WESTERN CANADA.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12908, 23 February 1906, Page 3

WESTERN CANADA.

AS A TTHEAT FIELD.

It is only within recent years. says Mr E. B. Osborn, tliat tiie true v.uiie -i the Canadian North-West as a lield of settlement has been recognised. Nothing is more remarkable in the history of Western America,, than the retrocession of the supposed northern limit of settlement. Less than forty years ago Minneapolis mow the second greatest Scandinavian city in the world, with a total population about- equal to that of Leeds) was a mere trading post, and the country to the north across the49th parallel of latitude, which is the boundary line between Wesietn Canada and the Western States, was thought to be a Sahara of the snows, inhabited only by fur-bearing animals and Indian hunters. Twenty years later, when tie success of wheat-growing in Manitoba and of ranching in Southern Alberta was assured, the northern, limit- of profitable cultivation was drawn again three degrees of latitude nearer the Bole, the Saskatchewan Valley being looked upon as the beginning of a" wilderness created ior the sole benefit of the furtrader. To-day the whole valley of the J Saskatchewan is known to be the best farming region in the West, and settlement is already trickling northward into the Peace Biver, Valley, which lies along the 56th parallel. The question now is. .Where shallrthe limiting line be drawn! ' Many Canadians believe that those whoframed the ..North-West Anfbnomv Bill, and made the sixtieth parallel serve as the northern- boundary of the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, have

perhaps found the right answer; for if i the evidence of trees and plants, the only l reliable witnesses, to the climatic conditions of an. undeveloped countrv, be preferred to travellers' tales, we are justified in believing that at least half of the , quarter-million square miles of Athabasca | is capable of. supporting a population of | farmers and Rancher?. The fact that the greater length •- of^Jhe v .#ummer. days comjpeteates for the loss ef two or three* davs ,at either end of the open season* is welt known to the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, some of whom have grown their own wheat find ground, it in{ o voQr at the I posts along the many traUrway, convert ?B to ™*? the Mackenzie River The I future of Western Athabasci sfem/UurYd * for there can be no doubt wh?tev«J£ f Chinook, or warm wind from the Pacific I The superiority in quantity and aJaL, of the grain product from an acre of avf ' rage farm-land in- Manitoba or SaskatdT. I wan over that from an average acre inll I Western States, i s slowly but surdv J," e faring the wheat-growing w *" I 'brnda^S 3 BCrOSS tLe *«•«£] \r£ s P) T kelet of *neat raised in ~. Middle West "-thus forty yeai 6 / th -° cultural history have been summ/ ' *& u ' would formerlv produce three * '° v ~ grams, but now it produced oulv P erfec t feet and one imperfect grain - nduction of only two perfect". ri,e P ro ' spikelet has ceased to be pit rsTOS °« * Manitoba farmers have.alwr J&a W e - In to produce three perfect gr~ *•""" ee " a ' ,lc good season, such as tha' • in>? * ln a vcrv perfect grains have been ' "" of 1902 - fo,ir ther north, in the Pr : Fenced. FnrEdmonton districts, th * DCC and variably four perfect a *?* are almost inWhen it is remembe" on a spikelci." much a product of * ,U;lt - wheat is is and that all throus' •"** ST,n ns of 'he soil, night of the Ednr * I^JC sl,ort midsummer sible to read, the >«rton district it is posment is not far explanation of this state--And as regar *° ■««&• Canadian to A ** E e superior quality of that barely tv Jnerkan wheat. fc i«. a"fa c i the Western /0 P er cent - °f l «e product of an indispen- • States is "Xo. 1 Hard"--/aaue -commoctrty .in modem mil-

ling practice whereas 50 per ceni. of \ West em Canada's cop is of that standard, (he highest in the world.