pose of encouraging the production and use of seeds of
superior quality, thereby improving all kinds of field and garden crops
grown in Canada. Seeds are tested in the laboratory for purity and
germination on behalf of farmers and seed merchants, and scientific
investigations relating to seeds are conducted and reported upon. In the
year 1906-1907 6676 samples of seeds were tested. Encouragement to
seed-growing is given by the holding of seed fairs, and bulletins are
issued on weeds, the methods of treating seed-wheat against smut and on
other subjects. Collections of weed seeds are issued to merchants and
others to enable them readily to identify noxious weed seeds. The Seed
Control Act of 1905 brings under strict regulations the trade in
agricultural seeds, prohibiting the sale for seeding of cereals,
grasses, clovers or forage plants unless free from weeds specified, and
imposing severe penalties for infringements.

The census and statistics office, reorganized as a branch of the
department of agriculture in 1905, undertakes a complete census of
population, of agriculture, of manufactures and of all the natural
products of the Dominion every ten years, a census of the population and
agriculture of the three North-West Provinces every five years, and
various supplemental statistical inquiries at shorter intervals.

Experimental farms.

Experimental farms were established in 1887 in different parts of the
Dominion, and were so located as to render efficient help to the
farmers in the more thickly settled districts, and at the same time to
cover the varied climatic and other conditions which influence
agriculture in Canada. The central experimental farm is situated at
Ottawa, near the boundary line between Quebec and Ontario, where it
serves as an aid to agriculture in these two important provinces. One of
the four branch farms then established is at Nappan, Nova Scotia, near
the boundary between that province and New Brunswick, where it serves
the farmers of the three maritime provinces. A second branch
experimental farm is at Brandon in Manitoba, a third is at Indian Head
in Saskatchewan and the fourth is at Agassiz in the coast climate of
British Columbia. In 1906-1907 two new branch farms were established.
One is situated at Lethbridge, southern Alberta, where problems will be
investigated concerning agriculture upon irrigated land and dry farming
under conditions of a scanty rainfall. The other is at Lacombe,