Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, October 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899Various
Philosophy
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, October 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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