seven miles west of Toronto. Before work could be commenced, however, the life of the legislature closed and a new government came into office in 1871 with Archibald M^cKellar as commissioner of Agriculture and Arts. New governments feel called upon to promote new measures. There were rumours and suggestions that the soil of the Mimico farm was productive of thistles and better adapted to brick-making than to the raising of crops. Also the location was so close to Toronto that it was feared that the attractions of the city would tend to make the students discontented with country life. For various reasons a change of location was deemed desirable, and a committee of farmer members of the legislature was appointed. Professor Miles, of the Michigan Agricultural College, was engaged to give expert advice; other locations were examined, and finally Moreton Lodge Farm, near Guelph, was purchased. After some preliminary difficulties, involving the assistance of a sheriff or bailiff, possession was obtained, and the first class for instruction in agricultural science and practice, consisting of thirty-one pupils in all, was opened on June 1, 1874, with William Johnston as rector or principal. Thus was established the Ontario School of Agriculture, now known as the Ontario Agricultural College. Its annual enrolment has grown to over fifteen hundred, and it is now recognized as the best-equipped and most successful institution of its kind in the British Empire. Its development along practical lines and its recognition as a potent factor in provincial growth were largely due to Dr James Mills, who was appointed president of the college in 1879, and filled that position until January 1904, when he was appointed to the Dominion Board of Railway Commissioners. Under his direction farmers' institutes were established in Ontario in 1884. Dr Mills was succeeded by Dr G. C. Creelman as president.

The next important step in agricultural advancement was the appointment in 1880 of the Ontario Agricultural Commission 'to inquire into the agricultural resources of the Province of Ontario, the progress and condition of agriculture therein and matters connected therewith.' The commission consisted of S. C. Wood, then commissioner of Agriculture (chairman), Alfred H. Dymond (secretary), and sixteen other persons representative of the various agricultural interests, including the president and ex-president of the Agricultural and Arts Association, Professor William Brown of the Agricultural College, the master of the Dominion Grange, the president of the Entomological Society, and two members of the legislature, Thomas Ballantyne and John Dryden. In 1913 there were but two survivors of this important commission, J. B. Aylesworth of Newburgh, Ont., and Dr William Saunders, who, after over twenty years' service as director of the Dominion Experimental Farms, had resigned office in 1911.

All parts of the province were visited and information was gathered from the leading farmers along the lines laid down in the royal commission. In 1881 the report was issued in five volumes. It was without doubt the most valuable commission report ever issued in Ontario, if not in all Canada. Part of it was reissued a second and a third time, and for years it formed the Ontario farmer's library. Even to this day it is a valuable work of reference, containing as it does a vast amount of practical information and forming an invaluable source of agricultural history.

The first outcome of this report was the establishment, in 1882, by the government of the Ontario bureau of Industries, an organization for the collection and publication of statistics in connection with agriculture and allied industries. Archibald Blue, who now occupies the position of chief officer of the census and statistics branch of the Dominion service, was appointed the first secretary of the bureau.

Agriculture continued to expand, and associations for the protection and encouragement of special lines increased in number and in importance. Thus there were no fewer than three vigorous associations interested in dairying: the Dairymen's Association of Eastern Ontario, and the Dairymen's Association of Western Ontario, which were particularly interested in the cheese industry, and the Ontario Creameries Association, which was interested in butter manufacture. There were poultry associations, a beekeepers' association, and several live stock associations. From time to time the suggestion was made that the work of these associations, and that of the Agriculture and Arts Association and of the bureau of Industries, should be co-ordinated, and a strong department of Agriculture organized under a minister of Agriculture holding a distinct portfolio in the Ontario cabinet. Provision for this was made by the legislature in 1888, and in that year Charles Drury was appointed the first minister of Agriculture. The bureau of Industries was taken as the nucleus of the department, and Archibald Blue, the secretary, was appointed deputy minister.

We have referred to the reaction that took place in Ontario agriculture after the close of the American Civil War and the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty. The high prices of the Crimean War period had long since disappeared, the market to the south had been narrowed, and the Western States were pouring into the East the cheap grain products of a rich virgin soil. Agricultural depression hung over the province for years. Gradually, however, through the early eighties the farmers began to recover their former prosperous condition, sending increasing shipments of barley, sheep, horses, eggs, and other commodities to the cities of the Eastern States, so that at the close of the period to which we are referring agricultural conditions were of a favourable and prosperous nature.

The Modern Period, 1888-1912

In 1888 a new period in Ontario's agricultural history begins. The working forces of agriculture were being linked together in the new department of Agriculture. Charles Drury, the first minister of Agriculture, held office until 1890, being succeeded by John Dryden, who continued in charge of the department until 1905, when a conservative government took the place of the liberal government that had been in power since 1871.

Two factors immediately began to play a most important part in the agricultural situation: the opening up of the north-western lands by the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886, and the enactment, on October 6, 1890, of the M^cKinley high tariff by the United States. The former attracted Ontario's surplus population, and made it no longer profitable or desirable to grow wheat in the province for export; the latter closed the doors to the export of barley, live stock, butter, and eggs. The situation was desperate; agriculture was passing through a period of most trying experience. Any other industry than that of agriculture would have been bankrupted. The only hope of the Ontario farmer now was in the British market. The sales of one Ontario product, factory cheese, had been steadily increasing in the great consuming districts of England and Scotland, and there was reason to believe that other products might be sold to equal advantage. Dairying was the one line of agricultural work that helped to tide over the situation in the early nineties. The methods that had succeeded in building up the cheese industry must be applied to other lines, and all the organized forces must be co-ordinated in carrying this out. This was work for a department of Agriculture, and the minister of Agriculture, John Dryden, who guided and directed this co-operation of forces and made plans for the future growth and expansion of agricultural work, was an imperialist indeed who, in days of depression and difficulty, directed forces and devised