Feb. 22.—After spending a couple of hours reading bulletins of the Department of Agriculture I felt the need of some light reading, and picked up Mr. Frank Yeigh's little encyclopædia of Five Thousand Facts About Canada. This is a book that deserves the comment that a Scotchman made on the dictionary: "It has bonny tales, but they're unco short." Here is one of the little tales that fairly staggered me:
"Ontario ranks higher than any other province in field crops, being nearly forty per cent. of the whole, fairly double that of the next important, and greater than the three grain-growing provinces of the North-west combined."
Now, what do you think of that? I thought that, when compared with the clamorous west, we were raising only chicken-feed, and hardly enough of that. Here are a few more little tales that should be framed in every house in Ontario, and that all the school children should be forced to commit to memory:
"The value of agricultural produce has increased 60 per cent. during fifteen years.
"Three-quarters of the dairy produce of Canada comes from Ontario.
"The province produces 75 per cent. of all fruits grown in Canada, 60 per cent. of the plums, 70 per cent. of the apples, 80 per cent. of the small fruits and pears, and 99 per cent. of the peaches and grapes."
We should find out where that other peach tree and grape vine are and buy them up so that we could claim the whole 100 per cent. On top of all this we get these two amazing statements:
"There are about twenty million acres of good arable land left for settlement south of the 50th parallel of latitude.
"Ontario received in 1909-10, 46 out of every 129 of the total immigration into Canada."
As the total immigration for 1910 was 325,000, one cannot be blamed for asking why Ontario did not get more settlers. This province seems to be badly in need of a press agent. And why, in the name of all that is sensible, should any one want to leave Ontario when it offers such opportunities? If they must wander, why not wander about in Ontario? Let the people who are now having their sale bills printed and putting "owner removing to the west" at the bottom give some thought to these facts before it is too late.