a building expansion, a year ago, greater than that of any other city of
her population in America. One year has seen in Western Canada an
increase in crop area under the one cereal of winter wheat of over one
hundred and fifty per cent, a development absolutely unique in the
world's history.

Winnipeg, having acquired the growing habit, expands by leaps and
bounds. No city on the continent within the last thirty-three years has
had such phenomenal growth. In 1876 the population was 6,000; it now
counts 150,000 souls. This city is the greatest grain-market in the
British Empire, and from it radiate twenty-two distinct pairs of railway
tracks. Architects have in preparation plans for fifteen million
dollars' worth of buildings during the coming year. The bank clearings
in 1903 were $246,108,000; last year they had increased to $618,111,801;
and a Winnipeg bank has never failed. Western Canada cannot grow without
Winnipeg's reaping a benefit, for most of the inward and outward trade
filters through here. During the spring months three hundred people a
day cross the border from the United States. Before the year has closed
a hundred thousand of them will have merged themselves into Western
Canada's melting-pot, drawn by that strongest of lures--the lure of the
land. And these hundred thousand people do not come empty-handed. It is
estimated that they bring with them in settlers' effects and cash one
thousand dollars each, thus adding in portable property to the wealth
of Western Canada one hundred million dollars. In addition they bring
the personal producing-factor, an asset which cannot be measured in
figures--the "power of the man."

[Illustration: Winnipeg, the Buckle of the Wheat-Belt]

Not only from the United States do Winnipeg's citizens come. This City