not usually excessive. In Quebec
and northern Ontario the rainfall is diminished, ranging from 20 to 40
in., while the snows of winter are deep and generally cover the ground
from the beginning of December to the end of March. The winters are
brilliant but cold, and the summers average from 60 deg. to 65 deg. F.,
with generally clear skies and a bracing atmosphere which makes these
regions favourite summer resorts for the people of the cities to the
south. The winter storms often sweep a little to the north of southern
Ontario, so that what falls as snow in the north is rain in the south,
giving a much more variable winter, often with too little snow for
sleighing. The summers are warm, with an average temperature of 65 deg.
and an occasional rise to 90 deg.. As one goes westward the
precipitation diminishes to 17.34 in. in Manitoba and 13.35 for the
other two prairie provinces, most of this, however, coming opportunely
from May to August, the months when the growing grain most requires
moisture. There is a much lighter snowfall in winter than in northern
Ontario and Quebec, with somewhat lower temperatures. The snow and the
frost in the ground are considered useful as furnishing moisture to
start the wheat in spring. The precipitation in southern Saskatchewan
and Alberta is much more variable than farther east and north, so that
in some seasons crops have been a failure through drought, but large
areas are now being brought under irrigation to avoid such losses. The
prairie provinces have in most parts a distinctly continental climate
with comparatively short, warm summers and long, cold winters, but with
much sunshine in both seasons. In southern Alberta, however, the winter
cold is often interrupted by chinooks, westerly winds which have lost
their moisture by crossing the mountains and become warmed by plunging
down to the plains, where they blow strongly, licking up the snow and
raising the temperature, sometimes in a few hours, from 20 deg. to 40
deg. F. In this region cattle and horses can generally winter on the
grass of the ranges without being fed, though in hard seasons there may
be heavy losses. Northwards chinooks become less frequent and the
winter's cold increases, but the coming of spring is not much later, and
the summer temperatures, with sunshine for twenty hours out of
twenty-four in June, are almost the same as for hundreds of miles to
the south, so that most kinds of grain and vegetables ripen far to