CROP acres acres Total acres Wheat 13,868,000 1,241,400 1S,109,400 Barley 1,171,000 547,000 1,718,000 Oats. 6,481,000 5,075,000 11,556,000 Flaxseed 458,000 5,000 463,000 In the Prairie provinces, therefore, for the year 1915, wheat occupied 92, barley 68, oats 56 and flaxseed 99 per cent of the total area under these crops in the Dominion.
In most parts of Canada wheat is sown in the spring; but in the southern parts of On tario and in Alberta, wheat, sown in the fall, ripens earlier and gives usually a higher yield than the spring sown varieties. With fall sown wheat there is always a proportion,-- varying from about 5 to 30 per cent according to the mildness or seventy of the season,— of the area that is winter-killed, but reploughed and renown in the spring in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia there are also small areas upon which fall sown wheat is grown. Other crops that have a more or less local importance are buck wheat which is grown in the Atlantic provinces, in Ontario and in Quebec, corn, grown chiefly in Ontario and Quebec, and potatoes, which are an important crop in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where they occupy a larger area than does wheat.
The following table gives the area and production of all the principal field crops of Canada for the years 1900, 1914 and 1915 with annual averages for the five years 1910-14.
It should be observed that in the preceding table the years 1914 and 1915 represent op posite extremes as regards production, the year 1914 being one of the poorest grain sea sons on record, white in 1915 circumstances combined to produce the most abundant grain crops in the history of Canada. Yields in particular cases are frequently high, occasion ally reaching for wheat 60, for barley 50 and for oats 100 bushels per acre; but the average rate in production for wheat in Canada is about 1%,/s bushels per acre; in 1914 it was only 15% lyushels; in 1915 the average was 26 bushels. The average yield per acre of oats reached 4034 bushels in 1915; over a series of years the annual average is about 3534 bushels. Other crop averages in bushels per acre are as follows: Rye 21.3; peas 15.5; beans 1&2; buck wheat 23; flax 10.5; corn 56; potatoes 158; turnips, mangolds, etc. 366; hay and clover average about 1.42, alfalfa 234, fodder corn 934 and sugar beets 934 tons. Among the
numerous varieties of grain grown in Canada those most widely sown comprise for winter wheat Dawson's Golden Chaff in Ontario and Turkey Red in Alberta, for spring wheat the Marquis, Red Fife and White Fife, for barley Mensury, Mandseheuri and 0. A. C. 21 and for oats American Banner and Siberian.
The average cost of grain production runs from about $12 to $14 per acre, the profit de pending upon the yield and price which vary with the season and the world's crops. Corn costs more to produce, averaging from $19 to $22 per acre, but the value of the crop and the profit are correspondingly higher. The surplus of grain over home requirements is annually exported, and the Canadian grain trade is highly organized. Exports of wheat and flour, principally to the United Kingdom, have increased with the increasing production. In 1914, after the abundant yield of 1913 they were upwards of 142000,000 bushels, and in 1916 after the record harvest of 1915 they reached the total of 289,794,162 bushels. There is usually a small surplus of barley, oats and other grains for export, and practically the whole of the flaxseed crop goes across the southern border. Hay, compressed mechan ically, is also exported both to the United Kingdom and to the United States. The larg est export in recent years was 784,864 tons in 1912; but the annual average is between 200,000 and 250,000 tons. Flour milling is an important Canadian industry and in 1915 the value of flour and grist mill products was $114,483,924 from 1.644 establishments.
Sugar beet for the manufacture of beetroot sugar has been grown in Canada since the beginning of the century. At present two factories, those of the Dominion Sugar Com pany at Wallaceburg and Kitchener in Ontario, are in operation for the manufacture of sugar from Canadian beetroot. For the season of 1915 the production of sugar beet was 141,000 tons from 18,000 acres, and the production of refined beetroot sugar was 39,515,802 pounds. Tobacco is grown in parts of Quebec and southern Ontario. In 1910 the production was 17,632,342 pounds from 18,928 acres. In 1915 the estimated production was about 9,000,000 pounds, and in 1916 about 5,943,000 pounds. The production of honey in 1910 was 6,089,784 pounds, the number of hives being returned as 100,372.