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MANITOULIN

1160

MANITOWOC

growth of vegetation. The autumns are long and agreeable. During the winter, on account of the dry atmosphere, the low temperature is not so much felt as in countries with more moisture.

Resources. Agriculture will always remain the chief occupation of the people. At first wheatgrowing was the chief item; mixed farming is now increasing; nearly all the wheat is sent to Europe either in the grain or as flour made in Canadian mills. Large flouring-mills are to be seen everywhere. So thickly are the railroads intersecting the province that but few farms are more than 8 or 10 miles distant from a road. There are four systems: the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Northern, the Great Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific, extending to Prince Rupert, B. C. Winnipeg, Brandon and Portage la Prairie are the chief centers of population. The province has 2,000,000 square miles of arable land, but only about one sixth is under cultivation.

Manitoba was the sphere of the pioneering efforts in western Canada's immigration. It is only 36 years since the province had only 17,000 inhabitants. To-day its population is more than 455,000. In 1870 its agricultural production found no place in the records. In 1881 it was credited with producing 1,000,000 bushels of wheat on 51,300 acres and 1,270,268 bushels of oats. The acreage under crop in 1902 was 3,189,015; 2,039,940 of which were in wheat, producing a yield of about 53,000,000 bushels. In 1905 the acreage in wheat was 2,643,588. The yield was 21.07 as a general average, making a total yield of 55,761,416 bushels. On 432,298 acres there was a total crop of 14,064,025 bushels of barley. These crops made $58,682,471 for the 45,000 farmers or over $1,300 each in 1905. The rapid expansion of the province is mirrored in these figures. Its wheat-yield for 10 years averaged nearly 22 bushels per acre.

Water and fuel are important considerations for the settler. In Manitoba the country is everywhere at easy distances intersected by creeks and rivers, and there are many lakes, especially in the northern portion. Water can be secured almost anywhere by sinking wells to a moderate depth.

Mr. Sifton, a former minister of the interior, who has resided many years in the northwest, wrote, before the extension of Manitoba's boundaries in 1912: "In Manitoba and the two new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan there are, roughly speaking, over 200,000,000 acres known to be fit for cultivation, and the population at the present time is about 750,000 souls. They last year cultivated altogether about 5,250,000 acres. They produced 60,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 66,000,000 bushels of other grains. This year (1905) there will be 5,750,000 acres under cultivation. The rest awaits the plough. If 750,000 people

cultivating 5,250,000 acres of land produce 126,000,000 bushels of grain, and there yet remain more than 190,000,000 acres to be brought under cultivation, is it too much to say that within a few years the grandiloquent title of the Granary of the Empire will be more than realized?"

The coalfields of the west and the timbered districts of the north and east, as well as the south, will supply fuel for hundreds of years.

Education. There is but one school-system—the public-school system under which all schools are free to all children between 5 and 15. High schools in all the cities and larger towns are free to resident pupils, and in Winnipeg and Brandon there are colleges possessing a standing equal to that of the institutions of the older provinces. Excellent training is provided for teachers, and their qualifications are of a high standard. The public schools are maintained largely by government appropriations, at present about $2,000,000 yearly. In this province, as throughout Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Dominion government has set apart two sections of land in each township, the income from which is applied to the support of its schools, the remainder of the funds being provided by a land-tax. One eighteenth of the land is set apart for school purposes. Private schools, business colleges and public libraries are numerous, as well-equipped, as those in similar communities anywhere, and are established in all the cities and towns of importance. With the splendid public schools these offer educational facilities fully equal to those of any country. In 1886 the number of schools was 422 with a school-population of 16,834. I*1 1908 there were 2,014 public schools, with an attendance of 71,031. There also is a large number of Roman Catholic parochial schools. There is an experimental farm at Brandon that is doing much to educate the farming population. Accurate records of all experiments in practical work are kept, and the information is given to the settlers free. There also are dairy-schools, farmers' institutes, live-stock, fruit-growers', agricultural and horticultural associations that are doing much to educate the settlers, free of charge, in all the most successful methods of carrying on all the branches of their calling.

Man'itou'Hn, a large island in Lake Huron, wholly in Canadian waters. South of the District of Algoma and northwest of Georgian Bay. Valuable for its grazing lands. Not easily accessible in winter. It is about 60 miles long and for half of its length is 15 miles wide. Its largest town is Gore Bay (population 1,000). The country across the channel to the north is rich in timber and minerals.

Man towoc ^ (man'i-td-wok'}, Wis., the capital of Manitowoc County, on the river of the same name, on the shores of Lake Michigan, 75 miles north of Milwaukee. It has a