Manitoba and Ontario compared--Some instances from real
life--Ontario compared with Michigan--With Germany--“Canada as a
Winter Resort”--Inexpediency of ice-palaces and the
like--Untruthful to represent this as a land of winter--Grant
Allen’s strictures on Canada refuted--Lavish use of food by Ontario
people--The delightful climate of Ontario.
When the Manitoba fever broke out a good many persons in this locality,
and some of my own tenants among the number, became uneasy and thought
of emigrating. Some did so, but notably those who were not located on
farms here. For a time they sent back glowing reports, and all seemed
well, and even Ontario would not seemingly begin to compete with
Manitoba. It is not, however, to be supposed that there have been no
disappointments. One instance will suffice. A tenant farmer from near
Whitby, worth about $2,000, went to Manitoba a few years ago, and took
up 320 acres of land. When the boom was on he wrote home that he could
sell his land for $10,000. Next fall passed. His wife came down
visiting, and said that they had sold one-half their land for $6.00 per
acre in order to save the rest; also that they had threshed three days
and only had fifty bushels of grain, and lamented that they had ever
left their farm near Whitby as tenants, to become owners in Manitoba. It
may be that this is an exceptional instance, but those now even
tolerably well located in Ontario run a serious risk in pulling up for
the North-West. When Ontario has lands which will produce seventeen
crops of wheat in succession, and when we can raise cattle absolutely
free from diseases, owing to our climate, what need have we to look to
Manitoba? It is now an assured fact, that cattle coming to Canada from
England, diseased, and remaining ninety days in quarantine, as they
must, lose their diseases, and do not take them on again; hence we have
a goodly inheritance in Ontario, in raising blooded cattle to sell to
the Americans for breeding purposes, for the diseases which periodically
break out in the West and South-West, among the cattle, are positively
unknown in Ontario. I met a Southerner from Charleston, S.C., early this
winter in Toronto, and in the course of conversation asked him what he
thought of our climate. “Just like champagne,” said he. It is an
established fact that our six months’ winter, in our clear cold
atmosphere, precludes the possibility of cattle diseases among us, and
is equally conducive to producing a lusty strong race of Canadians, in
hardihood the equal of any race anywhere.
Already Michigan has much of its lands parcelled out in 40-acre farms,
and if Ontario land gets divided into smaller holdings, so that the
maximum of her farms is less than 100 acres, it will support double its
present population. This calls to my mind what I have seen in Germany.
The lands along the Rhine River were originally surveyed facing the
river with a narrow frontage, and running back a long distance, in some
instances as much as a mile. Upon the death of the farmer his narrow
strip is equally divided lengthwise among his several sons. These are
again divided among his sons in their turn. It is not uncommon, as the
result of such divisions, to see a strip of land on the Rhine only six
rods wide and a mile long. This shows the reader how it comes that
Germany is so densely populated. Again, the area of United Germany is
near 210,000 square miles, and it supports a population of at least
forty millions of people. Ontario has at least half as much more
surface, and is only supporting two millions to-day. As to the
comparative quantities of waste land and productiveness between us and
Germany, Germany is scarcely fit to be compared with us at all, and
Ontario has many millions of acres to be brought under cultivation yet,
and these added to the smaller farms will soon double our population.
Horace Greeley said on 100 acres two men were enough; on 50, four men;
on 25, eight men. Without a doubt our fertile soil will quickly be
densely populated and every rood cultivated. Investments to-day are as
safe in Ontario as in any quarter of the globe, and its farm lands will
rise as the population increases.
Some years ago the _Century Magazine_ published a beautifully
illustrated article on “Canada as a Winter Resort.” This magazine is
widely circulated, and the publishers boasted that they had printed
180,000 copies of that particular number, which was, of course, widely
read in Europe. Now, this article was all about snowshoes, toboggans,
toques and ice-palaces, and would lead the stranger to infer that Canada
is a land of snow and ice. The premises are false, so far as Ontario is
concerned, and no one would think of building a snow-palace in Toronto,
because during the days required for its construction a thaw would
probably occur, which would demolish the ice-palace faster than it was
ever built. Out of two millions in Ontario, I think I am safe in
asserting that not more than 5,000 of its inhabitants ever stepped upon
a snowshoe. As to toques and toboggans, they are scarcely thought of.
Our youngsters do some coasting down the hill-sides when we have some
snow, and this is the extent of our tobogganing. It is undeniable that
we do have some cold weather in Ontario, but such periods are only for a
few days, and are invariably followed by mild weather. The four feet of
snow on the level, which they consider the proper thing for Quebec and
the Maritime Provinces, we know not of in Ontario. Our farmers were
ploughing on the 10th of December next before the appearance of the
article referred to, and this is not unusual; generally the farmers do
not take up their turnips before the middle of November. It is usual for
us to have some frost, and perhaps a little snow about the Christmas
holidays, and during January we look for our sleighing, if we are to get
any, for the season. But even during this midwinter month a thaw is
almost certain to take place, and generally clears off the snow, and
during this particular January the ponds of water were all open. A small
chance, then, for an ice-palace. During February the cold is not so
intense, for the days have become longer, and it will almost invariably
thaw during the middle of most February days. The month of March is, by
all means, the most disagreeable month in Ontario, not on account of its
cold, but because it is windy and blustery. Our snow, if we get any in
this month, usually drifts at the fences and impedes trade. In April we
get freezing nights and thawing days, so that the hubs frozen during the
preceding night turn to mud. Some farmers sow in April on land prepared
in the fall. It may be that the frost is not quite out of the soil down
below the surface, but if the Ontario farmer can get enough loose soil
to kindly cover his wheat, he can sow without fear. May is our general
seeding month for lands not prepared previously and sown in April. But
little chance, the reader will note, for an ice-palace in Ontario.
Without a doubt, the fact that Ontario is surrounded by the immense
lakes gives it its exceptionally mild climate. The isothermal line drawn
through central Ontario passes through the centre of France and the
southern part of Germany. No one thinks of speaking of France as a land
of snow and ice, and no more should Ontario be put in that class.
Montreal may, no doubt, get tourists sometimes in the winter by means of
an ice-palace, and it pays her; but for the impression to get abroad
that ice-palaces and snowshoes and the like are the rule in Canada is
calculated to do us harm. The emigrant who is perhaps debating in his
mind whether he will emigrate to Canada or Australia, is quite likely to
choose the latter country if he thinks he must needs learn snow-shoeing
as perhaps the first element to success in Canada. We are glad to have
our Governor-General and staff at Ottawa enjoy themselves tobogganing
down the artificially-made slide of boards and scantling near Rideau
Hall, and no doubt the ladies do look attractive by the glare of
torches, dressed in blanket cloaks, toques, fezzes, and the like. Such
peculiarities, however, do not add to the wealth of our country. The
Ontario farmer during these winter months is making manure by feeding
his cattle, and drawing it out in heaps upon his land. He is busy, and
is every day adding to the productiveness of his lands. He utilizes the
snow in getting some rails or posts for his fences, and does not
hibernate or fritter away his time. During the few exceptionally cold
days he may stay by the fireside, but generally he is thoroughly busy
preparing for the coming summer, and there is plenty of work for him to
do. While the Quebec farmer passes his time in indolence, the Ontario
farmer is daily adding to the cash value of his property and also to its
productiveness. When summer does come we find that Ontario far outstrips
Quebec in the quantity of grain grown per acre and also in the total
quantity produced. And yet Quebec was well settled when Ontario was a
howling wilderness.
Now, if the people of Ontario were spending their winters, when not
hibernating, in tramping on snowshoes or riding down declivities on
toboggans, then might such sport be considered peculiarly applicable to
us. To show unmistakably the great difference between the Quebec
peasant, who hibernates during the winter, and the Ontario farmer, who
works at the same time, look at the effort the Ontario farmer makes to
rot his straw, while in many parts of Quebec straw is carefully guarded
and husbanded. In Ontario it is the constant effort to get it all used
up and made into manure. If we get too much open winter in Ontario, the
farmer has as much as he can possibly do to get his straw worked down,
because the cattle do not use up enough of it. Hence we frequently see
large stacks of straw left over. In this part of Ontario it is more a
question how to get the straw rotted than it is how to save it. Then,
drawing the comparison between us and the land of toques, where straw is
sparingly produced on soils not well farmed, and what do we want with
any of that toque and snowshoe business!
Mr. Grant Allen, the eminent writer, who, although born here, was an
Englishman by residence and education, having revisited Canada and the
United States after an absence of eleven years, took occasion some years
since to give utterance to some remarks on our country in the _Pall Mall
Gazette_. His remarks should never have been allowed to pass
unchallenged. I cannot go into the matter very fully for fear of too
great length, but I must needs touch on the more salient points, and it
will be necessary for me to inscribe Mr. Allen’s words here and there
as a text for my remarks. He says: “Looking at America with a geological
eye, I was impressed as I had never been before with the enormous extent
to which the country has suffered from the ice-sheets of the glacial
period.” And after making this remark he goes on to say that England has
suffered less from this great cause. Now, this remark of his refers to
Canada and the United States indiscriminately, and without a doubt it is
true to the letter. While I accept the statement as true, I at the same
time want very distinctly to qualify it so far as Ontario is concerned.
Ontario has measurably suffered from the glacial action, but it has as a
whole suffered far less than any one of the other provinces or any of
the northern United States, taken as a whole. I am referring to old
Ontario alone, and not the new portion lately acquired to the west. Take
old Ontario: The moraines have been frequent enough to give us the most
alluvial soil of any country of like extent on the habitable globe. This
remark does not apply to the more northerly portion of our province,
which is as yet but little occupied, for we cannot controvert the fact
that this portion did suffer sadly.
Mr. Allen evidently did not know Ontario well enough, or he would have
excepted from his general remark the garden of the world. In a former
chapter I made the remark that if a line be drawn from Belleville to the
Georgian Bay, all that part of Ontario west of that line contains the
most alluvial land and the richest of any in the world, with the fewest
breaks and the least waste land. My own observation, begot by travel and
reading as well, gives me the courage to fearlessly make this remark
unqualified.
Mr. Allen goes on to say: “In the valleys there is soil enough, but even
there the ice has worked almost as much mischief as it has done on the
hill-sides, by heaping up and mixing in a most heart-breaking way
enormous masses of boulders, which are almost the despair of the
agriculturist.” Now, this remark is true, but sweeping as it is, still I
must again except our own portion of Ontario, where there are no
“heart-breaking, enormous masses of boulders.” New York and Pennsylvania
would come in for a place under this remark, for those who have given
the subject much thought and observation have seen that those two States
do possess a vast amount of waste land, and even their best alluvial
lands are in no sense equal to ours. To forcibly illustrate: A New
Englander came to this locality about 1820, and settled on an excellent
farm. During the troubles of the rebellion, he felt annoyed at the
troubles some ultra-Loyalists gave him on account of his American
origin, sold out, moved to Pennsylvania and bought a farm there. A
neighbor here went down to see the old man just before his death, when
he told his boys in the neighbor’s presence, that they must sell out and
get back to Ontario. And he was a pushing man and located on an average
Pennsylvania farm.
“America bears an immense harvest, yet the immensity of the harvest
only corresponds to the immensity of the area from which it is reaped.
Acre for acre, the Old World yields heavier crops than the New,” again
says Mr. Allen.
In regard to our immense annual crop in America it is true that it is
really garnered from a tract as big as all Europe. Then, since America
has not a population to consume its crop, even if the crop be a light
one and the yield per acre low, we in America must annually have an
immense surplus, and America is looked upon as the granary of the world.
This fact alone establishes my exception in Ontario’s favor from Mr.
Allen’s remark, and I feel that I need not say more on this point. But
let the Old World recollect that America is yet in its infancy, and when
we begin to approach the Old World in density of population, and work
our lands better, in spite of the “heart-breaking” boulders, America
will surprise the world and prove to it that it is only beginning to do
what it can. That it is capable of feeding the whole world there isn’t a
doubt, and we want no doctrine of Malthus among us at all. I do believe
it is true, acre for acre, the Old World is ahead of us. And yet we have
in places soils which would put anything the Old World can produce to
scorn, even if we cannot apply the remark generally. It must be
recollected that Europe has been drained and its waste places reclaimed,
and but few of ours have, so that we have America just as nature gave it
to us. Fortunately in Ontario we have but few wastes to reclaim, for, as
I have said before, it is the garden of the whole. The only parallel
that I ever saw in the Old World to compare with Ontario is in Hungary,
which very much resembles our country. Then, again, as to extent,
Hungary is nowhere when compared with us. As to remarks about the hard
life of farmers in America, it may be to some extent true. Especially is
it true for the women; want of domestic help is the trouble, and for the
present we cannot remedy this evil until our population becomes greater.
Would that Miss Rye and others would send us out more girls.
But in no country in the world do the people live better than they do in
Ontario. Nor is there any country where the necessities and
sumptuousness of life are more abundant. Go to one of our teas, or
soirees, and see the vast amount of rich varied food there spread before
the partakers. The richest cakes, the most varied, and the exceeding
abundance there seen, must quickly convince even the most casual
observer that our people are really well off, and are living in luxury.
One sees nothing of this sort in Europe, and we really use food the most
prodigally of any people in existence. An ordinary good Ontario family
wastes more than a French peasant family uses at all. This is a fact
which cannot be controverted. I might instance how carefully the German
family lives, and show likewise that the Ontario family wastes nearly as
much as these families consume; so even if we sometimes have exceedingly
low prices, we fare as sumptuously as any people in this world.
The abundance in Ontario is something marvellous to the people of the
Old World. Look into our orchards and see the bushels of fruit lying
under the trees and going to waste, and this will convince the most
persistent grumbler that we are all right after all, and have but little
to grumble about. In thickly populated Europe all this fruit would have
been picked up and put to some use as human food. Every apple would be
used, and dried and stored away for future use. It is only the
plentifulness of everything in Ontario which causes our people to be so
wasteful. See our children take single bites from apples or pears, and
throw them away, only to bite another. Wasteful again, because of
exceeding abundance. Really our farmers have but little to grumble
about, for our land literally flows with milk and honey, and is one of
the most bountiful countries in the world.
Some of our citizens now and again cast longing eyes towards Florida,
fancying that in that land of perpetual sunshine more pleasure can be
experienced than in our own land, possessing the four seasons clearly
and distinctly defined. It is quite a mistake. This beautiful Ontario of
ours presents, as the seasons flow along, a variety of contrasts in
scenes and foliage which the warm climates know not of. Our springs are
incomparably finer and pleasanter than anything down south, and our
foliage is greener and cleaner than hot countries can show. Our summers
are just hot enough to give us a taste of what hot weather really is,
and make us long for the russet fall season, with its golden grains, and
red-cheeked fruits, and delightful sombre days, when our atmosphere
becomes veritable champagne in itself, followed by the forest pictures
of bright colors as the frost touches the foliage. Our bright, crisp,
clear, cold and jolly sleighing is life-giving to the uttermost human
extremity, and we would not have a warm, muddy, rainy winter if we
could. Then comes our spring season, just the interlude, as it were,
between winter and summer, when the old drifted snowbanks are
disappearing, and this is the season which gives us the “sugaring-off,”
which cannot be duplicated anywhere out of our North American continent.
Ontarians have a glorious heritage in climate, soil, seasons,
government, and pleasures, and we do not need to be casting about for
anything better in this world, for it is not to be found. Any one of us
who does not love our beautiful country is recreant to his best
interests. Indeed, if he does not, I boldly assert it is only because of
his want of knowledge of other lands to enable him to make comparisons
with his own. Let us stick to our country and place it far to the fore,
as it is now quickly attaining to that position.