Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/793

Rh "The most trustworthy estimates," says Sir W. Crookes, "give Canada a wheat area of not more than six millions of acres in the next twelve years, increasing to a maximum of twelve millions of acres in twenty-five years." Who prepared these estimates, and upon what are they based? Were they prepared by the same authority that supplied Sir W. Crookes with the figures of the area of Manitoba? If so, we may well dismiss them at once; but supposing that these estimates are, as far as the rate of increase is concerned, perfectly correct, and that the wheat area of Canada will be only twelve million acres in twenty-five years, there would still remain at least twelve million acres in Manitoba alone available for wheat. It is no exaggerated estimate to say that from sixty to seventy per cent of the land available for cultivation in Manitoba is well adapted for the production of wheat. Sir W. Crookes says that his area of Manitoba of 13,051,375 acres includes water courses, lakes, forests, towns, etc. Now, the water area alone of Manitoba is 6,329,600 acres, so that after deducting this area and the 1,630,000 acres already under wheat and making due allowance for the other conditions mentioned, he would have us believe that wheat-growing in Manitoba has already nearly reached its limit, which all who know anything about the province will unite in saying is absurd.

Now let us turn to the Northwest Territories, where, according to Sir W. Crookes, there is practically no amount of land of any consequence available for wheat, and let us remember that the same authority limits the wheat area of Canada to a maximum of twelve million acres. The area of the three provisional districts, with which alone we will deal, is as follows, viz.: Assiniboia, 57,177,600 acres; Saskatchewan, 69,120,000 acres; and Alberta, 63,523,200 acres (these figures being exclusive of water surface), making a total of 189,820,000 acres. Some of this large area is possibly not particularly well adapted for agricultural purposes, but a careful examination of all available data on the subject justifies one in saying that fully one half is suitable for successful wheat cultivation, while in eastern and southern Assiniboia there are some 20,000,000 acres, in the valley of the Saskatchewan 14,000,000 acres, and in northern Alberta 15,000,000 acres that are especially adapted for the production of wheat as a staple crop. The area is so large and settlement at present so sparse, that it is impossible to do more than give its capabilities in general terms, founded on the opinions of experienced men who have traveled over it. Professor Saunders, Director of the Experimental Farm at Ottawa, than whom there is no better authority on the subject in the Dominion, told me that, from what he saw of the country in driving