Now let us turn to the Northwest Territories, where, according to Sir W. Crookes, there is practically no amount of land of any consequence available for wheat, and let us remember that the same authority limits the wheat area of Canada to a maximum of twelve million acres. The area of the three provisional districts, with which alone we will deal, is as follows, viz.: Assiniboia, 57,177,600 acres; Saskatchewan, 69,120,000 acres; and Alberta, 63,523,200 acres (these figures being exclusive of water surface), making a total of 189,820,000 acres. Some of this large area is possibly not particularly well adapted for agricultural purposes, but a careful examination of all available data on the subject justifies one in saying that fully one half is suitable for successful wheat cultivation, while in eastern and southern Assiniboia there are some 20,000,000 acres, in the valley of the Saskatchewan 14,000,000 acres, and in northern Alberta 15,000,000 acres that are especially adapted for the production of wheat as a staple crop. The area is so large and settlement at present so sparse, that it is impossible to do more than give its capabilities in general terms, founded on the opinions of experienced men who have traveled over it. Professor Saunders, Director of the Experimental Farm at Ottawa, than whom there is no better authority on the subject in the Dominion, told me that, from what he saw of the country in driving over it, he became more and more impressed every year with the vast area of good land in the Northwest, and no practical man has ever traveled through those regions but has been amazed at the prospect of their capabilities.
But we have not yet reckoned with the rich and fertile province of Ontario. This province has a land area of 140,576,000 acres, of which 11,888,853 acres were under cultivation in 1898, and of this latter quantity 1,437,387 acres, or twelve per cent, were in wheat, being an increase of 163,860 acres over the wheat area of 1897, and of 62,573 acres over the average of 1882-'98. According to the census of 1881 there were nearly 2,000,000 acres in wheat in 1880, but, under the influence of an unremunerative market, the area declined year by year until in 1895 there were but 967,156 acres so employed; since then, however, stimulated by a more profitable price, the area has increased by 470,471 acres, and an increase of twenty per cent upward is reported in the area for 1899. Fall wheat in this province is a very successful crop, having averaged in the last two years twenty-five bushels and twenty-four bushels per acre respectively, while the average for the period 1882-'98 has been 20.5 bushels per acre, so that nothing but a continuance of good prices is needed to largely increase the production of wheat in Ontario. In no part of the province, where agriculture is possible, has wheat failed to grow, but the area is so large that it would be unwise to put into figures the extent available for wheat cultivation, it being sufficient to show that a very large portion, if not indeed the whole, of the twelve million acres to which Sir W. Crookes has limited Canada could, other conditions being favorable, be supplied by Ontario alone.
The "trustworthy estimates" quoted by Sir W. Crookes limit, as has been stated, the wheat area of Canada to a maximum of twelve million acres under cultivation in twenty-five years; whence the estimates were derived or on what grounds they are entitled to be considered trustworthy there is no information; but is it of any consequence? Let them come from whatever source they may, are they not perfectly useless? The progress of wheat cultivation during the next twenty-five years does not depend upon any mathematical ratio of progression, but on the course of certain events absolutely unknown at the present time. The point is that Sir W. Crookes adopts these estimates and gives out to the world a statement, on the strength of them, that, in addition to the 3,500,000 acres at present in use, there are not more than 8,500,000 acres in Canada available for wheat cultivation—a statement calculated, if believed, to seriously damage Canada's prospects of settlement, and a statement that is as much at variance with the actual facts as it is possible for such things to be. Is it fair to the country for a man of such high standing and reputation to make such unfounded assertions? Five minutes' real consideration of the question would have convinced him that there are more than that number of acres in the province of Manitoba alone. The figures already given, which have been prepared from the most reliable available information, go to show that there are upward of seventy-five million acres of land in Canada especially adapted for the production of wheat, and this estimate is confined to those portions of the country which may be considered as essentially wheat-producing areas; and no account has been taken of the vast extent of land, not only in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and in the Northwest Territories, but also in the otherwise unnoticed provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia, that is not only suitable for the production of wheat, but on which a large quantity of wheat will undoubtedly be grown, which, entering into home consumption, will increase the exportable surplus.
I am well aware that there are a number of people who will say that my figures underestimate the resources of the country, but I would rather that it were so than indulge in figures that seem too extravagant to be realized; and if, in the future, it appears that the wheat area is larger than I have stated, then so much the better for Canada. I do not mind how much evidence can be brought to increase my figures, as long as I am satisfied that they can not be truthfully reduced.
It is not intended to accuse Sir W. Crookes of deliberately misrepresenting Canada, but rather of almost criminal carelessness in the preparation of his case; but it is intended to accuse Mr. C. Wood Davis of the former offense and of intentionally garbling extracts from an official handbook issued by the Canadian Minister of the Interior in order to decry that country's wheat-bearing capabilities. By taking a line here and there which seems to serve his ends, and by leaving out everything that would have a contrary tendency, Mr. Davis, in his article in The Forum, makes it to appear that, according to the Minister of the Interior, the greater part of the Canadian Northwest is not only incapable of producing wheat, but is actually unfit for settlement, and summarizes his extracts by saying, "Available data do not show that any part of the Canadian districts named, except southern Manitoba and the eastern half of Assiniboia, is adapted to wheat culture, while they do show that over the greater part of these vast regions neither summer heats nor rainfalls are sufficient." This statement is false in every particular. The official handbook from which Mr. Davis professes to quote says of Manitoba that there are thirty-seven million acres available for active farm cultivation, giving therefore no warrant for the limiting of the wheat area to the southern part of the province. Mr. Davis quotes a line here and there about southern Alberta in order to convey the impression that that part of the country is good for nothing, whereas, while it is essentially a ranching and dairying country, producing a most luxurious and nutritious growth of native grasses, with a bountiful supply of water for irrigation purposes, by which means most satisfactory crops of grain and fodder are produced, it has never been contended that it is particularly well adapted for wheat-growing; but, on the other hand, Mr. Davis carefully omits all mention of northern Alberta, and has no room for the following remarks about it which appear on the same page of the handbook: "Northern Alberta is essentially an agricultural district; ... the principal advantages of the district will insure settlement by immigrants who desire to engage in grain farming.... The rainfall in northern Alberta during the summer months is sufficient to insure good crops." Concerning the district of Saskatchewan, Mr. Davis quotes a remark about some of the wooded portion being unsuited to the immediate requirements of settlement, as if it applied to the whole district, and deliberately omits the following: "The southern half of the district" (Saskatchewan) "is traversed from east to west by the Saskatchewan River, and the valley of this important stream, with the country immediately adjacent thereto, has long been famed as a desirable field for immigration." With reference to precipitation, Mr. Davis has so garbled his extracts as to convey the impression that the handbook states that over the greater part of the Northwest the rainfall is not sufficient for the pursuit of agriculture, whereas what the book really says is, "So far as the Canadian Northwest is concerned, out of about two hundred million acres of land between the Red River of the North to the Rocky Mountains, available for agricultural and pastoral purposes, not more than about one fourth, or fifty million acres in all, require the artificial application of water."
Mr. Davis's attempts to prejudice the interests of the Northwest by remarks on the severity of the climate do not need serious attention; the experience of the inhabitants and the annual production of the country speak for themselves, and it is well understood that mere thermometer readings afford little indication in themselves of the nature of a climate, and that temperatures unendurable in some countries are enjoyable, salubrious, and advantageous in others. It seems difficult to believe that Mr. Davis ever wrote the following sentence, but having written it, it would be well if he would take it to heart: "Truly 'honesty is the best policy' in the employment of statistics, whether by scientists, by plain people, or by professional statisticians; while the ability to eschew bucket-shop methods, to read correctly, to state facts and to state them clearly, and to criticise with intelligence and entire fairness, is especially desirable."
Sir W. Crookes is not content with reducing Canada's wheat resources to an insignificant minimum, but he must also retard as much as possible the development even of the small area that he admits to exist, for he says: "The development of this promising area necessarily must be slow, since prairie land can not be laid under wheat in advance of a population sufficient to supply the needful labor at seed time and harvest. As population increases so do home demands for wheat." To say that prairie land can not be laid under wheat in advance of population, and that as population increases so do home demands for wheat, are mere truisms, but it is incorrect to say that therefore the development must be slow. The rate of development depends entirely upon the rate of increase of population, and that increase depends upon the price of wheat, and the area of production will increase concurrently with the demand. According to Mr. Davis—and we will assume that his figures are in this case correct—the population in the United States in fourteen years from 1871 increased forty-four per cent and the cultivated area one hundred and twelve per cent, and, if that was the case, no estimates, however trustworthy, could have provided for such results.
It has been perfectly true, as Sir W. Crookes says, that as the wheat area of Manitoba and the Northwest increased, the wheat area of Ontario and the eastern provinces decreased, but this was in consequence of the continued low price of wheat, which led the farmers of Ontario to turn their attention more and more to dairy and mixed farming, substituting hay and root crops for wheat and barley, until the province became a dairying rather than a cereal-producing country; but that this was a movement to suit the times, and that the area available for wheat is no less in consequence, is evidenced by the rapid increase in the wheat acreage in the last two years. The farmer produces what pays him best, and it is certain that before Sir W. Crookes's failure of the wheat supply comes to pass prices will have been such that every acre of land suitable for wheat and that can be spared from other uses will have been taken advantage of; and if this is not the case, then some other staple for food will have been substituted, which will necessarily change the whole economic situation as viewed at present.
It is also true that "thus far performance has lagged behind promise," but the reasons for this are the same, and in the low values we find a ready explanation of the apparent lack of progress. What inducement has the immigrant had of late years to take up land for, or the farmer to grow, wheat that he could hardly sell for the actual cost of production? And yet Sir W. Crookes would argue that because the land has not been utilized for this particular purpose the land can not be there, and that land upon which wheat once was grown, but which is now employed for other purposes, can never again be included in the wheat-bearing area.
Progress may appear to have been slow, but it has kept pace with the demand, and in any case has been considerably more rapid than Sir W. Crookes allows. He says, "The wheat-bearing area of all Canada has increased less than 500,000 acres since 1884," whereas the actual increase since 1880 has been over 1,100,000 acres, and since 1890 upward of 760,000 acres. The area under wheat in Canada in 1898 was 3,508,540 acres, so that Sir W. Crookes only allows for an increase of 2,500,000 acres in the next twelve years. Perhaps it will not be as much, but if it is not, it will only be putting the predicted day of famine still farther away, and will prove nothing more than the fact that the state of the market has not warranted any more extended cultivation.