When the Railway Company entered into their contract with the Government and assumed the work of construction, the conditions under which the consideration of the location presented themselves were no longer the same. Port Moody, Burrard Inlet, had been definitely chosen as the terminus, and construction had commenced between Kamloops and Port Moody, that distance being the extent of line which the Government undertook to complete. To the East the line between Lakes Superior and Winnipeg was also being pushed forward with vigour by the Government. The problem which the Company had to solve was the location between Winnipeg and Kamloops. They have considered it on the principle of obtaining the shortest trans-continental route, and in these few words they explain the theory of their selection. They claim that this reason, in itself, is all powerful to determine the location by the more southern route which they follow, and one in itself sufficient to meet any objection urged against it. In the earlier pages of this volume I described the soil of the country west of Winnipeg through which the Railway has been constructed, and I expressed my opinion as to its capability for agricultural development. It is generally conceded that for four hundred miles, to Moose Jaw, it is of great fertility. I could not learn one unfavourable view of any portion of this extent with the most trifling exception. The whole distance may be said to be entirely free from that sterile, forbidding surface soil which passes under the name of waste land. There is by no means the same unanimity of opinion regarding the country from Moose Jaw to Calgary. Travellers and land jobbers in Winnipeg described it to me as a semi-desert. I came to a different conclusion. I was surprised, from what I heard, to find the soil such as I have described it. I am satisfied that the same land in the climate of the farming districts of England and Scotland would produce the most luxuriant crops. I will not compare it in character to the land away to the north on the route by Edmonton. In many places I found the pasture short and dried brown, as it is often to be seen in the best districts of Ontario at the end of August, the period of the year I passed through the North-West. The fears which I heard expressed respecting an insufficient rainfall exacted more attention, for without moisture even good soil will bring only indifferent crops. This important consideration, however, will soon be brought within the domain of fact. The railway company has commenced a series of experimental operations, breaking up the land and bringing it under cultivation in the neighbourhood of the stations in those localities where any doubt has been expressed of the character of the soil.