THE DOMINION OF CANADA AND ITS NORTH-WESTERN TERRITORY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 11, 13 January 1870, Page 2

THE DOMINION OF CANADA AND ITS NORTH-WESTERN TERRITORY.

0 (Condensed from lhe Times.) The newly acquired territory of the North-West is receiving the earnest attention of the Government, and a formal change of possession will soon be effected. The territory comprises about 2,000,000 square miles, and contains an area of 360,000 square miles of prairie or natural meadow land. Canadians who have 1 visited the region are seemingly extravagant in their estimate of its boundless resources and its prospects. A few particulars respecting the country may not be uninteresting or useless. The rivers afford an admirable system of internal navigation, in extentfno less than 8,000 or 10,000 miles. The prairie extends from the Lake of the Woods to the base of the Rocky Mountains west, and from the 49th parallel to latitude 60 deg. The growth of vegetables is rapid ; wheat, barley, oats, rye, potatoes, turnips, tomatoes, and all the ordinary vegetables attain perfection. The soil in many places is composed of a rich black vegetable loam, with a clay subsoil. Wheat has in some sections averaged 651 b. to the bushel. The natural grasses attain a most luxuriant growth, sustaining in the Sackatchewan region immense herds of buffaloes. Animals are plentiful in differeut parts of the country. The buffalo, moose, elk, reindeer, antelope, mountain sheep, bear, wolf, fox, lynx, marten, mink, muskrar, otter, fisher, and beaver have for hundreds of years supplied the only article of exchange and export. I The forest trees comprise the pine, the spruce, the Canada balsam, the tamarack, the basswood, the poplar, the aspen, the Balm of Gilead poplar, the oak, the ash, and the ash-leaved maple. There are coal measures without end and salt springs in abundance; and, if the evidence of geology is to be relied upon, the metallic resources are among the most promising in the world. Fever and ague, the bane of the Western States, are here comparatively unknowu. The winter commences about the Ist September, and the spring in the latter part of March. Seedtime commences about the 15th of April, and harvest in the ; first week of August. The winters are colder than in Central Ontario, but more equable than in the United States br Canada. The Nor' Wester, a newspaper published at Fort Garry, advises those "who are particular as to the tie of their cravats or who part their hair in the middle " not to go there, as the country wants men and women neither afraid nor unwilling to work. 250,000,000 acres of magnificent farming land are to be put under cultivation, and brawny hands are required to do it. Already the expediency of undertaking the construction of a Pacific Railway through British territory is being, canvassed with seriousness. Certainly, if we do not have one, our American neighbors will not allow the NorthWest to be without one for a long time.

The American Congress granted ninetynine millions of acres to the three Pacific Railway Companies, of which the Northern Pacific gets forty-seven millions I Why could not the Dominion endow a company in the same way ? The Hudson's Bay Company have sufficient influence to enlist English capitalists in the enterprise, if a sufficient temptation were held out to them, and the Dominion is now in a? position to offer a better endowment than the American companies have received. The people of Ontario and Quebec are doing nobly to open up wild lands. Stock is taken by the well-to-do, and the municipalities along the projected lines . of railroad grant so much by way of bonus.