eight millions and a foreign commerce
of one billion. One raises from seven hundred to nine hundred million
bushels of wheat; the other, from two hundred to three hundred
millions. One produces thirty million metric tons of steel a year; the
other, less than a million tons; one is worth a hundred and fifty
billion dollars, the other perhaps ten billions.

It is explained that the northern belt of Canada lying in a semi-arctic
zone should hardly be included in comparisons with the area of the
United States lying altogether in a temperate zone; but if cultivation
is proving one thing more than another, it is that Canada's arctic
region recedes a little every year, and her isothermal lines run a
little farther north every year. To put it differently, it is being
yearly more and more proved that the degree of northern latitude
matters less in vegetable growth than heretofore thought, if the arable
land be there; for the simple reason that twenty hours of sunlight from
May to September force as rapid a growth as twelve to fifteen hours'
sunlight from March to September, and the product grown in the North
may be superior to that grown farther south. Wheat from Manitoba is
better than wheat from Georgia. Apples from Niagara have a quality not
found in apples--say from the Gulf states. All things will not grow in
northern latitudes. You can't raise corn. You can't raise peaches. I
doubt if any apple will ever be found suitable for the northwestern
prairie. At any rate, it has not yet been found.

Half a century ago the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in
perfectly good faith testified before a committee of the Imperial
Commons that farming could never be carried on in Rupert's Land, or
what are now known as Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. He proved
that grain could not be grown there. I recall the day when the idea of
fall wheat west of Lake Superior elicited a hoot of derision. I have
lived to wander through fields of six hundred acres north of the
Saskatchewan. Thirty years ago any one suggesting settlement on Peace
River, or at Athabasca, would have been regarded as a visionary fool.
Yet wheat is ground into flour on Peace River, and the settler is at
Athabasca; and soft Kansas fall wheat sent to Peace River has by a few
years' transplanting been transformed into Number One Hard spring
wheat. Canada's arctic belt has shrunk a little each year, and her
isothermal lines gone a little farther north. Th