industry also is most noticeable, and has occasioned the production of fruits and vegetables in enormous quantities. Special crops such as tobacco, beans, and sugar beets are being grown in counties where soil and climatic conditions are favourable. The production of poultry and eggs is also receiving more attention each succeeding year. The growth of cities is creating an increasing demand for milk, and the production of factory-made butter and cheese is also increasing, as the following figures for Ontario from the Dominion census prove:

For the past ten or twelve years the farmers of Ontario have been slowly adjusting their work to the new situation, and the transition is continuing. While in some sections farms are being enlarged so as to permit the more extensive use of labour-saving machinery and the more economical handling of live stock, in other sections, particularly in counties adjacent to the Great Lakes, large farms are being cut up into smaller holdings and intensive production of fruits and vegetables is now the practice. This, of course, results in a steady increase in land values and is followed by an increase in rural population. The farmers of Ontario are putting forth every effort to meet the demands for food products. The one great difficulty that they have encountered has been the scarcity of farm labour. Men have come from Europe by the tens of thousands, but they have been drawn largely to the growing towns and cities by the high wages offered in industrial lines; and the West, the 'Golden West' as it is sometimes called, has proved an even stronger attraction. It seems rarely to occur to the new arrival that the average farm in Ontario could produce more than a quarter section of prairie land. Signs, however, point to an increase in rural population, through the spread of intensive agriculture.

Before referring to the methods of instruction and assistance provided for the developing of this new agriculture in Ontario, reference should be made to one thing that is generally overlooked by those who periodically discover this rapid urban increase, and who moralize most gloomily upon a movement that is to be found in nearly every progressive country of the civilized world. In the days of early settlement the farmer and his family supplied nearly all their own wants. The farmer produced all his own food; he killed his own stock, salted his pork, and smoked his hams. His wife was expert in spinning and weaving, and plaited the straw hats for the family. The journeyman shoemaker dropped in and fitted out the family with boots. The great city industries were then unknown. The farmer's wife in those days was perhaps the most expert master of trades ever known. She could spin and weave, make a carpet or a rug, dye yarns and clothes, and make a straw hat or a birch broom. Butter, cheese, and maple sugar were products of her skill, as well as bread, soap, canned fruits, and home-made wine. In those days the farm was a miniature factory or combination of factories. Many, in fact most, of these industries have gradually moved out of the farm home and have been concentrated in great factories; and the pedlar with his pack has disappeared under a shower of catalogues from the departmental city store. In other words, a large portion of work once done upon the farm and at the country cross-roads has been transferred to the town and city, and this, in some part, explains the modern movement citywards—there has been a transference from country to city not only of people but also of industries. Whether this has been in the interests of the people is another question, but the process is still going on, and what further changes may take place it is difficult to determine and unwise to forecast.

And now let us see what agencies and organizations have been used in the development of the special lines of agriculture since the creation of the department in 1888. We have stated that the Agriculture and Arts Association had been for many years the directing force in provincial agricultural organization. It held an annual provincial exhibition; it issued the diplomas to the graduates of the Ontario Veterinary College; and it controlled the various live stock associations that were interested in the registration of stock. Shortly after 1888 legislation was enacted transferring the work to the department of Agriculture. The place for holding the provincial exhibition was changed from year to year. In 1879 a charter was obtained by special act for the Toronto Industrial Exhibition, the basis of which was the Toronto Electoral Agricultural Society. Out of this came the annual Toronto Exhibition, now known as the Canadian National Exhibition, and the governmental exhibition was discontinued.

The Ontario Veterinary College was a privately owned institution, though the diplomas were issued by the Agriculture and Arts Association. The royal commission appointed in 1905 to investigate the University of Toronto recommended the taking over of this association by the government, and as a result it passed under the control of the department of Agriculture in 1908, and was affiliated with the University of Toronto. Since that time the diploma of Veterinary Surgeon (V.S.) has been issued by the minister of Agriculture, and a supplementary degree of Bachelor of Veterinary Science (B.V.Sc.) has been granted by the university. The taking over of this institution by the government, the resuming by the province of its original prerogative, was accompanied by an enlargement of the course, an extension from two years to three years in the period of instruction, and a strengthening of the faculty. The herd-books or pedigree record books were, in most cases, Canadian, and it was felt that they should be located at the capital of the Dominion. These have therefore been transferred to Ottawa and are now conducted under Dominion regulations.

The Ontario bureau of Industries was the basis of organization of the department. As other work was added the department grew in size and importance, and the various branches were instituted until there developed a well-organized department having the following subdivisions:

• The Agricultural College,
• The Veterinary College,
• The Agricultural and Horticultural Societies Branch,
• The Live Stock Branch,
• The Farmers' and Women's Institutes Branch,
• The Dairy Branch,
• The Fruit Branch,
• The Statistical Branch,
• The Immigration and Colonization Branch.

Each branch is in charge of a special officer. In addition to the above there is a lot of miscellaneous work, which as it develops will probably be organized into separate branches, such as farm forestry, district representatives, etc.

John Dryden was in 1905 succeeded as minister of Agriculture by Nelson Monteith, who in 1908 was succeeded by J. S. Duff. Under their care the department has grown and expanded, and through their recommendations, year by year, increasing amounts of money have been obtained for the extension of agricultural instruction and the more thorough working out of plans inaugurated in the earlier years of departmental organization.

The history of agricultural work in Ontario in recent years may be put under two heads—expansion of the various organizations and extension of their operations, and the development of what may be called 'field work.' Farmers' institutes and women's institutes have multiplied; agricultural societies now cover the entire province;