THE WHEAT PROBLEM. (Rural World.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2404, 29 March 1900, Page 7

THE WHEAT PROBLEM. (Rural World.)

It was hardly to be expected that the assertions would be allowed to pa,s unchallenged .■which Sir William Orookes made concerning the wheat-producing capabilities of Canada in the course of his presidential address before the British Association last year. Accordingly, in Appleton's Popular Science 'Monthly, published in New York, there ap.pears an article on the "Wheat Lands of .Canada," by Mr Sydney O. D. Roper, who, at is said, has been officially connected with ifche subject in Ottawa. "In order," Mr [Roper states at the outset, "to establish -the f)robability of a wheat famine in the near uture, it became necessary for Sir W. Orookes jto seriously misrepresent and underestimate the wheat resources of some of the nrineiml

countries most interested in producing that cereal, and it is to a large extent by exposing the magnitude of those misrepresentations that the validity of his conclusions is called in question and disproved. The two countries which, with perhaps the exception -jf Ru-Ma, are mo?t concerned in the wheat production of the future, and therefore in the correction of these misstatements, are Canada, m d Uie United States." After quoting Sir W. Crookes's figures relating to Manitoba, Mr Roper says that attempts, have been jtuade to find out where the^e figures were obtained, but no clue has been di-covered, and, though Sir W. Crookes claims to be indebted to the official publication^ of the Dominion Government, "it is certain that none of them ever contained the figures used by him." Sir W. Crookes says — ice his book on "The Wheat Problem," page 24— "The most trustworthy estimates give Canada, a wheat area of not more than 6,000,000 acres in the next 12 years, increasing to a maximum of 12 000,000 acres in 25 years." "Who prepared these estimates," ask 3 Mr Roper, "and upon wnat are they based? Were they prepared by hie same authority that supplied Sir W. Crookes with the figures of the aiea of Mamtooa.' 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 12.000,000 acre-; in 25 years, there would still- remain 12,000,000 acres in Manitoba alone available for wheat." Strong testimony is adduced as to the wheat-growing capabilities of the North-western territories, whilst evidence is brought forward to support the contention that a very large portion of the 12,000,000 acre* Ie which Sir W. Crookes has limited Canada could be supplied by Ontario alone, nothing but the maintenance of good prices being needed to largely increase the production of wheat in that fertile province. The exceptionable point abovit the "trustworthy estimates," quoted by Sir W. Crooked, is that he adopts them, "and gives to the 'world a statement, on the strength of them, that, in addition to the three and a-half million acres at present in use, there are not more than eight and a-half million acres in Canada available lor wheat cultivation — a statement calculated, if believed, to seriously damage Canada's prospects of settlement, and a statement th-il is as much at va riance with the actual facr,s as it is possible for such things to be."