“Each Province in Canada,” observed Professor Cumming to me, “has its own peculiar agricultural conditions and problems, and before one can pronounce judgment upon the degree of progress which each has made, he must understand the special conditions under which the people have been working.” Nova Scotia, as has been said, is a province of varied resources, in the forests, the seas, and the mines. While these various natural resources have added largely to the wealth of the Province, yet their presence cannot be termed an unmitigated blessing. There is a tendency for the people to direct their energies in too many avenues of employment, and a corresponding lack of continuity, especially in methods of agriculture. There are exceptions, for example in the fruit-growing counties and in local areas in various parts, where the people have adhered strictly to agriculture. But there are thousands enrolled in the census as farmers who have little more right to be included in that class than has the porter in an office to be called a lawyer or a doctor. As, however, the forests are increasing, and the pursuit of the sea and mines are becoming more specialised, those who are living on the lands are taking a greater interest in the subject of agriculture, and are seeking such information which will help them to improve their conditions.

One great enemy of agriculture in New Scotland is the natural tendency of the farmer’s sons to migrate to the south or the west. The proximity and easy accessibility of Boston and other large American cities was long irresistible, just as London and England allured the youth of Old Scotland. But the trend of western immigration must sometime cease, and life in American cities is proving less lucrative than of yore, the result being a marked tendency on the part of the young men of the Province to devote themselves to farming.

The type of farming long favoured in Nova Scotia was that which minimised the amount of labour required, except at those seasons of the year when seeds must be sown and harvests reaped. As a consequence, one saw herds of live stock, too small in numbers, often of inferior quality, and still more indifferently kept. The selling of hay and oats, and roots of all kinds, was found an easier solution of the difficulties of farming than raising live stock, and the selling of butter, and cream, and milk, beef, eggs, and other animal products. Many an impoverished field and many a run-out farm still greets the traveller, robbed of its virgin wealth of humus, and of the elements of plant food. The cure for this is live stock and live stock alone, and this is the gospel which Professor Cumming is preaching.

Of course, in the fruit areas of Hants, King’s, and Annapolis counties, this want is not so keenly felt. Green crops, like clover, peas, and vetches, are grown and ploughed under to supply humus with which to improve the physical condition, and nitrogen with which to increase the plant food of the soil, on which the apples, and plums, and other fruits are grown. But even here more live stock is a necessity.

For the development of a high type of agriculture Nova Scotia offers most favourable conditions. About the only drawback, as compared with the inland parts of Canada, is a somewhat protracted spring, a drawback which frequent showers of rain and moist conditions natural to any maritime province, largely mitigate. Live stock, when properly cared for, flourishes to an unusual degree, and the markets for all kinds of agriculture produce are not only unusually good but easily accessible—so easy of access, in fact, as to have oft-times prevented successful co-operation, especially in butter and cheese making. For when a farmer can find within a few miles of his door a population of miners who will buy his products and pay him cash on delivery, he is often discouraged if he has to wait for a little longer to receive his returns from a creamery. The result of this has been to promote private dairying and private marketing of all sorts of produce at the expense of the more desirable, and, in the end, more profitable system of co-operative manufacture and marketing.

Dairying might well prosper here. Pastures, when properly cared for, are good and well watered, cows do well under the moist, humid conditions which prevail, and should the local market for dairy products ever become over-supplied, no province has easier access to the markets of the outside world. Beef cattle, too, have their place, especially in proximity to the large tracts of inexhaustibly fertile dike marsh lands, lining the headwaters of the Bay of Fundy and its river tributaries. There are also isolated river valleys where cheap pastures afford the means of raising beef at a minimum cost. Sheep find the land most congenial, and when well bred and cared for, the sheep of Nova Scotia will rival those of any other part of Canada. But for more than one reason sheep-raising has not been sufficiently exploited, although according to the census of 1907 it has made more progress during the past half decade than the forty years previously.

Horses, and swine, and poultry, as might also be expected, have their place in Nova Scotian agriculture, and, under efficient treatment, will give as good an account of themselves as in Ontario or any of the older provinces of Canada.

In the matter of crops New Scotland is peculiarly adapted to the production of hay and roots. The large marsh and interval areas produce heavy crops of hay, and nowhere in America can one see finer fields of turnips than on some of these maritime farms. In a recent bulletin issued by the Department of Agriculture on “Root-Growing in Nova Scotia,” there are recorded replies from twenty-five representative farmers living in various parts of the Province, from whose records it appears that the minimum yield of roots per acre for the last year was 600 bushels, with a maximum of 1200 bushels, and an average of 864 bushels. Despite, however, the splendid facilities for growing roots, many farmers, because of the reasons already hinted at, devote little or none of their acreage to this most profitable crop. Although there are exceptions, yet, for the most part, the cereal crops do not flourish to quite the same degree as further inland, and corn, whether grown for ears or ensilage, is generally an uncertain crop. The Federal Department has already in operation an extensive experimental farm, operated for the benefit of the Maritime Provinces, at Nappan, N.S. Truro, labouring under the disadvantage of being outside of the so-called fruit-growing areas, will have its work well supplemented by the establishment of this station.

In addition to that which is carried on within the College ground, a strong effort is being made to promote College extension work. Recently one hundred of the leading farmers of the Province, together with representative men from the adjoining Provinces, co-operated with the College authorities in testing varieties of grain, grown singly and in mixture, and also in testing nitro-bacteria for various leguminous crops. This latter line of investigation has already been carried on for three years, and has been productive of some striking results.

An extensive series of institute meetings, addressed by members of the College staff, successful farmers in Nova Scotia, and some of the Ontario men, are regularly carried on. There is a Farmers’ Association, which holds a three-days’ annual meeting in different parts of the Province, and a Fruit-Growers’ Association, which holds regular meetings in the fruit sections of the Province. In addition, each county, with a few exceptions, has a regularly organised County Farmers’ Association, whose object it is to promote the educational campaign, and to deliberate upon matters of common interests.

But perhaps the most aggressive and successful body of organised farmers is constituted in the agricultural societies, of which there are 200, situated all over the Province. Under the auspices of the various agricultural societies and associations of the Province, the various members of the Agricultural College staff lecture and give demonstrations on improved agriculture. Co-operative experiments in crops, methods of cultivation, fertilisation, and soil inoculation are being directed from the College. A series of model orchards, thirty-five in number, have been established in the various counties of the Province, from Cape Breton in the east to Yarmouth in the west, and are under the direct supervision of the horticulturist at the College. Insect and fungus pests, such as the brown-tailed moth, are being studied and kept in control through the efforts of the biologist and other members of the College faculty. The principal object for which these agricultural societies exist is the improvement of live stock. Each society keeps from one to sometimes six or more pure-bred bulls. These societies are bonused by the Government to the extent, during the present year, of 76 cents for each dollar subscribed by the members of these societies. Now new lines of work are opening up, of which perhaps the most interesting is the campaign which is being organised to encourage the more extensive draining of farm lands.

Authorities who have studied the matter carefully are convinced that money judiciously invested in the under-drainage of farm lands will return from 15 to 50 per cent. or more per annum on the investment. Many of our own best farmers already know this from experience; but there are a great many farms in the Province of Nova Scotia sadly in need of drainage, which are to-day yielding unprofitable crops because they have not been drained. With a view to encouraging the under-drainage of these lands, the College, I was told, are about to supply at a nominal cost men who will survey and take levels of fields which it is purposed to drain, and give advice in regard to the most efficient means of doing this. To further facilitate the matter, the College has bought, at the cost of several thousand dollars, the most improved drainage machine that is to-day on the market. The College authorities are constantly on the alert to push forward progressive measures of all kinds.