At Fort Providence, on the same Mackenzie River, but near its exit from the Great Slave Lake, lat. 61° 4′, on July 15th, 1906, an inspector reported "the garden contained peas fit for use, potatoes in flower, tomatoes, rhubarb, beets, cabbages, onions. Besides vegetables, there were cultivated, flowers and fruits, such as red currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, and sackaloons. But most surprising of all was a small field of wheat in the milk, the grain being fully formed. This was stated to have been sown on May 20th, and harvested before July 28th, slightly over two months from sowing."

In 1905, in the vicinity of Fort Vermilion, on Peace River, northern Alberta, lat. 58° 4′, 25,000 bushels of wheat were raised. There is a modern equipment (roller process), electric-lighted flour-mill at this place. At that time the capacity of the mill was 35 barrels per day; but the wheat crop in the neighbourhood has been so much increased, and the promise of permanency is so good, that this mill has been enlarged and now its capacity is 125 barrels of flour a day. The quality of this flour is declared to be fully equal to that of any produced in other parts of the world.

There are a number of other places north of the 54th parallel of latitude, where wheat has been successfully raised, while barley and oats actually thrive. Fruits and vegetables, such as have been already mentioned, are grown at nearly all of these far northern posts. Experiments were made during the summer of last year (1912) at some stations even farther north than Fort Simpson. The results of these tests are not available at the time of writing; but officials of the departments,

Ottawa, expressed themselves with pleasing confidence. What has been said of Siberia* of the power of the sun during eighteen to twenty hours of cloudless days that are the rule during the short summer, applies with equal force to Canada.

For the purpose of visual comparison, an outline of the Russian-Siberian Government of Tobolsk has been superimposed upon this map in its correct position as to latitude. Its southern point reaches down nearly to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Province: its northern limit, nearly 70°, corresponds to the southern portion of Victoria Island, Wollaston Land, in the Arctic sea. In 1907, Tobolsk produced 11,779,000 bushels of wheat, 4,344,000 bushels rye, 829,000 bushels barley, 13,818,000 bushels oats. In 1901 there were nearly four million head of live stock, and from the Kazan district, in the extreme southwest along the line of the Trans-Siberian Railway, nearly twenty million pounds of butter were shipped, most of it being sold in the markets of Great Britain. Now, the cultivated sections of Tobolsk are all well to the south of the 58th parallel of North latitude, and the northern boundary of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia is the 60th parallel. The arable and grazing lands of the Siberian province are considered to extend not much to the north of the town of Tobolsk, 58° 20′ N., and then only in exceptional places. Whereas, it is being demonstrated more and more each year that the North West Territories of Canada can successfully produce grain north of the 60th parallel.

* See Russia in Europe and Asia.

In the provinces of Manitoba (its area was much increased towards the north by the Boundaries Extension Act of 1912), Saskatchewan, and Alberta, the area under grain cultivation in 1909 was 11,960,000 acres; the wheat area was 6,878,000 acres, and the total wheat produced was 147,000,000 bushels. All of these figures must be greatly added to for the current year, 1912. In this year it is estimated that the grain acreage in those three provinces alone was 15,728,900 acres; the area under wheat cultivation was 8,951,800 acres; the wheat crop 189,585,400 bushels. The total wheat crop for the whole Dominion was estimated at 216,498,000 bushels, because Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces all contribute an appreciable quantity.

That the interest, which newly arrived settlers who contemplate engaging in occupations that are connected with the cultivation of the soil or stock raising, is great and increasing as the influx of new-comers grows, is shown by the fact that a report upon lands in northwestern Saskatchewan Province, of investigations made there in 1908, was in such demand that the large issue, printed for public information and gratuitous distribution, was speedily exhausted. This report was reprinted in 1910, and with it was incorporated another similar report of investigations made in 1909. Copies of this double report are not now easily procurable because the demand for them has been so great.

They deal with those portions of Saskatchewan and Alberta Provinces north of the surveyed area, up to "the Clearwater River [say. lat. 55° N.], and extending from Green Lake, the Beaver River, and connecting waters