Rural Urban 1884 1,117,880 636,187 1885 1,126,554 658,406 1890 1,117,533 800,041 1895 1,109,013 848,377 1900 1,094,246 919,614 1905 1,059,379 1,042,881 1909 1,049,240 1,240,198 The Canadian Pacific Railway opened up the wheat lands of the West in 1886. At that time the rural population was nearly double the urban; in 1905 they were about equal; and six years later the urban population of Ontario exceeded the rural. The Dominion census figures are as follows: Rural Urban 1911 1,194,785 1,328,489 1901 1,246,969 935,978 --------- --------- Increase .... 392,511 Decrease 52,184 .... It will thus be seen that during the past twenty-five years there has been a steady increase in the consumers of food products in Ontario and a slight decrease in the producers of the same. The surplus population of the farms has gone to the towns and cities of Ontario and to the western provinces. Now for a moment let us follow these people to the West. Many of them have gone on the land to produce wheat. Wheat for the European market has been their principal product, therefore they in turn have become consumers of large quantities of food that they do not themselves produce but must obtain from farmers elsewhere. But not all who have gone West have become farmers. The Dominion census of 1911 gives the following statement of population for the provinces and districts west of Lake Superior: Rural Urban 1911 1,059,681 681,216 1901 446,050 199,467 --------- ------- Increase 613,631 481,749