“Yes,” said Mr. J. Burr Tyrrell, the well-known mining engineer, who was in the Government Geological Service from 1883 to 1898, “I spent nine or ten years in the country to the west and south-west of Hudson Bay.” “And you think well of agricultural possibilities there?” I asked. “Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Tyrrell. “You may take Canada as a whole, and say that north of the present settled region there is a broad belt of several hundred miles that will be good for farming. It carries immense quantities of valuable timber. Beyond that belt is a great region which will yield valuable minerals.” And now let me reproduce Mr. Tyrrell’s specific testimony concerning the region that will be opened up by the Hudson Bay Railway. He indicated a line running north-west from Churchill, and pointed out that the country north of that line is outside the farmer’s scope. South of the line there is a belt of from one to two hundred miles in width, which is sparsely wooded, having trees along the banks of streams and in sheltered positions. In this belt there are areas that would support a northern vegetation, but it is not, in his opinion, eminently suited for agriculture, there being but little decomposed soil there except in the valleys. South of that belt is a forest region, about two hundred miles wide, lying west of the Nelson River and extending along the Churchill River right away to the Mackenzie and Athabasca rivers. It is for the most part excellent agricultural land—as fine as can be found in the North-West. “Everywhere,” said Mr. Tyrrell, “I found abundant evidence of rich vegetation, and wherever agriculture or horticulture had been attempted within the forest belt it had been eminently successful. I have seen growing in that country potatoes—and most excellent ones they were—carrots, turnips, cabbages, cauliflowers and all the ordinary garden produce that grows in Ontario. Indeed, the land there is similar to the Ontario land, and on it can be raised practically everything that can be raised in that province, if we leave the Niagara peninsula out of account. The summer is warm, and there is a good rainfall. The winter does not count, because things do not grow in the winter. A small part of the district is park country, half wooded. The belt is a continuation northward of the settled Saskatchewan country.” In the specified area (through which the greater part of the new railway will pass) it appears that the Indians, when hunting in the spring, plant little patches of potatoes here and there, and return in the autumn to dig them for use in the winter. “On several occasions,” said Mr. Tyrrell, “I have gone out and dug a pail of beautiful potatoes from those little Indian gardens buried in the woods. They have received no hoeing, or any other sort of cultivation, from the time of planting to the time of digging.”