until the following April, affording good sleighing for four months in the year. The inhabitants enjoy with zest and spirit all the outdoor sports common in the country, such as skating, curling, tobogganing, snowshoeing, ski-ing and sliding. The snowfall is heavy, and though the winds are often sharp they are not often raw or damp, nor is there any fog. The summer is warm and pleasant. The extreme heat is indicated at 90° F. The finest season of the year is the autumn, which lasts about six or eight weeks. The following is a table of temperatures as recorded by the meteorological stations at certain points in the province:—
| Lati- tude. |
Longi- tude. |
Alti- tude. |
Average Mean Temperature. |
Precipi- tation. | |||
| Sum- mer. |
Winter. | Year. | |||||
| Anticosti, W. Pt. Bird Islands Chicoutimi Quebec Brome Montreal Cape Magdalen |
49° 52′ 47° 51′ 48° 25′ 46° 48′ 45° 10′ 45° 30′ 49° 16′ |
64° 32′ 61° 8′ 71° 5′ 71° 13′ 72° 30′ 73° 35′ 65° 20′ |
Feet. 15 125 150 296 678 187 93 |
55° 8′ 55° 4′ 61° 7′ 63° 6′ 63° 6′ 66° 9′ 57° 8′ |
14° 2′ 20° 7′ 6° 1′ 12° 3′ 14° 8′ 15° 6′ 13° 9′ |
25° 4′ 38° 2′ 35° 3′ 38° 4′ 40° 2′ 42° 0′ 37° 1′ |
Inches. 35.89 28.76 29.38 41.98 35.35 39.24 31.55 |
The normal percentage of bright sunshine at Montreal is 41 and at Quebec 39, a higher average than northern Europe. (F. D. A.)
Area and Population.—The boundaries of Quebec have been more than once enlarged since 1867. By the extension given to them in 1898, the province has an area of 351,873 sq. m., of which 341,756 sq. m. are land and 10,117 sq. m. are water. This estimate includes the islands of Orleans, Anticosti, and the Magdalen group, but not the gulf of St Lawrence or the territorial seas. In 1901 the population was 1,648,898, 992,667 being classed as rural and 656,231 as urban. Since 1891 the rural population has increased but little, but there has been a growth of about 11% in the population of the towns and cities. No province has taken so small a share in the development of the West. True to his ancestral instincts, the French-Canadian remains close to the place of his birth. If he emigrates, it is to the neighbouring cities of New England or to the eastern districts of the province of Ontario. On the other hand, in the rural parts of the province, the French are driving out the English-speaking settlers, especially in the south-western counties, settled by Loyalists at the close of the War of American Independence, and known as the Eastern Townships. Nearly 98% of the population are Canadian-born. Of these over 80% are of French descent; of the remainder about 7% are English, 7% Irish and 4% Scots. Save to the city of Montreal there is little immigration; but so prolific are the French that the population of the province increases as fast as that of the rest of the Dominion, in which to the natural increase is added a large immigration. The census gives the number of the average family as 5·36, but families with twelve and eighteen children are not uncommon. The English-speaking population is almost wholly confined to the towns, especially Montreal, in which city it controls the chief shipping and commercial interests. Of the original inhabitants about 8000 Indians remain, chiefly on reserves in the neighbourhood of Montreal and Quebec. Though quite peaceful, they are on the whole less civilized than those of eastern and southern Ontario. The capital is Quebec, with a population of about 70,000, which increases but slowly. The largest city is Montreal, the commercial and shipping centre of the Dominion, at the head of ocean steamship navigation, with a population of about 350,000. Other cities are Hull (practically a suburb of Ottawa; pop. in 1901, 13,993); Sherbrooke (11,765); Three Rivers (9981); Lévis (7783). The French, Irish and Indians are almost entirely of the Roman Catholic faith; a majority of the English are Anglican, with some Methodists; the Scots are Presbyterian. The Roman Catholic Church enjoys extensive rights and privileges, and nowhere in the world is devotion to that faith more widespread or more unquestioning.
Administration.—As in all the provinces, the executive power is nominally vested in a lieutenant-governor, appointed for five years by the federal government, and assisted by an executive council (or cabinet) who have seats in, and are responsible to, the local legislature. In reality the lieutenant-governor is a. figure-head, and power is in the hands of the legislature, which consists of two houses, a Legislative Council, appointed nominally by the lieutenant-governor, really by the premier, and an Assembly, chosen by what is practically manhood suffrage. Either French or English may be used in addressing either house. The municipalities have large powers of local government, which are used with more or less efficiency, the predatory tendencies of the ward-politician being sometimes apparent, though of late years an improvement has been effected. The finances of the province are drawn from the same sources as those of Ontario (q.v.). Their administration has not been so economical as in the sister province, and there is a net provincial debt of over £4,000,000.
Education.—In primary education Quebec is still behind the other provinces, but great progress has been made since Federation; illiteracy is decreasing, and 80% of the population over five years of age can read and write. The Council of Public Instruction is divided into two committees of equal number, a Catholic and a Protestant, and all ratepayers are allowed to state whether they prefer their taxes to go to the Protestant or to the Catholic school. Both religious bodies have combined to carry out this system with very little friction or proselytizing. The Catholic schools are controlled by the clergy, the episcopate forming, ex ajiciu, one-half of the Catholic section of the council. In the cities of Quebec and Montreal the schools are efficient and the teachers well aid; but in the rural districts the schools, especially those of the Catholics, are often inadequate, the buildings being poor, and the teachers receiving a mere pittance, in some cases less than £20 per annum. Over 95% of the teachers in the primary schools are women. The great majority of the schools are controlled by the council, but there are also a number of independent schools, primary and secondary, usually under religious control; of these the so-called “Colleges Classiques,” supported by the Catholic Church, are the most important. The chief universities are McGill (undenominational), at Montreal (founded 1820), and Laval (Roman Catholic) (founded 1852), with its headquarters at Quebec, and with a large branch at Montreal. (See Montreal and Quebec City). There is also a small Anglican university, that of Bishop’s College, Lennoxville (founded 1853), in connexion with which is Bishop’s College school, on the model of the public schools of England. To McGill is affiliated a well-equipped Agricultural College established at Ste Anne de Bellevue by Sir William Macdonald (b. 1832), at a cost of over £2,000,000; and to Laval an Agricultural School at Oka, founded in 1893 by the Trappist Fathers. There are numerous normal and model schools, the most important being that of Ste Anne de Bellevue in connexion with Macdonald College.
Agriculture.—The French Canadian is a thrifty though somewhat unprogressive farmer, and loves the land with an even greater attachment than do the peasants of old France. Till recently his agriculture was of a very domestic character. He grew enough wheat to grind into flour, and enough oats to feed his horses; raised sheep whose wool his wife spun into rough cloth in the winter evenings; and even grew his own tobacco. Now his horizon is widening, and his imports and exports are increasing. The general climatic conditions are much the same as in Ontario, and the crops are similar. All the chief cereals are successfully cultivated, oats being the chief crop. The wise care of both federal and provincial governments has fostered the dairy farming of the province. In 1906 over £4,200,000 of cheese was produced, and over £5,200,000 of butter. Most of the butter is made in well-equipped creameries, in the number of which Quebec exceeds any other province; in exports of cheese she equals Ontario. In the production of fruit she ranks second to Ontario, Nova Scotia coming third. Perhaps the most typical Canadian industry, the making of syrup and sugar from the sap of the maple tree as it rises in the spring, centres in this province. Over two-thirds of the tobacco grown in the Dominion is raised in Quebec, about 10,000 acres being under cultivation. At first of a coarse character, it is improving in quality. The total annual value of the agricultural produce of the province is about £18,000,000, about half that of Ontario. Several agricultural and dairy schools are supported or assisted by the provincial government, and much good is being done by the Agricultural College at Ste Anne de Bellevue.
The province still possesses large areas of crown land, which is sold at a nominal price to bona fide settlers. In the northern part of the province new and fertile areas have been opened up by the Grand Trunk Pacific railway.
Forests.—Next to agriculture in importance are the various industries which depend on the products of the forest. Over 150,000 sq. m. of forest land are still uncleared, chiefly in the northern part of the province, though the best timber is said to grow south of the watershed. In the north, pine, spruce, and fir predominate,
and, farther south, the maple; spruce, lime (linden, bass-wood,