Provincial Government returns. POPULATION AND LIVESTOCK 1891 1908 1909 1911 1912 1913 Population 152,506 455,614 Horses 86,735 230,926 237,161 232,725 273,395 304,100 Milch cows 82,710 173,546 167,442 146,841 154,400 Other horned cattle 147,984 357,988 333,752 397,261 428,274 460,200 Sheep 35,838 29,265 29,074 32,223 42,087 112,500 Hogs 54,177 192,489 172,374 176,212 216,640 176,000 Cultivated farms 45,380 49,755 50,000 Increase in population in ten years was 78.52 per cent. The exhibit of grains, grasses, clover, fodder crops, vegetables, and natural products shown at the 1913 United States Land Show spoke well for the soil and climate of Manitoba. [Illustration: An ordinary threshing scene in Manitoba, where fields of wheat, oats and barley pay the farmer well.] [Illustration: NORTHERN MANITOBA] SASKATCHEWAN Saskatchewan, the central Prairie Province, is a huge rectangle extending from the 49th to the 60th parallel, with an area as large as France and twice the size of the British Isles. It comprises 155,092,480 acres, and extends 760 miles north and south and 390 miles east and west at the southern boundary bordering on the United States. The average altitude is about 1,500 feet above sea level. Saskatchewan claims to be without a rival in North America as a producer of wheat and small grains. Only physical and geographical conditions retard even a more phenomenal agricultural development. Its growth and acquisition of wealth has been phenomenal. There are four distinct zones extending north and south: (a) rolling prairie, (b) prairie and woodland, (c) forest, (d) sparsely timbered belt. All the land is suitable for cultivation and will yield the highest quality of cereals, though less than 13 million acres are now under the plough. The population of approximately 550,000 thriving, vigorous people will eventually be a million. The increase in ten years was 440 per cent. The Government forces in Saskatchewan are complete and effective. Every branch of agricultural work conducted by the Provincial Government is a part of the Department of Agriculture. =Soil and Surface.=--The soil in all of Saskatchewan is a rich loam, running from eight to twenty inches deep over a chocolate clay subsoil. Moisture is evaporated from this subsoil so gradually that the fertility is almost inexhaustible. With few exceptions the southern portion of the Province from a line east and west through Saskatoon is almost flat. In certain portions the surface is undulating, but in no case so hilly as to preclude ploughing every acre; near some of the rivers in the more hilly sections the soil becomes lighter with some stone and gravel.