th the incoming
of steamships of iron and steel the maritime provinces entirely lost
their old pre-eminence and world-wide reputation for shipbuilding. It
was July, 1908, before a steel ocean-going vessel was launched in the
maritime provinces. This was a three-masted schooner of 900 tons
burden, the _James William_, which was built in the Matheson Yard, at
New Glasgow, N.S. Steel vessels had, however, been built for lake
service at Toronto, Collingwood, and Bridgeburg from 1898 onward. At
Collingwood and Bridgeburg the largest and finest types of lake
freighters and passenger vessels are built. In 1908 a new steel
shipbuilding yard was installed at Welland, and plans were completed
for the establishment of a large yard at Dartmouth on Halifax Harbour.

Until the development of the prairie provinces, all manufacturing in
the Dominion was carried on {422} east of the great lakes. With the
opening out of the great wheat-growing regions of Manitoba, Alberta,
and Saskatchewan, however, Winnipeg is gradually becoming a great
manufacturing city, and many miscellaneous industries on a factory
scale have been established there. The most western iron
plant--puddling furnaces and a rolling mill--is situated on the
outskirts of the city.

According to the figures of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, as
given by Mr. E. J. Freysing, President of the Toronto Section, in July,
1908, there were in Canada at that time 2,465 firms which were either
members of the Association or were eligible for membership. These
firms employed either on salary or wages 392,330 men, women, and
children. This number includes 80,000 engaged in the lumbering
business--the largest number engaged in any one trade. Lumbering is
carried on in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick, and the annual value of the product is over one hundred
million dollars--a value only exceeded by the food products of the
Dominion.

More important than all other industries put together is farming. The
extent of this industry may be judged from the fact that each year from
1900 to 1908 from 20,000 to 40,000 homesteads were taken up. The usual
size of these homesteads is 160 acres, and the acreage thus newly under
cultivation varied during the eight years from one to twelve million
square miles a year. In 1907 alone the new farms represented an
immigration {423} of 105,420 persons. The total number of farms in the
Dominion in 1908