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 McKinley 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 metho