia, and is scattered irregularly in northern portions of
the interior."

Well, it was of such trees as these that the site of Vancouver had a mighty
covering three short years ago. They grow much nearer together than anyone would
think, considering the height of them — so near that they mingle their boughs a
little, and the boughs are very short. And in addi Jon to these vast flora of the
pine spbcies, there is a thick undergrowth, consisting of various kinds of trees and
scrub, so thick indeed that it would be with great ditticulty that a man could
.' )rce Ills way through it. To clear the land therefore of its trees and scrub was no
little task ; it was done, however, and a town was built, only to be burnt down and
rebuilt in the time I have named. Miles of streets are laid out, sidewalks planked,
sewers put in, and so on ; and a large number of stone and brick buildings, as well
as a still larger number of wooden ones, have been erected. The Canadian Pacific
Eailway is putting up a very fine hotel, and laying out a large sum in workshops, a
" round-house," and other • rks, for the good of the line. Meantime the primeval
forest is left around the point from English Bay, and a drive is being cut through
it ill places and along by the coast. This part will be retained as a park and
pleasure-ground for the town. Extensive wharves line the shore alongside the
railway, and the whole place is a marked instance of rapid progress. Months ago it
had a population of 5,000, but it is growing daily, °,nd the population of to-day can
only be spoken of as one that will be exceeded by that of to-morrow I Vancouver
is therefore a town which will soon be a city ; it is not only the western terminal
point of the longest railway in the world, but it is the port of departure for Japan
and China, and for many places on the Pacific Coast Its situation is uncommonly
fine, on a magnificent harbour, with stupendous snow-capped mountains partly
surrounding it. In the heat of summer these snowy peaks will please the eye,
forming as they do a striking contrast to the dark pine forests below; and the
inland winds, sweeping down from the snow, will bring some relief in the " dog-
days," if any such thort^ be on the Pacific Coast. The Indian paddles his own canoe
on the waters of the bay, and be fishes to his heart's content; all the way down
the Eraser we find his platforms hanging from the rocks, and his salmon, split into
halves, hang drying in the air. Tiie " Heathen Chinee " is there in force, doing all
sorts of work — clearing forest, chopping cordwood for the engines, side-dressing
the road, cradling for gold-dust on the banks of the great rivers, and so on. He will
turn his hand to anything that has dollars in it. In Victoria he is laundryman,
cook, household servant — anything and everything that's useful and earns money.

The vast forests of British Columbia contain an enormous wealth of timber,
which is only now just starting on the road to realisation. If need be, they could

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(iiiiber the world for a lung time to cuuie. That the lumber trade will be foHtered

a III il.'vcloped, by tho Canadian Paciflc Eailwa.y, fijoes without sayinjr, for the new

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the lumber is wanted. The potentialities of this trade are hardly calculable ; in any
case they are vast, and, for a long period ahead, practically limitless. From the
Hookies, and the eastern slopes of the Selkirks, the great North-West prairie country
will be able to procure all the timber it will need for building, fencing, and ao on;
while from the Pacific slope, from the vast regions which are drained by the Fraser,
the Columbia, and the Mackenzie, the demands of the Western people may be
supplied perhaps for all time to come. There are, of course, only two means of
utilising these vast forests — rivers and railways — but these will be found equal to any
demands made upon them. Golncidently with the development of the timber
industry, mining and agriculture will proceed ; indeed, it may he said, that mining
will go ahead of lumbering in the more remote and less accessible diotrlcts; but in
any case these three great industries will accompany, or quickly follow, each other
into every portion of the province which lends encouragement to each and all
of them.

THE ISLAND OP YANOOUVEB.

A very pleasant steam-boat ride of eighty miles or so, through an archipelago of
islands, brings us to the Island of Vancouver, and to Victoria, the capital of the
province. The city of Victoria has a delightful situation in a beautiful harbour on
the southern end of the island, and boasts a population of 20,000. Away to the west
is the Olympian range of mountains in Washington Territory, snow-clad and
impiessively vast, from which the island is separated by the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
No doubt \the western breezes, sweeping over the mountains, temper the heat of
summer ; while, on the other hand, the warm breezes of the Pacific make the winter
mild. Originally the city of Victoria was merely a stockaded fort of the Hudt<ou's
Bay Company. Its climate is salubrious, in witness whereof I cite the rosy cheeks of
the people; its situation is charming, and its streets are well built; the country
surrounding it is quite picturesque, and roads have been made in many directions.
At Esquimau, some two miles from Victoria, and long the headquarters of the
Northern Pacific squadron, a very fine and large dry dock has recently been built.
The masonry of the dock is massive and substantial to a degree not easily surpassed
in any country; and powerful engines pump the water out of it when a ship's
bottom requires examination or repair. There are extensive coal deposits on the
island, a portion of which are being largely worked at Nanaimo, and the coal, whose
quality is superior, has a brisk demand in San Francisco.

So far as I have seen the neighbourhood, there is not much good agricultural
land around Victoria, The province at large, indeed, is, as I am led to understand,
not possessed of a very large proportion of such land. In some p&rts of the country
there are tracts of bare soil suitable for farming, but as a rule the best land is low-
lying, chiefly in the valleys and in the delta of the rivers, and for the most part
more or less covered with timber. There is room for a limited though considerable
number of settlers, and it seems to me that gardeners might make money in raising
vegetables and small fruit for the Victoria market, which at present is chiefly
supplied from California. Where the land wants clearing the timber, much of
which is very fine, will go toward paying the. cost ; where there is mere scrub upon
it, it may be bottght for $1 per acre ; but it will cost $60 or $70 to clear it where the
work is paid for and men are hired to do it. A settler may easily grow vegetables
for himself, and catch all the fish he wants ; e can run a cow in the woods, and
make money by labour ; gradually he may clear one acre after another, and in this
manner carve out and stock his farm, living all the time in a genial climate. Wages,
indeed, are high in and around Victoria. Farm labourers earn $40 per month, all

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the year roand, or Joit aboat ^100 per annum. Qardenen earn $2| per day all
the year round. Artisans earr. $2^ to $5 per day. And as for female servants-
well, there are so few that wage^^ cannot well be quoted, and domestic work is usually
performed by Chinamen. I ha<l the pleasure of spending a day or two with my old
friend and schoolfellow, Judge Johnson, in Victoria, and his domestic work, cooking,
waiting at table, and so on, is performed by a clean, neat, and handy Chinaman.

The piscatorial wealth of Vancouver Island, and of the coast of the mainland
generally, as well as of the many islands adjacent to it, is extraordinary in volume,
and inexhaustible. This region appears to me to offer a congenial home to the
Scottish crofters, for example, who could combine fishing with agriculture, and so
continue in the New V^o.id the pursuits to which they have been accustomed in the
Old. Here, indeed, they would find better homes, a much finer climate, and the
prosperous contentment which they look for in vain on the west coast of Scotland.

I had the privilege of an interview with the Hon. John Bobson, Provincial
Secretary and Minister of Mines. At his suggestion, I addressed a letter to him
embodying questions 1p which answers from him would, as I deemed, be useful and
valuable to intending emigrants. Subjoined is the letter received by me in reply :—

'• Victoria, B.C., 20th September, 1887.

"Dear Sir,.— Replying to your letter of the 9th inst., I shall endeavour to
answer your questions as concisely as possible :—

"1. Although, on account of its broken and mountainous character and climatic
conditions, this will, perhaps, never be entitled to claim high rank as an agricultural
province in the sense of becoming a large exporter of food products; yet, it has the
capacity to sustain a large home population. In food, fish, and fruit it certainly
possesses great possibilities, and will, doubtless, become a large exporter.

" 2. The class of emigrants from the old country most likely to succeed here are
sober, industrious, small farmers in the prime of life, or with stoat growing sons,
able and willing to undertake the rougher farm work of a new country, and who
would not shrink from the hardships and privations incident thereto. But even these
should not land here with less than would carry them through the first year without
any return for their labour.

" o. The Provincial Ctovemment will be prepared to provide such emigrants
with experienced guides to assist them in finding suitable locations, and granting
each male of 18 years of age and upwards an absolute and indefeasible title to 160
acres of agricultural land, if west of the Cascade Mountains, or 320 acres if east of
that range, upon performance of pre-emption duties (vide Land Act) and payment of
one dollar (four shillings) per acre in four annual instalments of twenty.five cents
each ; but the first of such payments shall not be due until two years after the date
of the record of the pre-emption. Free or partly free grants of smaller areas are
made in special cases.

" 4. Begai-ding educational matters it may be said, generally, that the school-
master follows close upon the heels of the settler. Practically the Government places
a good free common-school education witb'.i the easy reach of every child. To be
more specific : a school is established wherever there are fifteen children of school
age (6 to 16 inclusive) within three miles of a common centre ; the entire cost of
which — ^buildings and appurtenances, teachers' salary, and incidental expenses, Ac-
is defrayed by the Government, so that a good common-school education is absolutely
free to every pupil, i Free High Schools are also established and maintained in the
principal centres of population.

" 5. The Government make all leading roads to and in every settlement. As a

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matter of fact, abont one-fonrth of the entire public rerenne ie annually deToted to
the work of making reads and bridgen, and, speaking generally, it can be truth,
fully asserted that no settlement is beyond the sound of the Oovernment road-
maker's axe.

" 6. As to what crops are likely to pay best, that is so largely dependent upon
locality and other conditions that anything like a satisfactory answer is difflcult, if
not impossible. If the market be a mining or lumbering camp, all food products
pay well ; if a town, the same is more or less true ; if to be transported to a distant
market, cereals ; if to Manitoba or che North- West, fruit.

•< 7. In a new country like this, where every man can easily acquire a homestead,
the class commonly designated < agricultural labourers ' prefer, as a rule, to work
their own farms { but there is always a fair demand for hired help on the larger
farms. Female servants are very much wanted, and can readily command from ten
to fifteen dollars a month, and even more, according to experience and ability.
Good, well-behaved girls would experience no difficulty in obtaining places.

<* 8. The influx of artisans from the older provinces of Canada since the opening
of the Canadian Pacific Bailway has been such as to supply all ordinary demands.
Perhaps in the line of bricklaying the supply is inadequate.

"I forward some printed matter, descriptive of this province and its resources,
which you may find of use.

" I remain, dear Sir,
I «• Faithfully yours,

"JNO. BOBSON,
«' Professor J. P. Bhildon, , " Provineidl Secretary."

•< Sheen, Ashbourne, Derbyshire."

Here are the prices of certain things in Victoria, as published in the Daily News
Advertiser of September S, in the current year : —

GENEBAL LOOAL PBICES OUBBENT.
Provisions.
Flour — Manitoba roller patent, per bhl., ^6.00; strong bakers', $5.00; Graham
flour, 4 to 6 cents per lb.; com meal, 6 cents per lb.; buckwheat flour, 5 cents per
lb. ; cracked wheat, 6 cents per lb. ; oatmeal, 6 cents ; Capitol Mills, 6^ ; rice,
Japanese, 8 cents; China, 5 cents per lb. Dried Fruit — California pears, 16 to 20
cents; pitted plums, 15 to 18 cents; peaches, 16 to 20 cents ; apricots, 12^ to 20 cents;
prunes, 10 and 16 cents; evaporated apples, 20 cents. Lard — Fairbanks, 101b. pails,
$1.40 to $1.50; 6 lb. pails, 70 to 75 cents; 3 lb. pails, 60 cents. Hams— sugar-cured,
18 cents. Uacon — 13 to 18 cents. Pork— clear, pickled, 16 cents. Tea — 26 cents to $1
per lb. Coffee — 25 to 85 cents per lb Sugar — granulated, per lb. 8 to 9 cents ; yellow,
8 cents ; dark brown, 7 to 8 cents ; loaf sugar, 12^ cents. Syrup— golden, $ 1 per gal. ;
molasses, per gal., 60 to 75 cents. Potatoes — per lb., 1^ to 1^ cents. Eggs— per dozen,
26 to 90 cents. Butter — 25 to 36 cents. Cheese — 20 to 25 cants per lb. Goal oil — $3.50
per case. Onions — new, 4 cents per lb.

Fruits — Foreign and Donestie.
Bananas, 50 cents per dozen ; cherries, 26 cents per lb. ; lemons, 30 to 50 cents
per dozen; plums, 15 cents per lb.; green apples, 10 cents per lb.; pears, 10 cents;
peaches, 16 cents per lb.; grapes, 20 to 25 cents per lb.

Oams,
Wild ducks, 76 cents per pair; grouse, 80 cents per brace | venison, 12^ cents
per lb.

lependent npon
r is difflcult, if
1 ^ood productii
ted to a distant

V • ».• *i V»g$tabl«t. : *

Cabbage, 8 cents per lb.| green peai (in shell) 8 cents per lb.; tomatoes, 10
cents per lb.; raddishes, 26 cents per dozen bunches; green onions, 25 cents per
dozen bunches ; asparagus, 6 cents per bunch ; lettuce, 25 cents per dozen ; cauliflower
15 ceuts per head; garlic, 25 cents per lb.; Ghili peppers, 25 cents par lb.; new
potatoes, ]^ cents per lb.; lummer squash, 10 cents per lb.

Meaii.
Steak— Porter House, 16 to 18 cents; shoulder, 10 cents. Roast— rib roast, shoulder
roast, 12^ to 15 cents. Mutton— 10 to 18 cents. Lamb— $1.25 to $1.60 per quarter.
Fork — chops and roasts, 16 cents. Yeal— 12| to 90 cents. Sausage— 15 cents. Oomed
Beef— 8 to 10 cents. Sides — 8 cents.

ai Secretary."
the Daily News

6.00; Graham
ir, 5 cents per
ill", 5^; rice,
lears, 15 to 20
2* to 20 cents;
", 101b, pails,
-sugar-cured,
25 cents to $1
ents; yellow,
'.$1 per gal. J
1— per dozen,
»1 oil— $3.60

to 50 cents
>ra, 10 cents;

a. 12^ cents

THE MANITOBA AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILROAD.

On my return from the Facifle Coast, I went np the Manitoba and North-Western
Railroad to its present western terminus at Langenburg, in Assiniboia, calling at
various places, and driving about among the settlers. It« eastern terminus is at
Fortage-la-Prairie, from which place it runs, as its name indicates, in a north-
westerly direction, and it taps a very extensive and favourable farming country.
The station-houses along the Una are uncommonly neat and trim, much after the
pattern of the Canadian Pacific Railway stations in the North- West. The Company
have put up, at different points, ten warehouses for the convenience of farmers in
storing grain. At other points the farmers are building warehouses of their own,
and are leasing those built by the Company. Stockyards for the loading of cattle,
&c,, on the cars, are also provided at all the stations where they are needed. The
country through which the line runr, is, as a rule, well wooded, and water abounds
in many places. Away to the north is a vast stretch of elevated country called the
Biding Mountain, heavily timbered, and forming an excellent shelter to a very large
area of farming land. The Company has a great quantity of land for sale, all the
way along, on either side of the line. These lands have been examined by competent
men, and reports can be obtained from Mr. A. F. Eder . :n Winnipeg, describing the
soil and what there is upon it. Diagrams of each seu. v. .i, or square mile, 640 acres
in extent, may also be obtained, and these show the form and location of every lake,
pond, creek, and river, with probable depth of them, and also every swamp, marsh,
meadow, bluff, hill or valley, timber, scrab, and bare prairie. The price of these
lands is regulated by location and quality of soil, and will run from $2^ upwards
per acre. If a purchaser pays down the whole of the purchase^money, a discount
will be allowed; or he may pay one-sixth in cash, and the rest in five yearly
instalments, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum. Special and
favourable terms are allowed to actual settlers — on condition of residence, building,
and cultivation— enabling them to pay for the land wholly out of the produce of the
soil. The lakes abound with wild duck; there are also geese, prairie chickens
(which are a species of grouse), partridges, snipe, plover, Ac. ; and in the forests,
moose, elk, deer, and a yariety of the smaller fur-bearing animals, while the lakes
and rivers contain plenty of fish. So fast as the settlement of the country goes on
and the population of a given district is sufiBcient for the purpose, municipalities are
formed, in each of which a reeve and council are annually elected to take charge of
roads and other matters of a local nature. Towns and villages are springing up
along the line, and settlers' hoasei are dotted all about the landscape. Still, the
country is sparsely inhabited at prosent, and there is room for thousands, and even

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tnillioni, on eitlier lide of the road, M it' ii and it to b«, away to th« North
Saskatchewan River.

For a distance of upwards of 80 miles the line, on leaving Furtage-la-Prairie,
runs through a very fine >/heat.producing country, a portion, of course, of the
district I have spoken ahout already. The town of Oladstone, 35 miles up the road,
is one that went a-head too fast during the "boom," and is now recovering from the
effects of its impetuosity. It is a straggling town at present, but has a future in
store. A few miles away to the north-east is a hay marsh, extending to upwards of
50,000 acres, on which vast quantities of excellent winter forage may be cut, and
thousands of cattle grazed in summer. At prewnt, however, its vast gramineous
capabilities are only utilised to a small extent. This locality ought to become great
for cattle ; it is already great for wheat. Mr. Burpee, whose farm lies l)etween the
town and the marsh, will market from 8,000 to 10,000 bushels of wheat of this year's
crop; he has over 200 acres in wheat, 170 of which are ii ''ne undivided block. A
steam thrasher was at work in the field as we drove by, a rought away a sample

of the wheat. The town is prettily situated on the Mud Greek, and is

surrounded by belts of trees.

The smart little market town of Neepawa is twenty-six miles farther up the
track, and in the midst of a fine wheat-growing country. The name is of Indian
origin, pretty enough, as so many Indian names of places are, and it signifies " a land
of plenty ; " the interpretation might also be reversed into " plenty of land," and each
meaning be perfectly correct. It is sheltered by the Biding Mountain, and is free
from early frosts, save where the land lies low in the sloughs. The timber in the
mountain is being carelessly and recklessly destroyed by forest fires, and this is
lowering the water in the creeks during summer and autumn. Vigorous steps ought
to be taken to prevent the recurrence of these forest fires, for the district is becoming
destitute of surface water, and the trees will be wanted some day ; very good water
can, however, be obtained by digging wells of ten to twenty feet deep. I saw " a deal"
in wheat at the station : — A farmer drove in a waggon-load ef sacks, direct from the
thrasher on the prairie, standing on the load. Fulling up at the crossing, the waggon was
instantly boarded by three buyers, who proceeded to sample the grain. "How much have
you got to send in P " said one of them. *' A thousand bushels," was tha reply. " I'll
give fifty-two cents," said the first speaker. '• Fifty-three," said another of the buyers.
" Fifty-three and a half," said the first. " I'll give fifty-four," said the third. «' Any-
body give more F " said the farmer; and as there was no advance the last man got the
thousand bushels. The load was then taken to the side of a railway car, weighed, and
emptied out of the sacks, and away went the farmer for load number two. Before
the line came along, these farmers had practically no market for their products, and
could make no money; now tLvy are doing well. We drove out some ten or a dozen
miles, to a place called Eden, and lunched on bread-and-butter, with milk to drink,
at one of the farm houses, daring which our horses ate a feed of oats off the ground
and quenched their thirst with water drawn from the well. This was on the 29th of
September, a beautiful day, my thermometer registering 82° in the shade; on the
following day it stood at 98° in the sun. These hot days, late on in the season, com-
bined with a very dry atmosphere, enable the farmers to thrash out their grain soon
after it is cat, and the grain is hard and dry enough to store in bulk. The heat,
though considerable, was not oppressive, but rather agreeable, whereas in an English
atmosphere at the same temperature one should have felt, to say the least, uncom-
fortable. The question turns on the degree of humidity in the air; and, indeed, it
is the dry air of the North- West which renders tolerable and even pleasant the
intense cold of winter ; a damp air conducts away the heat of one's body, while a dry
air, acting as an insulator, enables one to r«>taiu iU

to the North

MINNED08A,

The town of MiniiMlosft, now incorporated, and )iavin||; from 800 to 1,000
iiili!il)itrtntg, is vtry snugly situated ontlm Little Saskaichewan Jtiver, and sheltered
i.y liit;h hills well wooiled. In location it is a reduced edition of Calgary, but with
SI ry different surroundings. It is equally well adapted for mixed husbandry or for
I'liiin-raisiiig, and the country around offers inducements to settlers. \t is the most
important town north-west of I'ortage, from which it is seventy-nine miles distant,
.iiiii is the market for a large extent of country. Its relative imi)ortance will
I lobithly remain as u poHseBsicm, for it has advantages which will cause it to go on
jirospering coincidently with the filling up of the country around A small cheese.
Uctory is in operation ; and stock-breeding is an important industry around. We
t.ink a lon>^ drive, behind a fine span of tri'^y which my friend Major Milburne drove
Willi niucii delight, into what is known :' i he "Olanwilliam" country, calling at farms
on the way. This district is one of excellent land, and farmers have every appear-
mice of prosperity. Mr. Jackson of Hose Bank, a prosperous young bachelor, at
whose call 1 was not surijrised to find female help available during the busy time
of harvest, is one of the most pushing farmers I saw in the whole North- West. His
hii.d is well farmed, and his crops were heavy and well harvested. lie had 76 acres
nf wheat that he believed would average at least 40 bushels per acre ; 30 of oats, up to
i;5 husliels; and 20 of barley, up to 40 bushels; while on land in second crop and
wiiiiout manure he had a crop of grand potatoes, which he estimated at 400 bushels
\)tv acre. These potatoes — just put in roughly, never hoed, simply having the
|)loiit,'h run down the rows a time or two, and " nothing done to coax them along," as
Mr. Jackson expressed it^were smooth, clear-skinned, and of a size seldom seen in
i;iif,'land. [From a report received since the foregoing was written, I gather that Mr.
■lai kson has finished his thrashing, and that his wheat averaged 45^ bushels, oats 80
inisliels, and barley 60 bushels per acre. From 130 acres he had 7,0U0 bushels of grain,
01' an average of 53 bushels all round.]

]\tr. Frazer farms 1,200 acres, and had 60 head of well-bred shorthorns, some
ixcellent horses, and a number of well-bred Berkshire pigs. At this place 1
saw two extraordinary roots of oats, grown accidentally in the garden; each root
was evi<lently from one grain, and the "tillering out" was the most extraordinary I
liive ever seen. The straw was fully five feet high, and strong as river reeds ; and
ill the two roots there were no fewer than 157 stalks, most of which were very
lii'avily headed with grain. I saw a fine farm not far away, eight miles from the
town — there was a large and good new house upon it, and some outbuildings that
IK LiLd lestoration — it was 320 acres in extent, and was on sale for $1,850, or about
t;;S70. Now it seems to me that an old country farmer with, say, £600 or £700, and a
glowing family, would do uncommonly well on such a farm as this, with ordinal^
1)1 udence and thrift, and with less toil than in England.

From an observant and intelligent friend, long settled in the country, I have
iccelved a letter from which I make tbe following quotation :— -

"The early immigrants who settled on land in this country — the best land,
remember — came chiefly from the counties of Bruce and Huron in Ontario. These
were considered by the English immigrants coming in later as very rough people,
and a social barrier, so to speak, sprang up between them. For the ultimate failure
of many English settlers this isolation is responsible, since they refused to imitate
their Canadian neighbours in the tilling of the soil, and in the treatment of stock,
and ])articularly in the economical arrangement of the kitchen. Another class of
farmer, more or less a failure here, may be designated the ' all-eggs-in-one-basket

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fitiiner,' truatiii!^ entirely to wheat-growing and ignoring atock o( all kinds. This
cliiss of farming ran liigh from 78 to '&j ; it is now fast disappearing, and farmers
are adopting tlie hundred-aud.oua chances of mixed farming. The present price of
land is f ro;»i $4 to $8 per acre Land in this country is much of the same quality —
very rich — the difference of value lying in improvements, location, and twe presence
of water and timber. Good water can be had anywhere for thb digging, and in many
districts running streams of pure spring water exist, pai'ticularly in the eastern
rilling of tilt county. At present this is the English settlers' choice, and I am glad it
is so, .or it is comparatively free from the damaging frosts of August. Large and
small game and fi^ll are here, and it cannot be excelled for stock. Settlers have the
choice of two markets, Minnedosa and Neepawa."

In respect of cheese-making, Mr. A. Malcolm, of Minnedosa, writes as follows to
the Minriednsa Tribune: — «'Oiirs is a private dairy of 36 cows. From these we make
aiiont 90 Us. of cheese daily. The factory building is about 16 x 20 ; it contains two
130-gallon vats, four screw i^resses, curd sink, milk, &c. A spring of cold water
runs throut(li the factory and supplies the vats with plenty of pure cold water for
(Mjoliiig the milk ; thus we have no trouble in keeping the milk perfectly sweet
flit 18 lioHis in the hottest weather. The curing room is a separate building, being
aliout the same dinien;uons as the other. I commenced to make about the 1st of
April. TIk! product of April and May were sold at 12 cents per lb; June, 10 cents.
U]) to within the last two weeks the weather has been very favourable, both for
the production and quality of fine cheese, bat since then we have had more or less
trouble with tloating curds. The true cause of this trouble has as yet not been
ascertained by scientists, but it is generally attributed to atmospheric causes,
swampy grasses, bad water, over heated cows, etc. Fortunately, Professor S. M.
liano, recently appointed by our local government for the purpose of giving
instruction in both butter- and cheese-making, arrived here just as trouble
ounimenced, and through bis experience and skill we succeeded in getting over
the tr' ible remarkably well; so that now, even with a porous or floating curd,
we can by his method make a fine cheese suitable for any market. The time is
close at hand when we will have to Ink to a foreign market for our surplus; and
too much pains cannot be taken to .^nd abroad the finest articles in the start.
The first 1 -,w shipments will, to a iarge extent, fix the reputation of Manitoba
cheese for some time; therefore tae action of the local government in securing
the services of such an expert as Professor Barrd cannot be too highly recom-
mended."

Tainted milk and floating curds have been a trouble since the start of the
sy> m n American factory cheese-making, and they are not entirely unknown in
Knglish factories. They are the result and evidence of the presence of a ferment
of some kind in the milk; the torment may have existed in water which the cows
drink, or in the food they eat, or it may have been absorbed by the railk from the
air, or from contact with unciean vessels in which it has accumulated. The best
way to deal with it is to hasten the formation of the curd, and tho removal from it
<>r the whey, cutting the curd into small pieces and turning them freciuently over;
keeping the curd warm in the bottom of the vat all the time and exix>sing it
t Kiroughly to the air in order that it may be oxidised and purified. Yet, as
prevention is better than nure, farmers should supply tneir cattle with pure water,
aid not trust too blindly to the ais mediaUrix natural and >.ll vessels with which
nii'k comes in contact should be kept thoroughly clean, well scalded with boiling
water, and scrubbed with a stiff brush, aloiig with a little saltpetre. I believe that
neaily all the trouble at clieese- factories, in hot weather, springs from unclean xailk
vessels,

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Ntnr to a beautffiil sheet of fresh water, and in the midst of excellent land, the
pretty little town ul' Shoal Lake stands, 36 miles west of Minnedosa. This place
promises to htscome a favourite resort, on accoant of boating, fi..hing, shooting,
picturesque scenery, and an atmosphere as healthy as any in the world. On the lake;
shore, about li<i]f-a-mile from the town, a two-j'ear old cheese factory is located.
Last year was a sori of preliminary gallop with it j yet the output was 35,000 lbs. of
cheese, wliich averaged 10^ cents per lb. on the spot. This year it manlpulat the
milk of about 200 cows, a good many of which, owned by various farmers, are
pastured in common, T.nd on the common, so to speak— that is, on ihe prairie
iinfenced, though not untended — for a " herd law," now in force, requires iive stock
either to be fenced-in or tended. These cows are herded, brouglit down to the
factory night and morning, and milked by the factory hands. Other cows' milk
IS "collected" from distant farms by wagons owned at the factory; and yet other
milU, from still mure distant farms, is brought in once a day by the farmers — in some
CHses right away in the 'teens of miles. Milk out of condition is rejected, but
this seldom occurs. Mr. J. Gr. Waldock runs the factory, and pays for the milk as
follows, once a month, a month being kept in hand : — For that milked by his hands,
55 cents; for that "collected," C5 cents; and for that bv^-ught in by the owners,
80 cents per lOo lbs., which is about ten gallons. This is about 23d., 3id., and 4d.
per gallon respectively, and, as will be seen, l^d. per gallon pays for herding and
milking, and ^d, for "collecting" only, on which errand four light wagons are
employed. The cows, ge'ierally speaking, are of an inferior breed, and yield an
average of about two galloi:8 per day each in the flush, or about a gailon-and-a-half
through the season. The milk is of good quality, which is often the case with
scrubby cows, but the quantity is little — it will average about 16 per cent, of cream,
which is very satisfactory as to quality. As to its cheese-yielding quality, 3,656 lbs.
of milk — one day's milk in September — produced 452 lbs. of cheese, weighed out of
press. This cheese would probably lose 10 per cent, of its weight in curing, leaving
407 lbs. of ripe cheese, or just about 1 lb. of ripe cheese from each 9 lbs. of milk — a
satisfactory yield. 'J"be cheese I tested were clean-flavoured, close grained, t)f very
good quality, and well made in all respects. They were being held for 13 cents a lb.;
the previous parcel realised 11 cents. The milk is coagulated at a temperature of from
82° to 88°, according to the state of the weather, the " ripeness " of the milk, and the
time of the year; and coagulation is sufficiently advanced in 45 minutes. I should
have expected that some of the milk, coming in but once a day and from long
distances, would, in the hot summer and autumn climate of the Canadian North-
West, have been at times a got)d deal out of condition ; yet the air is so dry and
pure, and, where farmers will dig wells, the means of cooling the milk so good, that,
delivered at the factory before the heat of the day is fully on, the milk is seldom in
a state requiring rejection. The penalty of rejection, t^io, induces the farmers to
take proper care of the milk. Such a penalty, indeed, simple and effectual as it is,
is absolutely essential in connection with a cheese factory. I took a warm interest
In looking through this factory, because it illustrates a system capable of almost
unlimited extension in Manitoba and the North-West, and I am glad to be able to
award considerable commendation in this instance. Manitoba is already beginning
to supply British Columbia with cheese and butter, and this points to the extension
of cheese factories and creameries. A vast area of country in the North-West — a
nood deal of which I saw in my journey — is, I believe, well adapted for dairy
farming, — that is, for stock breeding and the production of cheese and butter of high

quality. Cows can .)e bought in winter at $30 to $35 each— which, indeed, is quit«
equal to wliat they are worth in Entrland at the present moment (November)— and
can l)e wintered for $(5, j^lits attendance, indeed, as it appears to me, dairy farming
is a pursuit to which the energfies of many North-West farmers may be profitably
directed; and I ventured several years ago to make a public statement to this eflect,
at a meeting of the authorities in the city of Wvmipeg.

In reply to a request for a list and statistics of cheese factories and creameries in
the province, 1 received the following communication from the Hon. Dr. Harrison,
Minister ^.1 Agriculture, Statistics, and Health, for Manitoba :— .

" The Department op Aokicui-ture of Manitoba,

••WiKMPEG, Manitoba, i8ept«7»i6«)- 26, 1887.
" fiiB,— In reply to your telegram from Binscarth, 1 beg to say that last year there
were jnly a very few cheese factories and creameries in the province, and no returns
were received by this department. This year quite a number of new ones have been
started, but we ha"e no statistics from them as yet. I enclose you as complete a list
as we have of t;.; oueese factories and creameries in the province.

" (Signed) D. H. HARRISON."

Sunnyside — Dr. Jameson.
Stonewall — Mr. Sims.
Nelson — Wm. Cummings.
Crystal City— Wm. Taylor.
St, Leon — Ed. Lobossiere.
Shoiil Lake— Scott & Waldock.
Eirtle—Duttou.
Virden— Topp & McDowell.
Otterburn — ^P. Carey.

Cheese Factories.

Carberry — James Bray.

Palestine, near Gladstone — Geo. McCrae.

Blake, near Oladstone — Jameson.

Meadow Lea — J. F. Sims.

Big r'ains, near Neepawa >lcKenzie.

Rapid City — Andrew Patterson.

St. Lauv. lit — Lacours ore.

Pigeon Lake— Pearson.

Joiys_C. Migneault & Co.
St. Charles — G. Caron.

Cubaubbies.

St. Francois Xavier — IVrras.
Austin— Sir W. Clifford.

The land in the Shoal Lake district is undulating, and the s li ;rong and good
and ?s a rule there is plenty of water. I have seen in that I ly a very fair crop
of swedes and a really good one of potatoes, both of which were grown without
nuuiure and with absolutely no cultivation at all subsequent to the putting in of the
seed, and with as little as possible before. The seed was put in, evidently very
rouf^lily, and the turnips were not even thinned, or hoed, or anything ; the
potatoes were just as severely let alone. The fact is, nature does so much for the
tanners, that they consequently do little or nothing themselves beyond what they are
obliged vo do. This is true of some of "le faimcrs in the North-West, but not
so of all. I do not "divide them all into one heap, " as Josh Billings would say.
Indeed I will say this: all of them work hard encmgh, at times, m seed timo and
harvest for instance ; and the women work hard too, all the time — harder I think
tlian the men. Here is a case: — J. Armerston and wite, living six miles south of
Sljoal Lake, this year cut and stooked one hundred acres of grain ! The wife drove
the binder ; the husband stooked the sheaves. The wife did the loading and
stacking, the husband did the pitching on the cart and on the stack. These people
are probably exceptional. And, again, — some Canadian farmers have the farm-
Vard aud premises in a gratuitously rough and untidy condition, with ploughs, and

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Iiarrown, and wagons, and lowers, and logs of wood, and various other sorts of
impedimenta left tumbling anywhere and anyimw about the place. Costly
implenientJi and machines and tools are left out in the weather — to be roasted in the
sun, or drenched in the rain, or smothered in the snow in all probability, I have
heard of implements being put into a bunch in a field and, with a fireguard
ploughed round them, left out all th'' winter. I have seen a horse-rake, a grass
mownr, a twine binder, and a wagon pushed into a bluff of trees and there left to
take their luck. And y( t such people complain if their machines don't work well
the following year. I don't think the inferior Canadian farmer cares to fill up his
spare time in doing odd jobs around the place. If he did, his place would be more
orderly than it is.

There are numerous natural meadows and swampy tracts of land where large
quantities of hay may be cut free of charge ; hay, indeed, is cut to some extent, but

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when men cun nave all they wvnt f )i tlie tremble of harvesting it they suem to care
nothing about it, and the harvestinj^ is done in a slipslmd fashion : the buy is left out
too long after it is cut, baking in the '*un until its nutritive i^roperties are greatly
diminished; indeed, the hay was still out in lumps, in many places, when the wheat
was being cut. Well, the country is g'ood enough and it only remains for man to do
his duty. "There is plenty of wood, water, and hay, and any amount of ploughable
land," as one of my companions for the day tersely and correctly put it. The wheat
yield was extraordinary this year. 1 heard, on what ought to be good authority, of a
case where a fanner thrashed out nine stooks of wheat, each stook having ten sheaves
just as they came from the binder, ninety sheaves in all j the yield of wheat was
twelve and a-half bushels. There are, of course, sheaves and sheaves, even from a
binder, and these sheaves might have been just al)out as big as the binder could make
tliem with comfort ; I only repeat the story as I heard it. Taxation amounts to ^28
per section of 640 acres, including bonus to raihvay ; this is 4J centfl, or 2^d. per acre,
and it covers everything. Not a few farmers came into the district about the year

1880. and, having no market within reach, tiieir little money slowly dribbled away ;
in)w tlie railway has given them a market, and, being well rooted in the soil, as one
may saj', they are likely to prosper better than new comers; at all events they ought
to be able to do so. Since the " herd-law " ciune in force stock farmers are beginning
to fence their land, in order to save the trouble of herding their cattle, sheep, and
horses, and to prevent ti*espasa on neighbours' crops ; for the owners of stock are
responsible for the mischief it does. The fencing is almost invariably done with
wooden posts and barbed wire.

The snug little town of Birtle is prettily situated in a well-wooded valley, down
which runs a stream called "Bird -tail Creek," of which Birtle is obviously an abbre.
viation. It is, in fact, on the Bird-tail, and is called Birtie for short. A grist-mill is on
the stream ; and a lumber-mill, driven by steam, standi near the town. New houses
are being put up, and, though'Birtle may not for some time to come increase very
much or very rapidly, it is already an important market town, and will surely hold
its own in the future. It is only some ten miles east of Fort Ellice, a well-known
trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Barnardo up the line, en route to his new
colony between Birtle and Russell. The location is well chosen, and the country is
adapted to mixed farming. This sort of land is just thr p ace for such a colony as
J)r. Barnardo is establishing; for young men who understand mixed farming will do
tor any part of the Dominion. Seven sections of land, or some 4,500 acres, have been
secured, all of them ■"■ell watered and wooded. The Doctor intends to locate a lot of
his lads there, and liri -e them trained for farming. Premises will be built at some
central phice, and the management of the colony will be in competent hands. A
cheese-factory will be established, and it is in contemplation to build a «' cannery" to
utilise the fruits which the country will so freely prodi'ce. The lads will be taught
to do all kinds of farm work, from driving a plough to milking a cow ; and, as they
become proficient, thirty acres of land will be allotted to each one who desires and
deserves it, with thirty more to follow if advisable. Other lads will go out as farm
servants, if they like, or they will be free to take up a homestead of Government
land. This new development of Dr. Barnardo's philanthropy appears to me to
contain the elements of success, and it certainly deserves to be well supported.

' BINSCARTH.

One nundred and fifty-flve miles from Portage, and almost on the edge of the
beautiful valley of the Assiniboine, the rising town of Binscarth stands. The country
around is one of hills and dales to a great extent, and picturesque to a degree nut too
often met with in the North-West. There are numerous lakes and streams, and
plenty of timber. The soil is a deep, blacn loam for the n ost part, suitable alike foi
crops and grass, and all kinds of farming live stock. An Indian reserve lies directly
to the south-west of the town, and another to the east, about a dozen miles away
The Scottish Ontario and Manitoba Land Company own a large portion of three
townships about the place, and on one of them the famous Binscarth Stock Farm is
situated. The premises at this place, comprising church, hotel, liouses, barns, work-
shops, and other appurtenances, are situated on the edge of Silver Creek, which is
certainly a beautiful valley. The farm is under the management of Mr. Smellie, and
is in good hands. A large herd of pedigree shorthorns is kept on the farm, and
among them are many animals of very considerable merit. One of them, a bull,
'• Frince Arthur " by name, is a long and level beast of excellent quality ; he is big,
massive, symmetrical, with grand quarters, well let down everywhere. Ke wai

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sired by "Knight of Warlaby," and hiB live weight is 2,800 lbs. 'J'he object of tlie
company is to disseminate good bovine blood throughout the country; and of course
to make money. A considerable area of land is under crops, which are subsidiary to
the live »tock. A well built barn, one of the biggest in the North-West, shelters the
herd in winter. The cattle are in the basement, and overhead are coripartments for
hay and straw and grain, and the preparation of food for the stock. A huj;e
avalanche of animal manure has tumbled headlong into the valley, and awaits the
time when it will be wanted for the land. I saw a crop of swedes, many acres in
extent, grown without manure ; it would average quite thirty tons to the acre, I
believe, and the mangels would be nearly as much. A strip of land running across
the crops has been manured, and here the swedes and mangels were decidedly better
than elsewhere. Some Canadian farmers tell one tha\< the land needs no manure ;
my impression is that they say so as an excuse for not taking the trouble to apply
it. No doubt there is land in Manitoba so rich in the elements of plant food as to
grow good crops during a succession of years without manure. A few inches of sub-
soil brought up fresh now and dgain, refertilises the surface no doubt; but there is
no land which, after a few years' cropping, would not be all the better for a dressing
of farm-yard dung. The most prolific and carefully tended garden I have seen in the
North-West, is at the Binscarth Farm. A large variety of vegetables were grown on
a manured and well -tilled soil; the crops were heavy, and free from weeds. As a
matter of fact, the soil will grow excellent crops of almost any kind of garden or
field produce, if only it has fair-play and is well attended to. "We drove round the
country and called on a number of settlers, some of whose teHtimony, supplemented
by my own observation, I herewith append : —

John Kennedy Bott came from Ontario in 1882, without capital, and had of course
to earn money as best he could. He " horaesteaded" 160 acres in the north half of
section 18, township 19, range 28, and hag pre-empted yet another quarter section at
$2i per acre. He had to hire n team to plough his land until this year ; now
he has a team of his own. He has 33 acres of land under crop, and seven head of
cattle. His seed was sown from April 7 to 10, and harvested from August 25 to
September 6, and he estimates his wheat to yield 30, oats 60, and barley 85 bushels
per acre. He has put up a good log-house, with good buildings for stock, and
reckons he is now worth $2,500 — not a bad result of five years' exertions. He does
not find the winters any colder than in Ontario. A good help-mate he has in his
wife; but tliere are no children. Long before old age comes on, Mr. Bott will, all
being well, have won a handsome retiring competency for his wife and self. Near
to this place I saw some very fine potatoes, grown as a second crop, on unmanured
pniirie sod. I believe I could have tied a score of them up in a bundle with a piece
uf rope and carried them off in that way.

Thomas Frazer (section 21, township 19, range 28) was brought up on a farm in
Scotland until he was eighteen, when he became a carpenter. He had learnt but
little farming, nor kept that little long. Coming out in 1882, v/ith £200 in his
liocket, and a good wife along, he built his house the following year, and invested
the rest of his money, in one way or another, on the farm. He considers that £100
will go nearly as far now as £200 did when he came out, at which time everything
was dear to buy. He had to gain experience not in farming only, but in Canadian
customs of farming. His place ia now worth $3,000 (or £600), just as it stands, and
low as everything is in price. He truly says that a knowledge of farming siives
time and money to an emigrant ; but now he can hold his own " as well as any
white face," to use his own expression. He thinks old country farmers who have
aWO, and especially those who have families as well, ouuht to '*come out."

object of the
and of course
subsidiary to
t, shelters tlie
ipartments fur
uck. A hu;^e
nd awaits tlie
Qany acres in
to the acre, I
unning across
uidedly better
,s no manure ;
■uble to apply
int food as to
inches of sub-
but there is
for a dressing
ve seen in the
'^ere grown on
weeds. As a
of garden or
»ve round the
supplemeuted

had of course
north half of
ter section at
is year J now
seven head of
August 25 to
ey35 bushels
)r stock, and
ma. He does
le has in his
Bott will, all
d self. Near
I unmanured
with a piece

on a farm in
d learnt but

£200 in his
ind invested
rs that £100
» everything
in Canadian

stands, and
rming saves
well as any
s who havo

Mr. rium also came in 1882, from London, Ontario, and had to borrow $10 to
oiiie Willi, lie likewisu hoinesteaded a quarter section, on which he h<ts a house
ruiii builtliiigs, 15 acres under crop, and everytliing paid for upon it. He lias
[ii'e-euipted another quarter section, which is not yet paid for. He is blessed wi'th
,1 wife and nine children 1 These three are instances of men who were not fanners
buiore they came to Manitoba.

Yet another man, an Englishman, whose name I forbear to mention, had been
ill business in Enf;land and had not succeeded j work he could not, and did not care
to learn. He prefers to let his cattle stray off, and to employ his time in seeking
tliem. His house and buildings were in rags and tatters, as he too would be in
any other country, and with a wife like himself. His tools and implements were
here, there, and anywhere; his crops were neglected, his fences were down, his
place in disorder, and himself away after the vagrant cows. Eiach men as he are
no good in Canada as farmers ; it may be doubted if they are any good at all, any-
where, and in any capacity.

Robert "Whittaker, formerly of Blackburn, England, and a blacksmith by trade,
also came up here in 1882. He has worked at his trade all along, and saved upwards
of §1,000. He has homesteaded 160 acres, broken 32 acres, put various «« improve-
ments " upon it, and will let it on the half-shares system. He says that men coming
out to Canada must work and be steady, when they will do well — better, as a rule,
than in England. He also thinks old country farmers will do well in Manitoba:
but though he tells his friends in England what the country is like, he declines to
incur the responsibility of persuading them to come out.

J. D. Kippon, of Silver Creek, a capital wheat district, came up from Ontario six
years ago — «' worse off than nothing as to money " — though he had a few head of
cattle — that is, he had to borrow cash to come with. He horo.esteaded, and this year
has 30 to 35 acres of wheat, which will yield 1,200 bushels. He would not now
" walk oif " for $5,000, he said j and I t. A it for granted that he was satisfied with
his location. A «« thrashing bee" was in full swing wh"?nl was at Mr, Kippon's
place, and a stream of golden wheat was flowing from the machine The machine
goes from one farm to another, turn and turn about, and the farmers help each
other. These thrashing bees, in fact, are a capital institution. I talked with a
number of settlers, all of whom, so far as capital went, occupied originally a position
corn;oponding with that of a fairly well-to-do farm labourer in England They are
all in the way oi making money, of becoming substantial farmers, and declare they
are satisfied with the country and the prospect it afforded to men in their position.

By living three years on a homesteaded quarter section, and performing certain
acts of husbandry, a man earns his "patent," and may sell his land if he likes.
Formerly many men homesteaded in this way, sold out, and homesteaded attain
elsewhere. But now the same person cannot homestead a second time, save under
an application made before June 2, 1886. A settler who has a homestead is allowed
Ihiee years by the Government to decide whether he will pre-empt the adjoining
quarter section at $2^ ar acre. Once he decides to do so, he either pays the money
down, or is charged 6 per cent, interest u^ion it. A homesteader, indeed, ^iiust prove
himself a bond fide settler, and not a mere cut-aud-go man, or he neither earns his
patent nor is allowed to preempt. Once he has earned his patent on the one
quarter section, and paid his $400 for the other, he is in a position to sell both if he
likes, and can. The object of the Government is to promote a fixed, and discourage
a shifting, population. Heads of families may homestead and pre-empt, whether
male or female, and any young man of 18 may do the same ; but as each of them can
ui.Iy do so once, they will dit>i:v,i'u the need there is of making a caielul beiuutiou.

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IJoiueateaders naturally like to pre-empt as well, in order to own 320 acres in one
block ; but it may be doubted if they are always well-advised in doing so. Men of
slender means often cripple themselves very seriously, and sometimes never get over
iti ^'y P'lying down the pre-emption money, which they may have had to borrow, or
by paying interest upon it. But when a man has means he does well to pre-empt.

The prohibition against repeated homesteading by the same person will have the
beneficent effect of causing men to settle down and stick to one place. Hitherto they
have been apt to move about from place to place, trying first one location and then
another, and io they were restless and dissatisfied. Thej' were like lads in an
orchard, going about from tree to tree, tasting apples and throwing them away. Far
better for the lad to squat down, and eat one apple well ; and so with the farmer, far
better that he should do one farm well than have a nibble at half a dozen. Home-
steads may be taken up directly from the Government, wherever they are still at
liberty, throughout the whole of the North.West, and indeed throughout the whole
of Canada.

LANGENBURG / ,

Another five and twenty miles and we reach the present western end of the
road, still within the limits of Manitoba, and 180 miles from Portage. Not far from
the station a German cabinet-maker, Theuer by name, has homesteaded land, and,
with his son and son-in-law, has built a Buperior house, and very substantial
buildings for cattle and horses. These are people of some little capitvl, no doubt,
and soon they will increase their store. In spring, summer, and autumn they
attend to their land and stock as far as need be, and in winter earn money at their
trade. Such people are sure to get on, and they are setting an example, sorely
needed, to settlers who prefer to hibernate in winter. The Germans, indeed, being
a thrifty, ingenious, and industrious people, usually make good colonists, and there
are a good many of them at Langenburg.

Various Colonisation Societies have laid the scene of their labours in Manitoba
aiid the North-West Territory. Their object has been to relieve the congested state
of population in some parts of England, but they have not been always successful.
Two of the lietter known of these societies have locations west of Langenburg, and it
was with the object of inspecting them that I drove a distance of forty miles, or so,
away west from the end of the line. The Churchbridge Colony, established under
the auspices of " The Church Colonisation Land Society, Limited," is situated just
within the province of Manitoba, and Ixjrdering on that of Assinibola. The Society
is a very influential one, and its object is " to carry out, in connection with the
Church of England, a practical system of colonisation on a self-supporting and
remunerative basis — the settlers being assisted to attain independence, and tlie
Sfxjiety receiving a fair return on the capital — the whole being in our own colonies,
under our own flag." The Churchbridge Colony is affiliated to the Albany Colony,
and both of them are promoted by the same society.

" The mode of operation is to raise capital by issuing shares of £1 each (without
further liability) for acquiring blocks of land for 40 and 160-acre farms, erecting
houses thereon, and on the intermixed free homestead lands, breaking and sowing a
portion, and providing stock and implement* ready for the settlers ; to purchase the
whole, or to rent the 40-acre farms with option of purchase, at equitable prices,
payable by instalments. The land is suitable for grain and cattle farming,"

I have not had an opportunity of paying a visit to the Albany Colony, which is
located in the Qu'Appelle valley, also in Manitoba, but along the line of the Canadian
Pacific JtailwaT. In thia colony a quarter section of land i« divided into four 40-acre

II Ills, and "a Rood, comfortable house is erected by the gociety on each 40-acre lot,
lid four BcreH broken, cultivated, and sown in advance of the settler's arrival, so
hilt the crops may be Krowini? from the earliest moment to provide food for the
iiiiily of the settler the first season. These houses and 40.acre lots are rented by the
•ithrs from the society at $5 each per month, or about £12 10s. per annum, with
(le option of purchasing the freehold of the whole at any time, on giving notice
yjthin three years of entry, at the price of £100, or thereabouts, which may be either
Kiid down or spread over a term of years, at 6 per cent, interest on the balance for
lie time being owing to the society."

In the Churchbridge Colony the settlers are placed on free grants of 160 acres of
ami, and are practically homesteaders who have houses put up for them by the
ociety, and also implements and stock where needed, the whole outlay being secured
ly mortgage, which is redeemable by the settlers. This is the second and larger
ystem, and in each the settler may enter on a farm on which the first necessaries
lave been provided for him, and he can remain upon it or not as he chooses. It is
lulerstood that settlers will provide their own passage and outfit ; yet probably some
f tliem will receive direct or indirect assistance in these respects, though I am not
[ill a position to say to what extent they will.

" If a settler under the first system quits his holding, he will leave his improve-
iiiciits behind him, for which the society may, but is not absolutely bound to,
|ci)iiipeiiaiite him; each case would depend upon its merits. If a settler under the
second system quits his free holding, provision is made by law for the mortgagee to
take possession, and put another settler in his place. There is, therefore, great
inducement to stay and provision against loss in case of quitting by any restless
settler."

" The society does not collect and dispatch numbers of men, women, and
(liiklren to the colonies and leave them to shift for themselves, but does its best to
si luct suitable emigrants; requires them to pay their passage out, or the greater
[lait of it ; provides them with homes on arrival, and a portion of their land broken
and sown with food for the first year ; assists them with cattle, implements, and
practical supervision ; and finally looks after them spiritually as well as temporally,
HO that they shall not in going to a new country be utterly deprived of the 'ocial and
religious advantages of the land of their fathers."

Fourteen houses have been provided at Churchbridge, small but 'omfortable
houses of wood, and about sixty persons have arrived in the colony. Mr Roberts,
wlio hails from the neighbourhood of Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, is * good
example of what a colonist ought to be. He has put up a good store of hay, has
done a good ..stroke of ploughing for next year's crop, and may be regarded as a
piHliing man who understands his work. Others, too, there are who appear to be
taking advantage of the facilities ofifered to them, and these no doubt will rub along
pretty well in time. But, as I was informed, there are a few, as may be expected in
any community of the kind, who appear to he more or less shiftless and impro-ddent,
p ssibly from ignorance of what a colonist must expect to do. " Are they idle ? " I
asked of a man who knew them well enough to give an opinion. '■* "Well, no," jaid
he, " but some of them seem to have been born tired." Whereat our party heartily
lano;hed. Not all the settlers in any colony will do well, and here as elsewhere men
\\ ill find their true level in time. The land on which they are located appears to be
fairly good ; in configuration it is rolling, with bluffs of willow tree3 here and there,
which will be useful for shelter, for fencing, and for firewood. Tha country, where
water is sufficient, is adapted for stock-raising, and there are natural meadows on
which may be cut hay for use in winter.

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TIIK COMMEKUIAL COLONY.

Tlii« outtleuieiit is just witliin the province (if AsKJiiilioiii, iininediately weHtufl
Cliurclibridj^o. It is ijiomoted by a binly of pnicticiil nu-ii, iiiultr tlie title uf the
"Conmierriiil tl!oloiiiHiitiun Company of Munitolni, Limited." Tlie Cuinpiiny owns
many sections of land iu Manitoba, which tliey offer for sale in large or small lots, ai
well Hs alternate sections in the three townships in Assinihoia, where the colony ii
located. The Company states, with a degree of candour which inspires conH<lent'e.
that "its purpose ii commercial, not philanthropic." And in justification thereof it I
goes on to say, "Settlers, like men starting in business or building a house, may
require more capital than they have got at the time. The builder borrows what he
needs, and gives a bond on his house as security. So the settler will get what help
lie needs to stock liis farm, and give a bond on it as security. It is a purely business
transaction, profitable alike to borrower and lender; and it is a transacticm that
must give many men just such a chance as will open the way for them to success and
honourable independence."

The conditions and methods under and by which • any Uritish subject over
18 years of age" may obtain, on paying an ofHce fee of $10, a free homestead under
the auspices of the Company, are as follow :—

1. " The homesteader shall begin actual residence on his homestead and
cultivation of a reasonable portion thereof within six months from date of entry,
unless entry shall have been made on or after the Ist day of September, in which
case residence need not commence until the 1st day of June following, and continue
to live upon and cultivate the land for at least six months out of every twelve
months for three years from date of homestead entry

2. "The homesteader shall begin actual residence, as above, within a radius oC
two miles of his homestead, and continue to make his home within such radius for
at least six months out of every twelve months for the three years next succeeding
the date of homestead entry ; and shall within the first year from date of entry
break and prepare for crop 10 acres of his homestead quarter section; and shall
within the second year crop the said 10 acres, and break and prepare for crop 15
acres additional — making 25 acres ; and within the third year after the date of
his homestead entry, he shall crop the said 26 acres, and break and prepare for crop
15 acres additional; so that, within three years of the]^date of his homestead entry, he
shall have not less than 25 acres cropped, and shall have erected on the land a
habitable house in which he shall have lived during the three months next preceding
his application for homestead patent. •

3. "The homesteadei' shall perfect his homestead entry by commencing the
cultivation of the homestead within six months from the date of the entry, and
within the first year break and prepare for crop five acres; within the second year crop
the said five actes, and break and prepare for crop a further 10 acres, and before the
expiration of the second year erect a habitable house and reside therein, and cultivate
the land for three years next prior to the date of his application for patent.

«' In the event of a homesteader desiring to secure his patent within a shorter
period than the three years provided by law, he will be permitted to purchase his
homestead on furnishing proof that he has resided on the land for at least twelve
moiiihs subsequent to date of homestead entry, and, ill case entry was made after
the 25th day of May, 1883, has cultivated 30 acres thereof.

" Any homesteader may, at the same time as he makes his homestead entry, but
not at a later date, should there be available land adjoining the homestead, enter an
.ill) itioiial quarter i>ectiou of and as a pre-emption on payment of an office fee of
©10 (£2).

" The pre-emption right entitlen a homedteartor, who ohtivinn entry for a pre-
enii>ti(Hi, to purchase tho land so pre-empt«(l at $2J (IOh.) per aero, on iH-cominij
entitled to his homestead patent; but should the homesteader fail to fulHI the
li()iiu'Rte;id conditions, lie forfeits all claim to his pre-emption."

it will be perceived that for £2 in fees, and £80 us purchase money for the pre-
emi)ted land, a settler will at the end of three years be the owner of 320 acres of
lii;eliold land; or, if he will content himself with 160 acres, all this quarter section
will cost him will be the office fee of £2. Whether or not a man would he well
mlvised to being content with 160 acres will depend on the man himself, on the
iiKinwy he has to spare, and on the Jand. And the prospectus says : —

" But even when the land is got, and the colonist hiis transferred iiimsclf and
his family to Manitoba, capital is still required to stock the farm, and to buy food
iiiiil other necessaries until the first crop is ready. It is here that so many settlers
(iiul the rub, and it is here that the Company comes to their assiatauce. Under an
Act passed by the Canadian Tarliament in 1886, and by an arran<?cment of tluM
Company which has received the sanction of the Minister of the Interior, advances
me made on the security of a settler's homestead (land and buildinf:fH) to the extent
of $000 (£120), bearing interest at the rate of 8 per cent, per annum. These
advances are not made in cash, but in the form of houses, stock, implements, seed,
or whatever the settler most requires. The interest, compared with the rates
cm rent in England and Scotland, seems high, but it must be borne in mind that
interest in all new countries is very high, wiften much higher than 8 per cent., and
also that the nature of the security is, in this case, exceptional. Considering, indeed,
all that the Company does to smooth the path of the colonist, a higher rate would
not be unreasonable. However, 8 per cent, is the rate sanctioned by the Act of
Parliament, and may therefore be regarded as just."

Houses are being erected for settlers before they start to Canada, and are ready
fir them to enter on arrival. The illustration herewith annexed gives an adequate
idea of the style of house adopted; but there are four grades, of which tliis is No 2,
Costing from £20 to £66, It is a convenience of much value to a settler to have
house-shelter for himself and his family, on his own land, when he reaches his
destination. But if he comes out alone, in advance of his family, he can, if he
likes, build his house himself of logs which will be laid down for him by the
Company; this, however, is an achievement which fev/ old-country settlers would
attempt. The land is selected by competent men, and Mr. McNutt, the Company's
at,'(.'nt,, thoroughly well up in his work, takes charge of the necessary prepara-
tions beforehand and puts settlers on the right track when they arrive. Everything
the settler needs is bought for him at a cheaper rate than he could buy it himself
And not only so, but the things he really needs are better known by the agent than
the settler himself could possibly know them at the start. At all points, indeed, tlie
si't tiers' needs are anticipated and supplied, and they are located on farms, or what
thfir industry will convert into farms, at an outlay in which economy and efficiency
are the leading aims. But this is not all, for the agent is at hand — himself an
experienced prairie farmer, and a homesteader in the colony — to instruct new
comers in the ways of the country and the best manner of setting about their work.
The advance which can be made on unimproved homesteads is restricted to £120 —
and this sum, indeed, well expended, will give a man a very good start in prairie
fai ming — yet the Company will at any time be ready to assist and encoiirage a man
of energy who has done well to his farm, and who wants to.launcli out into stock-
breeding, or into something else that will bring grist to the mill and develop the
resources of the soil ; but this will not be indiscriminately done, and the best men

will nnturrtlly meet with moHt oncouragcineiit. And not only iirc limises Imilt and
implementa purcliiiKi il, but ii iiortinu of lunil fur ii cmi) it* ploui^I.ed ;ind backjiit for
thuau who eutur in Hpriiig. No lutm than 700 tu UOO tuns uf h y 1 uve bcun put up fur I

■J-

seitlbr's houbb.

No. 2.— Cost $175 (i535).— This house is 16 X l* ft., lias one room downstairii and one
upstairs ; cellar underneath, witli trap door in floor.

It £1^'

the use of settlers in winter, and the acres of land ploughed by the Company for in-
coming people may he told in similar numbers. I called upon a number of the
Settlers in this C(jlony, and did not hear a single complaint; e.iich miin and woman
who said anything at all, declared a conviction that they were going to do well ; and
I heard many encomiums on the facilities which the Company had provided. One of
them, a Mr. Eglinton, who has some capital, will go in for stock-raisirg, and already
has made a start; he has been out in Australia for s(jme years, but that country h
too hot and too liable to droughts, and he likes the Canadian prospect much belter.
Mr. liaillie is a Scotchman, recently come out, hard at work making ready for the
inevitable winter, building a stable for his yoke of oxen and the cow of whose milk
we drank with such relish ; his wife, a canny Scotch woman, was well pleased with
the prospect, and believed they would get along well.

The country is rolling and uneven as to surface, with numerous lakes and
innumerable bluffs of trees, and in many placus it is quite park-like in appearance.
There are tracts of flat land intermixed, and also low lying marshes on which
hay may be cut. The land, indeed, is undulating, and rolling, and almost hilly in

nHtairfc and one

|)Uce«, with ■mall flat iwrtioni interveninij;; it is well sholttired by bluffs of piiplar
and willow, well watered by lakes and uccaMiuiial streaniM, and there are many
natural meadows and pastures. There are various kinds of soil, from (rruvelly to
loamy soils, and it is needless to say the latter are the better j but, as a rule, a
tilack loam prevails, interspersed with one inclining a little to sand, each of them
well adapted to any kind of crop. Tho black snil is full of the accunmlated
vegetable remains of many centuries, and it will not eiisily bo exhausted. Horses,
cattle, and sheep thrive well on the land ; and very 8atiHfact<.)ry crops of wheat, oats,
swedes, carrots, potatoes, and so on, are grown under a very simple and elementary
Bystem of cultivation.

The district, as it appeared to me, is well adapted to what is known as "mixed
farming" — that is, for pastures and meadows, Avith more or kss of arable land fur
tiie growth of crops subsidiary to stock-raising and dairy farming. 1 am in
jioHBi'ssion, too, of excellent reasons for supposing that horse ranching, at all events
oil a limited scale, might be made to pay well in tliis part of the country. Hursts
are hardier than cattle or sheep, and among tho sheltering bluffs they will winter
well on what they find beneath the snow. In various parts of the North- West,
indeed, I was assured by reliable and practical men tliat nurses come out fat in
spring, though living entirely on what they have found. At the present time, odd as
it may sound to say so, horses are dearer in Canada than in England ; I believe that
li<irse ranching is bound to pay if i)ursued with judgment.

We drove a considerable distance through the country, spending one night in
iliti Yorkton Colony, at Anderson's farm. Mr. Anderson is from Scotland, and was
t welve years in Khode Island, U.S.A. ; four years ago he came up here, and has 320
acres of good land, the first half of Avhich was homesteadeil, and the second pre-
empted at $2 an acre. He considers Canada a better country than Scotland
for men who have to fight their way, and he likes it better tlian llbode island.
Tlie best S(nt of men to come out, he thinks, supposing they have no capital, are
farm labourers willing to work. Such men in a very few yeais would have a farm
clear of debt, after whicli they would save money tolerably fast. His health, and
that of his wife and children, is better than it was in the United States, and he
feels that now he has found a place where his days will end at last. His farm
runs down to a beautiful lake, named after him, which abounds with wild duck. In
winter, when the lake is frozen over, a hole is cut through the ice and covered
with boards and a thick coating of snow, to prevent freezing ; during the night the
water wells up to the surface, and the cattle drink at the hole for weeks. Mrs.
Anderson's only complaint was that there was no school at present within reach of her
rather formidable number of children, but she was hoping there would be one pretty
soon ; settlers were coming in tolerably fast, and Government follows them up pretty
([uickly with schools On this point I have already given some statements, in
reference to British Columbia, and I need say no more now, because the school
system of Canada permeates the whole of the country so far as it is settled up.

Eeturning to Langenburg tho following day, we drove through a different part
of tlie country, calling on farmers by the way. Mr. Fisher, of Kimbrae, formerly of
Salisbury, England, appears to be comfortably located. He has forty head of horned
cattle, some good cotswold sheep, and plenty of implements, whose covering was
mostly the sky. I weighed two potatoes to 3 J lbs., one shapely swede to llj^ lbs., and
one common turnip to 16^ lbs. We saw also some good garden stuff, and a few nice
little porkers of Berkshire blood Later on wo crossed the curious Cut-arm Creek,
and the beautiful valley of the Assiniboine. I have an impression that sheep "will do
well in the valley of thA Assiniboine, and in the district generally, where the land
is dry.

'■Uf

The imprpsaive stillness and solilnde of a night on the prairie hiis, after all, a
weird and singular ol: arm of its own. Tlie ninon is hriffht, and the air tiHns],:\rcnt
— just tlie sort of time to enjoy a pipe, and an huvir'a quiet thuught. All is still —
for the wind dies away in the evening in the North-West — not the sound of a bird or
any' ung; hut, hark! through the warm pure air comes from a distance a sound
as of children laughing; then it dies away; again it conies from a distance that
seems lessened, and we strain our eyes in that dirf^Mon. It is the coyotes, or
prairie wolves, out on a frolic ; hut they will not coi..e near enough for a shot; in
fact, they are half a mile or morr, awaj' on the phiin. Presently a dog liavKs, and tin;
cackling fun of the coyotes rcasts ; v'o listen for it again, but it Comes no more, and
lit last we turn into bed and s]eei>.

\-[Wi

:? ^^

y:
r^ I';;''

EXPKJilMENTAL PAIIMS.

On my return to Ontario fron the North-West, early in October, I called at
Ottawa, and had the lumonr and pleasure of taking a drive out to the " Kxivrinie.ital
Farm," some two miles from the city, in company of the Hon. .lolin C-.rling,
Dominion Jlinister of Agricnltur<^, and the Bishop of New Westminster. Tiiis
larni is the flrst of a Series which wiii he located here and there to suit the needs of
the entire country. This new departure is one of very considerable importance to
Canada as a farming country. It is undoubtedly a step, and a great step, in the
right direction. It is calculated to do untold good to the agriculture of the
Dominion, which, aftei- all, is, and must remain, the most important industry ot
tliH country. If it be true, as is so often said, that "the condition of its Bg^-iculturB
is a nieasure of the prosperity of any given country ," then to raise the condition o<
Canadian agriculture will be to add so far to the geuv^ral prosperity of the Dcninion i
and, indeed, even if the quotation were not true, it will still be a beneficent thing to
point out to farmers what is the best aystoni of cultivation, and what are the best
crojis to raise, ba thuy fruit, cereals, roots, or live stock. This, in any case, will be a
distinct gain to the country, even if the state of its farn'ing were no criterion at all
to the state of the country at large. Iien''e it follows that the establishment of
Experimental StaMo.is in typical parts of the country, may be regarded as a benefit
done to the peo, le at large.

Tlicsi! farms will ' ■ under the general supervision of Profe-^sor W, Saunders,
who will have special cliarge of the central one at Ottawa; and ir is no surjiriso to
learn that the sciieme "has met with hearty expressions of approval of farmer,?
everywiiere, and has awakened a general interest in experimental agricultui-e to a
degree never before manifested." The farm at Ottawa consists of KiO acrts,
"possessing everj' desirable variety of soil and aspect to meet the varied renuiremi'nts
of the experimental work to be conducted there." As an instance of the practical
character of the institution, and of its direct connection with farmers, for Mhose
Sjiecial benefio it has been establi.shed, it Mill be enough to mention that "every
fanner in Canada will have the privilege and tlie right to send to the Experimental
Earni samples of any seeds of which he may want to know the germinating power,"
and such seeds will be tested for him in the glass structure which has been erected
for the purpose. '■' The returns of the germinating power of seeds will not be based
upun a single test, but every sample will be tested in duplicate, once in the soil and
again out of the soil, in the must approved form of apparatus devised for the
purpose.''

Personally I have mncli jdc 'Sure in transcribing the following v.-ords, which
appear in t>ie flrst bulletin of tli3 farm, issue, by Professor Saiindei.s: — "The ;{reat

IS, after all, a

I- tra,iis].:\rc'T)t,

All is still—

(1 of a bird or

niK-e a sound

distiiTice tbiit

le coyotes, or

[or !i shot ; ill

haviv,--, and tin:

no more, and

r, T called at
Kxpiriine-iitdl
lolm O-rlinp,
iin«tor. Tills
it tile needs of
itniiortance to
it step, in the
ultiire of the
t industry of
ts ng'-iculture
e condition Oi
he ]")c:niiiion ;
ieent ttiinti; to
t are tlie best
lasc, will be a
"iteiion at all
ahlishnient of
d as a benefit

W Saunders,
10 surprise to
al of farmei.'
ric'iiltiire to a
3f 3(iO acrts,

renuiremj'nts

the prafticai
^rs, for whose

tliat ''every
Exiieritnental
atiiig power,"
I been erected

not be based
\ the soil and
vised for the

v/ords, Avhicli
— " The ijreat

jinpurldnce of encouraging and stimulating tree-planting among the fanners,
esiiocially in the North- West provinces, is beyond dispute." And in order txj do this,
the seeds of various forest trees will be planted, and instructions will be given as to
tlie best method of raising young trees from seed, as well as to the best sorts to
r.iisi'. The testing of seeds for the North-West will be conducted on the two
farms which will be estr-olished in that region, one of them in Manitoba and
tln' iither in the Terri^o-ies. The department will no doubt raise a large number of
young trees for distribution among fanners, and it may well undertake to distribute
small parcels of seeds to farmers who will undertake to raise young trees for
tlainselves. In this way the North-West may, in course of time, become sufficiently
covered and ornamented Avith trees.

And horticulture as well as agriculture will receive adequate experimental
attention at the farm. There are already in the horticultural section, with the
object of testing their value, about 75 varieties of gooseberries, 50 of raspberries, 20
of blackberries, 40 of currants, 12S of grapes, 100 of strawberries, and 240 of potatoes
The hardy varieties of apples will also be tried, with the object of ascertaining what
will do for the colder regions of the country.

Meantime, the farm at Ottawa is being brought under cultivation. Forest
growth has been cleared from scores of acres, stones and boulders have been removed,
draining wherever necessary is being done, a new and handsome ring fence has been
put up and superfluous interior fences have been removed, and, lastly, a fine set of
farm buildings and houses for officials is being erected. All this has been done
without much loss of time ; and, indeed, if it was worth doing at all, it was worth
doing at once. A large portion of the farm will be virgin soil, from which the forest
has been remoraelessly removed; when I saw it, it was being roughly ploughed, in
order that the frosts of the coming winter might comminute and commingle it. It
appeared to be of good quality, sufficiently varied, and deep enough for all practical
purposes. I may venture to hope that I may inspect the farm at some future time,
and to have the pleasure, which at present has been denied by the fate?, of making
Professor Saunders' acquaintance ; when I Avas in Ottawa, he was away in the West.

All things considered, Ontario may be rc;;avded not only as the wealthiest and
most ■ irgely populated, but also as the irost desirable of the provinces of Canada.
Its total area is 181,800 square miles, or upwards of 60,000 larger than the United
Kingdom, and its population probably embraces one-fourth of the people of the whole

mmm

y In

P (U

Dominion j still the density of its population is not equal to that of New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island. None of the othei- provinces can raise the
variety, quantity, and quality of the fruit that is found in the southern peninsula of
Ontario, which is bounded on the west, south, and east hy lakes Huron, Erie, and
Ontario. Bo far as quantity of fruit is concerned, indeed, Ontario produces incom.
parably more than the whole of the other provinces combined. Its agriculture is
more varied and important, and it is hy far the richest of all the provinces in the
domesticated live stock ofth(! farm, in crops, in cultivated land, and in pi'oducts of
the forest. Ontai-io owns more than half the horses, and cattle, and swine, ard
nearly half the slieep, that are fmind in the whole Dominion. Originally it was one
viist forest, as the northern part of it still is, and tlie sum of human tf-M expended in
clearing the millions of acres of cultivated land must have been prodigious. This
clearing was mostly done before the great prairies of the North-West were accessible
or even known, and it is going on still under the impetus and momentum con
tributed by the increasing Avealth and the limitless potentiaHties of the province. I
think I have said enough to establish the statements in the first sentence of this
paragraph, and I may pass on now to look at the province as a place to which the.
tide of British emigration may be directed.

The geographical position of Ontario, apart from its meteorological advantages,
gives it important vantage ground, as compared with the North- We«t, in reference
to European markets; yet in this respect it is, or ouglit to be, a trifle inferior to
Quebec, or the Maritime provinces. It is well adapted — ^I speak now of the southern
half of it — to the pursuit of mixed farming, of stock-breeding, root and grain raising,
and dairy liusbandry. Vfe may well doubt, hov ever, if its soil, on an average, is
equal to tliat of Manitoba for the purposes named, while for wheat it cannot l)e
compared. Land is dearer in Ontario than in Manitoba, but the markets are better,
Jlanitoba, however, cannot compare with Ontai'io in variety of soils, in fruit, or in
timber. Until recently, Manitoba has been regarded as suitable only for grain
raising, while Ontario was the province par excellence for dairy farming. I have,
however, already shown that she is coming forward in mixed and daii'y farming, fo
that Ontario, with all her privileges, no longer possesses any special or distingaishing
monopoly in this respect. I still think, however, tliat English farmers Avith, say
one thousand pounds capital, and upwards, will find homes more congenial to their
taste in Ontario than in Manitoba. Many Ontarian farmers, with that restless spirit
so common in America, and no doubt captivated by what they have heard of the
North-West, are prepared to sell their farms, and to go out to Manitoba and
Assiniboia. Tins tendency, together with the depressed times, lias reduced the
farms of the province in value, so that an Englishman's thousand pounds will now
go farther tlian it would have done a few years ago. An English tenant farmer,
preferring not to become a land-owner, may become a Canadian tenant farmer if he
likes, for there are plenty of farms to let, with or without option of purchase, in
Ontario.

The greater part of the Canadian beef and cheese sold in England is from
Ontario, and wliile Canadian beef is fully equal to American in quality, the cheese of
the Dominion is admitted to be decidedly superior to that of the States. The cooler
climate of Canada, and her ability to raise better root-crops and pasture grass, have
a good deal to do with the superiority of her cheese. A large quantity of butter is
also made in Ontario, chiefly however for home consumption. The value of Canadian
cheese exported, in 1886, was ^(^),7o4,()2f?, and of butiA,r $832,355, showing in both a
very considerable falling off, which is relatively the largest in butter. There i«,
however, a much less falling off in volume than in value, because prices are lower

ew Brunswick,

can raise the

rn peninsula of

iron, Erie, and

•oduces incom.

agriculture is

'ovinces in the

in products of

md swine, and

ally it was one j

il expended in

litigious. This

were accessible

omentum con-

e province. I

sntence of this

' to which the,

al advantages,

it, in reference

ifle inferior to

f Ihe southern

X grain raising,

an average, is

vt it cannot l)e

kets are better.

, in fruit, or in

only for grain

ming. I Imve,

.iry farming, so

rdistingiiishing

uers with, say,

igenial to their

it restless spirit

■e heard of the

Manitoba and

18 reduced the

)und8 will now

tenant farmer,

nt farmer if he

of purchase, in

igland is from 1
y, the cheese of j
es. The cooler
ure grass, Imve
ity of butter is
lue of Canadian
kving in both a
tter. There is,
rices are lower

liian they used to be, and a larger volume of products is needed to realise a given
aggregate sum. On various occasions I have travelled to a considerable extent in the
eastern provinces, taking pains to make myself acquainted with the agricultural
features and capabilities of the country. On the southern part of the province
already alluded to in this section of my report, I have aforetime spoken as follows :—

" This portion of Ontario may be regarded as the garden of the Dominion—
literally as well as figuratively the garden — for it is here that apples, pears, grapes,
peaches, melons, and the like grow in the greatest profusion, and with the least
trouble on the part of the farmer. Every farm has an orchard, and it is purely the
farmer's fault if the orchard is not an excellent one, for the climate and the soil are
clearly all that can be desired, and the trees will do their share of the work provided
the right sorts are planted. It is usual to plant out peach and apple trees
alternately and in rows in a new orchard, and the apple tr-ees are at a distance apart
which will be right when they are full grown; this is done because the peach trees
come to maturity ti. st, and have done bearing before the apple trees require all the
room ; the peach trees are then cut down and tlie apple trees occupy all the room.
These trees are planted in rows, at right angles, so that there is a clear passage
between them whichever way we look, and the land can be freely cultivated among
them; it is, in fact, usual to take crops of wheat, or oats, or maze, from the land
during the time the trees ai'e young, and we often see fine crops of golden grain
overtopped by noble young trees laden with fruit. A farmer may not, of course, look
to fruit alone to grow rich on, but he often nets a r'" roll of dollars out of it, and
to say the least, it is conducive to happiness to be well supplied with fruit, while to
live in a climfite and on a soil that will produce it abundantly is always desirable.

" There are many kinds of soil in this part of the province, most of which are
fertile and easy to cultivate. The most common soils are loams of ono kind oi
another, comprising all the varieties included in the terms sandy and clay
loams, tlien, there aie light soils of various kinds, clays ancf marsh soils, most ol
them more or less impregnated with organic matter. Many of these soils — I speak
now of farms that have been long under cultivation — were at first well adapted to
the growth of wheat, but it' appears that in many places wheat has been grown so
repeatedly on the land that it will no longer produce the crops of it that were
formerly easy to obtain. The fact is, this one crop has been grown so very often
that the land has become deficient in the elements necessary to it ; the same land
will, however, grow very good crops of other kinds — roots, clover, barley, peas, oats,
and the like, while in some parts profitable crops of Indian corn are grown ; the
latter, however, is a most exhausting crop, even more completely so than wheat,
but not so quickly, and can only be grown to profit on a rich soil and in a hot climate.
The difference between the two crops is this : — Wheat ex'iausit a soil of certain
elements, leaving the I'est comparatively untouched ; but maize is a generally
exhausting crop, less dependent on special elements, but feeding, as it were, on all
alike ; and so it follows that it can be grown for a longer time before the land shows
signs of exhaustion, which at last is so thorough that fertility is restored with great
difficulty. There is, however, a great deal of good wheat land in Ontario, and much
more of it to be cleared. The partially exhausted laud, too, will come round again,
and will grow wheat profitably as before, but it is only good farming that will bring
this about. The farmers of Ontario declare that they would hardly have known
what to do with their land if it were not for cheese-making, and partioalarly for the
new cattle and beef trade with England. Wheat, wheat, nothing but wheat as a
paying crop was simply exhausting the land, returning nothing to it; cattle raising
jiaid poorly, because the demand v?s limited ; and cheesc-ma'tinj; could only be

lis

profltably carried on in the district i^ suitable to it. But the demand arising in the
old country for beef, and the improved means of transportation over the sea, have
provided a new and profitable opening towards which the energies of the farmers
are being directed. The raising of stock suitable to the English market is now a
leading and profitable branch in this part of the Dominion, and it is encouraging to
the cultivation of root and green crops, of clover, timothy, and other forage crops, of
green corn, &c., for soiling. The growth and consumption of these crops, indeed, is
tlie very practice that was needed to restore fertility to soils which had been injured
by over-cropping with wheat.

"The Canadian dairy farmer has several important advantages over his English
contemporaiy, not the smallest of which is this : he can grow at a very moderate
cost very large crops of forage for winter use ; clovers and timothy flourish well on
most soils in Ontai'io, and I should say that rye grasses would also, though I did not
find they were much employed, if at all, in the growth of forage. I think they
might be used to advantage. It is also clear, from what I saw in many places, that
he can raise abundant crops of swedes and mangolds, and very good ones of carrots,
parsnips, and the like. Here, then, after the question of Avater, are the first
requisites of successful dairy farming. A rotation of crops is jixst the system to
I'e-invigorate the older soils of Ontario which have been over-cropped with wheat;
and rotations work well in dairy farming. It is true that good natural pastures are
scarce in the province, if indeed there are any at all which deserve the name from
an Englishman's point of view (the best grass land I saw in Ontario was in the
neighbourhood of London and on the way to Hamilton) ; but, as I have said, clovers,
&c., grow well, and they will answer capitally for pastui-es for a year or two, a
regular succession of them being provided, and it is a simple matter to produce a
large supply of green corn— that is, maize before it comes to maturity — for soiling in
summer when the pastures run out."

ij :

QUEBEC AND THE MARITIME PROVINCES. .',

In the province of Quebec, chiefly south of the River St. Lawrence, there is st.ll
a great deal of agricultural land available for settlement. The most inviting section
of the province is that known as the Eastern Townships, bordering on the New
England States. The land for the most part is well watered and timbered, suitable
for dairying and stock raising, and for the growth of grass, green crops, roots, and
such cereals as may be regarded suitable to what is meant by the abstract term
"mixed farming," This district is being pretty rapidly settled, however, and the
province, as a whole, does not offer inducements equal to those of some of the sister
provinces for British emigrants. The valley of the St. Lawrence is, for the most
part, well settled by our fellow-citizens, the French Canadians, who appear to regard
the province of Quebec as being a land of promise. They are a plodding race, and
have subdued a large area of uninviting country. They are now taking in hand more
and more of the virgin soil of the province — clearing it of superfluous trees, and
bringing it under cultivation. The province has attained considerable reputation
for cheese- and butter-making, especially for the latter; and it seems to me advisable
that such pursuits should be persevered with as leading and salient agricultural
features. The formation of improved pastures may very properly occupy a good deal
of attention — by draining wet soils, re-seeding such as require it, and top-dressing
those that are inferior in condition.

And witli respect to butter and cheese, the chief marketable products of dairy
farms, it is a sufiiciently determined fact that the bust way of improving their average

sing in the
e sea, have
he farmers
t ia now a
uraging to
;e crops, of
, indeed, is
sen injured

Ills English

y moderate

ish well on

h I did not

think they

)lacc8, that

of carrots,

; the first

J By:jtem to

ith wheat ;

astures are

name from

was in the

.id, clovers,

or two, a

produce a

r soiling in

lere is still
ting section
1 the New
ed, suitable
, roots, and
stract term
ir, and the
)f the sister
r the most
r to regard
g race, and
hand more
trees, and
reputation
e advisable
gricultural
1 good deal
jp-dressing

ts of dairy
eir average

quality is to increase the number of cheese factories and creameries. Professor
Arnold, the well-known American expert in matters appertaining to the dairy, holds
tlie opinion that Canada is losing some $5,000,000 per annum through defective
methods of butter-making — want of care and skill in the management of milk and
cream, and in the manipulation of the huttei". The province of Quebec submits to her
sliiiro of this loss, and her share is that of the lion. The wife of a Canadian dairy
farmer has usually so much of general housekeeping work to do that she cannot pro-
jH ily attend to the products of the dairy, besides which she labours under the too
common disadvantage of having inferior equipments and unfavourable accommoda-
tion. Skilled cheese- and butter-makers are more effectively employed in cheese
factories and creameries, because they have control of large quantities of milk, and
are supplied with the most approved equipments. It would appear that, at all events
for purposes of export, cheese is a more attractive product than butter, in the regard
of Canadian dairymen ; for, while the export of butter from Canada has not increased
for more than twenty years, the export of cheese has expanded to something like 800
per centum per annum. This is an enormous gain in the export trade in dairy pro-
ducts, but the gain is wholly on the side of cheese; and this result is attributable, in
a great measure, to the superior reputation which the cheese of Canada has won in
British markets as compared with that of the United States.

Tiie Maritime provinces export dairy products to an extent which is insignificant
in comparison with those of Quebec — and this statement applies with special aptitude
to the province of New Brunswick. And yet there is a vast quantity of land in
those provinces which could be made available for dairy-farming. Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick are, in respect of soil and climate, well adapted to stock-raising and
ilairy-farming, and in course of time will no doubt go in for a quickened develop-
iiu'ut of those iiursuits. At present they are short of population, and the people
tliey have are much employeil in lumbering, shipbuilding, and fishing, to the
disadvantage of agriculture. I have repeatedly seen in these provinces excellent
crops of roots and of grass, and I know the hind will I'espond to careful cultivation
and generous applications of manure. Where such potentialities exist, argument is
not needed to prove that the soil is well adapted to agricultural pursixits. It is true
that a considerable proportion of the good land of these pi'ovinces remains, at present,
covered with trees, and that the labour of clearing acts as a deterrent to settlement;
and it is probable that they contain a gi'eat deal of land, also covered with trees,
which has little or no agricultural value. But the geographical position of the
Maritime provinces and their comparative nearness to European markets, as well
as to those of the Eastern States of America, ought to give before long an impetus
wliich will powerfully tend in the direction of agricultural development.

Prince Edward Island is more thickly, or rather less thinly, populated than
I'ither Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, but it has room for many more people still.
It is an attractive spot in the ocean. Its soil for the most part is a sandy loam,
which yields excellent crops of turnips, potatoes, oats, barley, and so on. Tlie soil
is naturally dry and friable, and therefore easy to cultivate. The island is singularly
suitable for sheep, and its horses have a reputation superior, perhaps, to that of the
rnuine quadi'upeds of any other province of the Dominion, or any State of tjlic Union.
That the island is a healthy place is proved by tlie appearance of the people, who
siem to me to lead lives which are tolerably free from care, and fairly supplied with
I iintentment. Tiie island does not appear to be as well known as it deserves to be
t I Europeans, with whom its communication is not sufflcientlj' frequent and direct.
1 liave no doubt that if it were better known it would bo more widely appreciated,
and would attract its share of British emigrants.

* ^i:

It;

Ki^'

In the three Maritime provinces — New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince
Edward Island — there is room for no end of emigrants, and it has often surprised me
that a larger proportion of old-country people have not remained in these provinces
instead of going farther west. It is no douht true they are less thinly populated
than any of the others, but there is no such thing as dense population anywhere
in Canada, us it is understood on the European side of the Atlantic. Prince
Edward Island has 61 inhabitants to the square mile, but New Brunswick has
only II, and Nova Scotia 21 ; while England and Wales have no less than
i65. Consequently there is plenty of room in the Canadian provinces which
are nearest to England as well as in those far away ; and it seems to me that a good
many emigrants ought to go to them.

In the province of Quebec there are 7*2 persons to the square mile, in Ontario
10o8, in Manitoba 0-52, in British Columbia 0*14, and in the North. West Territories
0-2. The Maritime provinces are, however, very small in comparison with the others.
The provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba are eacJi of them respectively (10,685,
67,573, and 2,085 square miles larger than the United Kingdom ; and British Columbia
is nearly thrice as large. The area of the United Kingdom is 121,116, while that of
the Dominion is 3,G10,257 square miles. Canada, indeed, is larger than the United
States, nearly as large as the whole of Europe, and almost thirty times as large as
Great Britain and Ireland. Her population, according to the census of 1881, was
4,323,810, so that, as will be noticed, there is room enough and to spare for the sui'plus
population of Europe within the limits of the Dominion.

The free grants of land available in the Maritime provinces are, it is
true, covered more or less with timber, and this no doubt is, and for some
time to come will remain, a hindrance to emigration ; but there are still many
farms partly cleared which may be bought on reasonable terms. In the beautiful
valley of the noble St. John river in New Brunswick there are numbers of desirable
farms that may be bought at a rate which ought to tempt many British farmers,
and the same may be said of the great and fertile district around the Bay of Fundy,
in the province of Nova Scotia, and also in New Brunswick. In the neighbourhoods
of Sackville, Kentville, Windsor, Urand Pre, and elsewhere within the influence of
the remarkable tides of the bay, there is to be found the best grass land on the
American continent. Some of the best of it has been sold, in times gone by, for as
much as $400 (or £80) per acre ; but agricultural land in Canada, as in all other
countries, is worth much less money now than it used to be. The wave of depression
which has swept in recent years over the face of the whole earth, leaving its
wreckage everywhere, has not passed Canada by ; and the effect of it is seen in the
two following paragraphs, which I have taken from the " Statistical Abstract and
Record of the Dominion " : —

' i

TRADE AND COMMERCE.

"The total value of imports and exports, and amount of duty collected iu 1886,
as compared with 1833, was as follows : —

Imports. Exports. Duty Collected.

1885 ... $108,9U,486 $89,238,361 $19,133,559

1886 ... 104,424,561 85,251,314 19,448,123

There was, therefore, a decrease in the value of importo of $4,510,925, and in the
value of exports of $3,987,047, and an increase in the amount of duty collected of
$311,504.

" The extreme depression of trade whiah has prevailed almost all over the
world during recent years, has been more or less felt in Canada, as is apparent from
the following figures: —

and I'rince
urpiised me
se provinces
ly populated
n anywhere
tic. Prince
unswick has
less than
inces which

that a good

, in Ontario
Territories
h the others.
tively fiO,685,
ish Columbia
ivhile that of
n the United
s as large as
of 1881, was
iv the surplus

!s are, it is
nd for some
e still many
the beautiful
p of desirable
tish farmers,
lay of Fundy,
ighboiirhoods
i influence of
> land on the
one by, for as
3 in all other
of depression
h, leaving its
is seen in the
Abstract and

acted in 1886,

!ted.

123

5, and in the

y collected of

all over the
pparent from

Excess of total trade of 1883 over 1884 $22,636,287

„ „ 1884 „ 1885 y,62;V,692

„ lt8d „ 1886 8,503,972

Tlie decline in 1886 was less) than in 1885, anil in conjunction with the trade returns
for the current year, which exhibit gratifying results, and with reports of renewed
commercial activity from other countries, may fairly be taken as an indication that
the depression is pansing away."

This depression in trade is found to be reflected in agriculture, the two being
interdependent to a great extent; yet, at the same tiino, my impression is that
Canadian farmers have not been so badly bit, have not lost so much money, and are
not now so despondent as farmers in the old country. As a matter of fact, in-calf
cows for spring, and store cattle generally, and horses too, are actually worth more
money to^ay in Canada than they are in England. I am writing these words on
November 1, 1887,

PUBLIC INDEBTEDNESS.

"Owing to the increase in population, the proportion of the debt to population
has, it will be noticed, not been more than doubled since Confederation, though the
debt itself is three times the amount it was in 1867. The net amount of interest
paid in 1868 was $1.29 per head ; in 1871>, $1.59 ; and in 1880, $1.G3, being an increase
in the last seven years of only 4 cents per head, notwithstanding the large increase
in the amount of the debt. The public debt amounts to nine cents per acre of the
whole Dominion. In the United States the debt is 73 cents per acre of the whole
country, exclusive of Alaska. In the United Kingdom it is $46.60 i)er acre If all
file land fit for settlement in the North-West Territories was to be sold at the rate of
§1 per acre, the proceeds would more than pay off the whole gross debt. If the
'i'luritories and British Columbia were to be put on one side, and the debt spread
over the remaining six provinces, it would require only an assessment of 64 cents per
acre to pay it off." — IStatistical Abstract}.

The public debt of Canada has been contracted chiefly for works which develop
the country's rtsources; and, indeed, the object is a sufficient one, and Canada can
well uear a debt, for her natural resources are great and inexhaustible.

CONSUMPTION OF TEA AND SUGAR.
"The consumption of food is the best of all measures 'of a nation's prosperity,'
and the consumption of the two articles of tea and sugar per inhabitant is generally
considered by statisticians as the best indication of the people's condition. A com-
parison of tlie figures relating to the consumption of these articles in Canada will
serve to show that, juJgi^d by this test, the country has made and is making satis-
factory progress in tlie accession of wealth. In 18G8 the consumption of sugar was
15 lbs. per head, in 1877 it was 23 lbs. per head, and in 1886 it was 37 lbs. per head.
According to the most available returns, the consumption per head was larger in 1888
in Canada than in any other country with the exception of the United Kingdom and
the United States, where the amount was 72 lbs. and 43 lbs. respectively. It will be
seen that the consumption has increased 146 per cent, since 18(i7. On the amount
consumed the duty was at the rate of 1^ cents per lb. in 1868, 2^ cents in 1877, and
IJ cents in 188G. The figures relating to the consumption of tea indicate in the same
favourable manner the increase of wealth. In 1868 the consumption was 2 lbs. per
head, in 1877 it was 3;} lbs. per head, and in 188G it was 4| lbs. per head. According
to Mulhall, the consumption in tea in England Avas not quite 5 lbs. per head." —

ISlatiitiral Ahbtractl.

WAGES.
The following table of wages, copied from the Statistical Abstract, will indicate
the places to which artisans, and servants of all classes, will be well advised to go.

Numbers of such emigrants leave the shores of England almost every day, a«id many
of them have only nebulous ideas as to where they are going or ought to go, and to
these the tables will be a guide at once definite and reliable : —

hi
m

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arm labourer
week and boa
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and board per
[aeons per day
out board ...
ricklayers ,
arpenters ,

LiumDermen

month
Shipwrights pe
Smiths
AVheelwrightB

araenerB,with
per month
ardeners w
board per da;
emale cooks
month
anndresses
emale domesti
eneral labour)
day without bi
[fuers per
[illliands
ngine drivers
addlers
ootmakers
ailors

*t 3 ma

JO* ►jpt.o a;<wcoooEH ;

Tlie working-classes in Canada are in a position, when they remain in constant
work, to lay by more money than can be done in England. The cost of living in
the Dominion, if a man goes the right way to live, is quite as cheap on an average
as in England ; but clothing, boots and shoes, and various household requisites are
foinoAvhat dearer than in the mother country— dearer because of inferior quality
rather than of superior price, yet on account of both. The temptation to squander
money in drink and other follies are much less numerous in Canada than in
Kiigland, though in Canada a man may easily tool his nioney away if he is inclined
tliat way, ",.''' ■ . ■ i , ■■• ''., ' ' ,,

CONCLUSION.

My task, pleasant enough in itself, despite the responsibility attaching to it, is
now drawing to an end, and I am behoved to add a moral to the tale. Mj' journey has
liten, on the whole, the pleasantest I have made to Canada, and the fullest of interest.
To the tourist and sportsman, I may speak of the Dominion of Canada as a country
in the highest degree worthy of their notice ; to the farmer the substance of my
ruport is devoted and he will draw what inferences he may like from what I have
said ; to the capitalist I say little or nothing, for he is master of the situation
ftiiywhere ; to the artisan, the farm labourer, the female domestic servant, the jack-
of-all-trades man, and everybody else who wants to earn a living, I may remark that
;', good living may be earned in Canada, and something inore, by people who are
prepared to give conscientious Avork, who are steady and thrifty, and with whom
no bodily infirmities stand in the way

That Canada wants men and women, young men and maidens, aye, and old men
and children, is seen in the untold millions of acres of uncultivated land we see. She
wants capital too, either in gold, or muscle, or brains, — any and all of them. But
she does not want paupers, or idlers, or loafers, or drunkards, or wordy, windy
agitators, or fools of any sort. She will find room and a welcome for any reasonable
launber of honest workers ; for these ai-e not paupers, however poor they may be j
nor are they loafers, or drinkers, or spouters, or anything else that is demoralising,
and disagreeable. She does not want shoals of soft-handed clerks, or dilettanti
professionals, or confirmed gentlemen who think work beneath them, and want to
live on their wits; or women who cannot cook a potato, or make a pudding.or wash a
siiirt, or mend a stocking; or ladies who can only play and sing and entertain visitoi-s.
Tiie demand for these sorts of people is so limited in Canada that I have not found
any of it in all my travels in that country ; or, if there is a demand at all, it is some,
where in the northern forests, or away on the desolate prairies, or amongst the
Bnow-clad mountains — anywhere, in fact, away from the busy haunts of men. The
only spots which Canada can spare for these people, are where they must buckle to or
starve. And yet there is room even for these if they will turn over a new leaf in
life, and go in for level work and no skulking.

'jood mechanics and artisans, sf.urdy farm labourers, thrifty farmers, steady
fi'ina'e servants, men of capital who know how to use ir, plodding and steady-going
people of all sorts will get along in Canada. It is a question of toil of hand or of
head, of conduct, of health, of discretion all round. People who can do no good in
old countries must not go to new ones with the expectation tiiat what they want
will come of its own accord. Those who have made no square effort to live iu
liritain, and who blame the old country for the result, will fare no better in Canada
if they employ the same methods. Yet are there thousands of toiling, careful,
sensible men and women in the Brit'«!h Islands, who — in a protracted wave of
disaster like the present, which is now strewing the beach with so many wrecks —

V'i

liave struggled bravely on year alter year, only to find thentiielvei poorer at the
end of each sucreHsive one tlmn they were at its V)eginning. Tliese people would
soon find themselves in comfortable circumstances in Oivnada, providing they could
take some capital along to give them a start. I am convinced that many English,
and Irish, and Scotch, and Welsh farmers would prosper in Canada if they would
work there us they do here, and live as carefully. All the same, I am aware that they
would have to face new sets of conditions which would tax their ingenuity and
adaptiveness for a time ; and I do not for a moment underestimate the wrench to
feelings which occurs when a man "pulls up stumps" and makes away for a neAv
country, far away from oM friends and old associations. Thousands, however, have
done it, and survived, and thousands more will have to do it.

I am not one of thosp who expect British agriculture to become again, in our
time, what it was a dozc years ago. My confirmed belief is that we must expect,
for a long time to come, an average of prices for agricultural products whicli will
be decidedly low as compared with that of 1870-75. A spurt may now-and-again
occur, but this will be the result of a temporary disturbance of things somewhere,
and will not last long. A big European war, for example, or an abnormal drought
on an enormous scale in America, or some other erratic ebullition in nature,
may cause a fillip one of these days, but it will not do to calculate on any such
thing, much less depend upon it. We must, in fact, make up our minds that we
will settle down to the new order of things which steam has thrust upon the world,
and make the best of it ; and the question arises — ivhere can we make the best of it?
The arable soils of England have to meet the competition of the North-West of
Canada and of India, and railways are opening up new districts every day and
intensifying the competition. The stale plough.lands of old countries fare badly
against virgin soils abroad, where no rents are wanted and very few taxes. Rents
and manure bills, rates and taxes, will kill any arable farmer in England as things
are. The soils of the old country are twice as difficult to cultivate as those of the
new ; some of them are very much more so than that. There is too much exi>ense
on British plough-lands, but grass-lands may weather the gale. But, in any case, the
world's competition will increase as the years roll on, new steamships will be built,
new railroads laid down Each countrj' will become the possible market of every
other, to an extent wliich has no limit as to distance, and in this way a vast
levelling process is going on. To this process we must all bow ; we cannot 8tx)p it;
and we dare not if we could.

The landowners of Britain feel the strain, and the farmers feel it too j the strain,
indeed, is greater than many can bear. Where relief is to come from, tio man can
pretend to say. Will any effectual relief come to us ? or must we go to the relief?
Tenant farmers, and farm labourers may pack up their traps and go if they like; but
how about the landowners ? Those who pay for land a rent are not anchored to the
land ; or if they are they can lift the anchor or slip it. But the owner is anchored to
it, and he, at all events, has no chance to move. The agricultural land of the British
Islands is now going through a process which will make it harmonise a little better
in price with land in other countries, and the process is one of "climbing dov/n; " it
is, moreover, a process which may go on for some time to come. Tiiis, as it seems to
me, is the tendency of the period, and I must leave British farmers to interpret it ai
they plea.se.

I have purposely avoided calculations as to the cost of raising wheat, or cattle,
or fruit, or anything else in Canada, because such calculations, however interesting
they may be, are seldom conclusive. At the best they can only be approximative,
and applicable in certain instances, because so much depends on different soili',

poorer at tli«
people would
iiy tliey could
laiiy English,
if they would
vare that thuy
ngenuity and
the wrench to
ray for a new
however, have

again, in our
B must expect,
tB wliicli will
now-and-again
gs somewhere,
ormal drought
ion in nature,
e on any such
minds that we
pon the world,
the hest of it ?
North-West of
every day and
riea fare badly

taxes. Rents
Inland as things
as those of the
J much expense
in any case, the
)S will be built,
narket of every
!»is way a vast
cannot stop it;

too ; the strain,
}m, lio man car
ro to the relief?
f they like; but
anchored to the
r 18 anchored to
d of the British
3 a little better
ling dov/n ; " it
, as it seems to
interpret it ai

irheat, or cattle,
iver interesting
approximative,
different soil?,

different geasona, different menj on tlie cost of land, of implementi, of team*, and so
1)11 ; on the yield and the quality of crops, on labour, the value of money, and a
liuudred other things almost, each of which is a factor, more or less potent, in the
cost of production. I have seen such calcnlations, and know what uncertain guides
tiieyare; so that I prefer to advise emigrants to attend well to their work, to the
cultivation of the soil, the management of stock, the care of premises, implements,
fences, and bo forth — on the principle that by taking care of the pence the pounds will
take care of themgelves. It is certain that, all other things being equal, some men
will get on better than others in Canada, as indeed they will anywhere else ; this
depends on the men, and I have already illustrated this phase of the question. This,
indeed, may be said, that, in Canada as much as in any other country, industry is
the mother of plenty, and idlenesg will cover a man with rags.

JOHN rillNCE SHELDON,

•:'t'

I I i

),'i" ■; I':

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES.

Ill

. i '

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ALL PERSONS desirous of obtaining information relating
to Canada, can make application to the following Agents

IN THE UNITED KINGDOM:

LONDON The IIioii Commissioner fok the Dominion, 9, Victoria

Cliniiibere, London, S.W.

^1 Mr, J. Coi.MEit, Secretary, High Commissioner's Office, and

■'■■'■ Mr. C. C. Ciiii'MAN, Assistant Secretary (adUresB as

nl>ove).

LIVERPOOL Mr. John Dvke, 16, Water Street.'

GLASGOW Mr. Thomas Graiiame, St. Knoch Square.

BELFAST Mr. IL Mkruick, 35, Victoria Place.

DUBLIN Mr. Tiiomau Connolly, Northumberland House.

BRISTOL Mr. .1. W. Down, Bath Bridge.

N.B.— At the London and Liverpool Of&oes of the Canadian
Government, flies of the leading Canadian Journals, Statutes,
Government Returns, Reports on Trade, &o., are kept for reference.

In Canada the Government has Agents at the principal points through-
out the country. The following is a list : —

QUEBEC Mr. L. Stafford, Louise £mI)aQl(ment and Point Levis,

Quebec.

TORONTO Mr J. A. Donaldson, Strnchan Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.

OTTAWA Mr. W. J. Wills, Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario.

MONTREAL Mr. J. J. Daley, St. James Street West, Montreal, Prov of

Quebec.

KINGSTON Mr. R. Maci-hekson, William Street, Kinffston, Ontario.

HAMILTON Mr. John Smith, Great Western Railway Station,

Hamilton, Ontario.

LONDON Mr. A. G. Smyth, London, Ontario.

HALIFAX Mr. E. McC. Clay, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

ST. .JOHN Mr. S. Gardnkk, St. John, New Brunswick.

WINNIPEG Mr. W. C. B. Gkahamk, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

EMERSON Mr. J. E. Tetu, Railway Station, Eniert<on, Manitoba.

BRANDON Mr. Thomas Bennett, Office at the Itailway Station.

MEDICINE HAT Mr. Morrison Sutherland.

CALGARY Mr. F. Z. C. Miquelon,

PORT ARTHUR Mr. .L M. McGovern.

VICTORIA. B.C Mr. John Jkssop.

NEW WESTMINSTER ...Mr. H. B. Aikman.

These officers will afford the fullest advice and protection. They should
be immediately applied to on arrival. All complaints should be addressed to
them. They will also furnish information as to lands open for settlement in
their respective provinces and districts, farms for sale, demand for employ-
ment, rates of wages, routes of travel, distances, expenses of conveyance, etc.

4CIES.

n relating
;ent8

VI:

N, 9, Victoria

r'H Oflicc, aD(l
y (adilres* ai

ise.

i Canadian
, Statutes,
r reference.

nts through-

1 Point Levis,

•onto, Ontario.
, Ontario,
itreal, Prov of

m, Ontario.
Iway Station,

[anitoba.
Station,

They should
addressed to

settlement in
for employ-

i^eyance, etc.

f. L

\Vi»iit !»!' <ipn**ii\rirti

MAP OF THE ESTATE. A

\ of th.e/^
The Crnnpajws Land colcfred Finlt

Scale .

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