This was followed pretty closely by the value of the lumber of the year, which equalled $28,000,000 (£5,600,000). The forest area, including that covered by small trees, has been estimated at over one hundred and eighty-two million acres. Along the coast and up the river valleys of the mainland and on Vancouver island are many magnificent trees. The most valuable commercially are Douglas fir, cypress, red cedar, white spruce and western hemlock. On the coast the trees are larger than further inland; and it is said that the climate is so favourable to their growth that they increase in size very much more rapidly than in most other parts of America. British Columbia, like other provinces, has begun to realize the immense value of its forests, and is taking steps to preserve them, but about a third of the “cut” of the Dominion comes from this province, and thousands of men find employment in the woods and the saw mills. Not many years ago the agricultural possibilities of this region were scarcely regarded seriously, but it has a splendid home market for all the products of the farm; and last year the value of the agricultural produce (including fruit, of which British Columbia is beginning to make a specialty) was equal to more than three-quarters of the lumber output. But this is only a beginning. A recent estimate gives the area of known cultivable land at twenty-four million acres, of which about ten millions is in the Peace River country, but hardly one-eighth of this land is at present in use, and much of the interior of the country is practically unexplored. There are districts in the Kootenay, about the Okanagan lake, in the neighbourhood of New Westminster, upon Vancouver island and in some other regions, which are fairly well settled, and in these is grown a vast quantity of beautiful apples and other fruit. In fact, fruit is the greatest agricultural product of British Columbia, and last year the yield of the orchards and fruit “ranches” was estimated at $14,000,000, or about equal to that of the fisheries. This is the only farm product which at present goes out of the province; but the estimated value of cereals, beef, dairy produce and all the other miscellaneous yield of the farms accounted only for another eight million dollars. Government is making efforts in various ways to stimulate agriculture. For instance, it aids the establishment of co-operative creameries; but millions of dollars are spent annually outside the province for meat, cheese, butter, poultry, eggs and articles of food, which might well be supplied from the prolific soil of British Columbia were there only more hands to work it.