horses and sheep is stationary or declining, but the raising of hogs,
formerly abandoned in great part to the western states, is becoming
an increasing industry. Large quantities of peas, corn, tomatoes
and other vegetables are canned, chiefly for home consumption.
Three-quarters of the orchard lands of Canada are in Ontario, the
chief crops being apples and peaches. The cultivation of the latter
centres in the Niagara peninsula, but apples flourish along the great
lakes and the St Lawrence from Goderich to Cornwall. In Essex
and Kent, and along the shore of Lake Erie, tobacco and grapes
form a staple crop, and wine of fair quality is produced.
Lumber.—Slightly less than half remains of the forest which once covered the whole province. The lumber industry exceeds that of any other part of the Dominion, though Quebec possesses greater timber areas untouched. The numerous lakes and rivers greatly facilitate the bringing of the timber to market. All trees were long little thought of in comparison with the pine, but of late years poplar and Spruce have proved of great value in the making of paper pulp, and hard-wood (oak, beech, ash, elm, certain varieties of maple) is becoming increasingly valuable for use in flooring and the making of furniture. In the spring the making of syrup and sugar from the sap of the sugar-maple is a typical industry.
Much splendid timber has been needlessly destroyed, chiefly by forest-fires, but also by improvident farmers in their haste to clear the land. Increased attention is now being paid by both provincial and federal governments to preservation and to reforestation. Special areas have been set apart on which no timber may be cut, and on which the problems of scientific forestry may be studied. Of these, the earliest was the Algonquin National Park, which also forms a haven of refuge for the wild creatures.
Northern Ontario is still a valuable fur-bearing and hunting country, moose, caribou, fox, bear, otter, mink and skunk being found in large quantities. Wolves, once numerous, have now been almost extirpated, though a bounty on each head is still paid.
Minerals.—The geographical distribution of the great mineral wealth of Ontario has already been indicated (see Physical Geography, above). Save for beds of lignite, said to exist in the extreme north, coal is not found, and has to be imported, chiefly from the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, though Nova Scotia furnishes an increasing quantity. The production of iron is stimulated by federal and provincial bounties. The province supplies over two-thirds of the iron ore mined in the Dominion, but much is still imported. The output of gold is decreasing. The nickel mines in the neighbourhood of Sudbury are the largest in the world, out rivalling those of New Caledonia. In the same district, and chiefly in connexion with the nickel mines, large quantities of copper are produced. When in 1905 the rich silver area was found in northern Ontario, a rush was made to it, comparable to those to the Australian and Californian goldfields. Cobalt, the centre of this area, is 103 m. from North Bay by the provincial railway (Temiscaming & North Ontario railway). In the same neighbourhood are found cobalt, arsenic and bismuth. In the older districts of the province are found petroleum and salt. The district around Petrolea produces about 30,000,000 gallons of petroleum yearly, practically the whole output of the dominion. Salt is worked in the vicinity of Lake Huron, but the production is less than half that imported. Natural gas is produced in the counties of Welland and Essex, and exported in pipes to Buffalo and Detroit. Among the less important metals and minerals which are also mined, is corundum of especial purity.
Manufactures and Commerce.—Manufactures are becoming of increasing importance. The obstacle due to lack of coal is offset by the splendid water powers afforded by the rapid streams in all parts of the province. Save for the flour and grist mills, few do more than supply the markets of the Dominion, of which they control an increasing portion. Woollen mills, distilleries and breweries and manufactures of leather, locomotives and iron-work, furniture, agricultural implements, cloth and paper are the chief. The great agricultural development of the western provinces, in which manufactures are little advanced, has given a great impetus to the industries of the older provinces, especially Ontario.
Communications.—Numerous lakes and rivers afford means of communication, and obstacles thereon have been largely overcome by canals (see Canada). Railways gridiron the province, which contains over one-third the total mileage of the dominion; their construction is aided by provincial and municipal subsidies, in addition to that paid by the federal government. The provincial government owns a line running north from North Bay, operated by a board of commissioners. The other railways are owned by private companies, but are subject to the decisions of a federal railway commission. The provincial railway and municipal board also exercises control, especially over the city and suburban electric lines.
History.—The first white man known to have set foot in what is now Ontario was Champlain. In 1613 he explored the Ottawa river as far as Allumette Island; in 1615, starting from Montreal, he reached the Georgian Bay by way of the Ottawa river, Lake Nipissing and French river, and then by way of Lakes Couchiching and Simcoe and the Trent river system of lakes and streams made his way to Lake Ontario, called by him Entouhoronon. The winter of 1615–1616 he spent among the Huron Indians, near the Georgian Bay. In 1615 a mission among these Indians was founded by the Recollet friars, and carried on with great success and devotion by the Jesuits, but in 1648–1650 the Huron nation was almost utterly destroyed by an invasion of their hereditary foes, the Iroquois. From its centre at Quebec French civilization extended along the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, and also northwards to Hudson's Bay. In the western country numerous posts were founded, wherein fur-trader and missionary were often at variance, the trader finding brandy his best medium of exchange, while the missionary tried in vain to stay its ravages among his flock. On the frontiers of what is now Ontario the chief points were at the strategic centres of Fort Frontenac (now Kingston), Niagara, Michihmackinac and Sault-Ste-Marie. Farther north, in what is now New Ontario, their English rivals, the Hudson's Bay Company, had more or less permanent posts, especially at Fort Albany and Moose Factory.
With the cession of French North America to Great Britain in 1763, the Indian lords of the soil rose under Pontiac in a last attempt to shake off the white man, and in 1763–1765 there was hard lighting along the western frontier from Sault-Ste-Marie to Detroit. Thereafter for almost twenty years, Ontario was traversed only by wandering bands of trappers, chiefly belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company; but in 1782 bands of American loyalists began to occupy the fertile country along the Bay of Quinté, and in the Niagara peninsula, the first settlement being made in 1782 at Kingston. Between 1782–1784 about 5000 loyalists entered Ontario, and were given liberal grants of land by the British government.
The oligarchic constitution established in Canada in 1774 by the Quebec Act did not suit men trained in the school of local self-government which Britain had unwittingly established in the American colonies, and the gift of representative institutions was soon necessary. In the debates in the British parliament Fox urged that the whole territory should remain one province, and of this the governor-general, the 1st baron Dorchester (q.v.), was on the whole in favour, but in 1791 Pitt introduced and carried the Constitutional Act, by which Upper and Lower Canada were separated. The Ottawa river was chosen as the main boundary between them, but the retention by Lower Canada of the seigneuries of New Longueuil and Vaudreuil, on the western side of the river, is a curious instance of the triumph of social and historical conditions over geographical. To the new province were given English civil and criminal law, a legislative assembly and council and a lieutenant-governor; in the words of its first governor, Colonel John Graves Simcoe, it had, “the British Constitution, and all the forms which secure and maintain it.” Simcoe set to work with great energy to develop the province, but he quarrelled with the governor-general over his pet scheme of founding military colonies of retired soldiers in different parts of the province, and retired in 1796. Even before his retirement political feuds had broken out, which increased in bitterness year by year. In so far as these had other causes than the Anglo-Saxon love of faction, they were due to the formation by the loyalists, their descendants and hangers-on of a clique who more and more engrossed political and social power. The English church also formed a quasi-official clerical oligarchy, and the land reserved by the Constitutional Act for the support of “a protestant clergy” formed a fruitful source of bitterness.
For a time the War of 1812–1814 with the United States put an end to the strife. The war gave some heroic traditions to the province, and in special cemented that loyalty to Great Britain for which Ontario has been conspicuous. On the other hand, the natural dislike of the United States felt by the loyalists and their descendants was deepened and broadened, and has not yet wholly died away, especially among the women of the province. The jobbing of land by the official clique, whose frequent intermarriages won for them the name of “The Family Compact,” the undoubted grievance of the "Clergy Reserves" and the well-meaning high-handedness and social exclusiveness of military governors, who tried hard but unavailingly to stay the democratic wave, soon revived political discord, which found a voice in
