The Grain-
Growing District Is Almost Without Limit, Extending As It Does Along The
St. Lawrence, Lake Erie, And Lake Ontario, To Windsor, With A Vast Expanse
Of Country To The North And West.
The hops, which are an article of recent
cultivation, are of very superior quality, and have hitherto been
perfectly free from blight.
Vast as are the capabilities of Canada for agricultural pursuits, she also
offers great facilities for the employment of capital in manufacturing
industry, though it is questionable whether it is desirable to divert
labour into these channels in a young country where it is dear and scarce.
The streams which intersect the land afford an unlimited and very
economical source of power, and have already been used to a considerable
extent. Lower Canada and the shores of the Ottawa afford enormous supplies
of white pine, and the districts about Lake Superior contain apparently
inexhaustible quantities of ore, which yields a very large percentage of
copper. We have thus in Canada about 1400 miles of territory, perhaps the
most fertile and productive ever brought under the hands of the
cultivator; and as though Providence had especially marked out this
portion of the New World as a field for the enterprise of the European
races, its natural facilities for transit and communication are nearly
unequalled. The Upper Lakes, the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and the
Saguenay, besides many rivers of lesser note, are so many natural highways
for the conveyance of produce of every description from the most distant
parts of the interior to the Atlantic Ocean. Without these natural
facilities Canada could never have progressed to the extraordinary extent
which she has already done.
Great as these adventitious advantages are, they have been further
increased by British energy and enterprise. By means of ship-canals,
formed to avoid the obstructions to navigation caused by the rapids of the
St. Lawrence, Niagara, and the Sault Sainte Marie, small vessels can load
at Liverpool and discharge their cargoes on the most distant shores of
Lake Superior. On the Welland canal alone, which connects Lake Erie with
Lake Ontario, the tolls taken in 1853 amounted to more than 65,000l. In
the same year 19,631 passengers and 1,075,218 tons of shipping passed
through it: the traffic on the other canals is in like proportion, and is
monthly on the increase. But an extensive railway system, to facilitate
direct communication with the Atlantic at all seasons of the year, is
paving the way for a further and rapid development of the resources of
Canada, and for a vast increase in her material prosperity. Already the
Great Western Company has formed a line from Windsor, opposite Detroit, U.
S., to Toronto, passing through the important towns of Hamilton, London,
and Woodstock: a branch also connects Toronto with Lake Simcoe, opening up
the very fertile tract of land in that direction. Another railway extends
from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, to Goderich on Lake Huron, a distance of
158 miles.
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