In the United States wheat is often held by the farmers for a favourable price. In Canada very few farms have their own granaries. The wheat goes from the threshing machine to the local elevator, or, if none is accessible, it is sent directly to the railroad and shipped to Fort William and Port Arthur. There are now elevators at fifteen hundred different places throughout the wheat region. Each of these stations has from one to nine elevators standing out on the landscape, indicating the productiveness of the surrounding country. The elevators of Canada have a total capacity of two hundred and thirty-eight million bushels. There are companies that have chains of such granaries. They will either store the wheat for the farmer, handle it on commission, or buy it from him directly at a price based on the current market value of that in storage at Fort William. The wheat begins to come to the elevators about the first of September, and by the middle or latter part of October they are well filled. Each has a license, and is inspected regularly by the government. In order to maintain the high standard of western Canadian wheat, every shipment must be weighed and tested by a Dominion weigh-master. Many of the country elevators are owned by milling companies. The flour industry is centred in Ontario, the largest mill in the Dominion being at Port Colborne at the western end of the Welland Canal. Flour is manufactured in large quantities also at Fort William, Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg. Smaller mills exist throughout Canada, and for many years the Hudson’s Bay Company operated one at Fort Vermilion, six hundred miles northwest of Winnipeg. Ten million barrels of flour are annually exported, almost half of which is taken by England. What Canada gets for her wheat depends not only on her own crop and that of the United States, but on conditions all over the world. Wheat is raised in every part of the globe, and is harvested in one place or another each month of the year. Therefore, a drought in Australia, a frost in Argentina, monsoons in India, new tariff laws in a given country, or a host of other reasons, may cause a drop or a rise in the prices here. In any event, though the price in Canada may be no higher than that paid in the United States, it represents a larger return on the original investment. The Canadian farmer has the advantage of raising his wheat on land that has cost him perhaps only a third of what has been paid by his neighbour across the border. CHAPTER XXV THE OPEN DOOR IN CANADA Wherever I go in Canada I find the people on tiptoe with eagerness for the growth of their country. I do not mean that they are hungry for territory; they already have more than they can use for a century or two. The increases they are praying for are in population, in the size of their towns, in the area of land under cultivation, and in the number of families settling new farms.