116 NATURAL RESOURCES OF QUEBEC 
settlers already located, seven or eight hundred more families could be 
placed, and when these parishes are filled new ones will be ready for settle- 
ment. In the last ten years great inroads have been made into the forests 
of the Matapédia valley as a result of the high prices that have prevailed 
for all forest and farm products and many industries have been established 
affording a ready market for the farmer. Among the regions where 
settlement has made great progress must be mentioned Sayabec, St. Zénon 
d’Amqui, St. Viennay, St. Léon le Grand, Lac au Saumon, Albertville and 
Ste. Florence de Beaurivage. Crown lands agent:—G. L. DIONNE, Amqui. 
LAKE ST. TOHN 
The picturesque valley of lake St. John comprises at least 4,000,000 
acres, a large percentage of which is favourable to agriculture on account 
of the fertility of the soil and agreeable climate. Slightly over 1,000,000 
acres are at present occupied by settlers. Fifty years ago lake St. John 
region was almost uninhabited; now it is interspersed with villages and 
clearings and traversed by convenient roads. The population of the 
colonization parishes in the counties of lake St. John and Chicoutimi 
numbers about 28,000, exclusive of the population of towns and industrial 
centres. Settlements surround the lake and are expanding towards the 
north and west. Among the principal townships offering the greatest 
opportunities for increased settlement at the present time are Dalmas, 
Dufferin, Girard, Delisle, Garnier, Taillor, Labreque, Bégin and Dalbeau. 
The soil for the most part is a clay loam of great depth that is covered 
in most places with a layer of sand which when mixed with the under- 
lying clay gives a soil very fertile and easy to plough. A few swamps 
are to be found here and there but they can be made productive without 
much difficulty by surface drainage. 
This is a fine agricultural country where almost everything that the 
Canadian soil produces is cultivated with success, including tobacco. 
The great richness of the pastures has given a strong impulse to dairying. 
This rapidly growing industry already provides a livelihood for hundreds 
of farmers. There still remain over 2,500,000 acres untouched by the 
plough. The temperature of the lake St. John valley is almost identical 
with that of Montreal. A chain of hills shelters it from unfavourable 
winds, especially the northeast wind which blows so severely in the lower 
regions of the St. Lawrence. Rain is not excessive and snowfalls are 
lighter than in Quebec and Montreal. 
The great forest wealth of the lake St. John and Chicoutimi districts 
gave rise to the establishment of a number of prosperous pulp and paper 
industries of which those at Chicoutimi, Jonquiére, River Bend, Dolbeau, 
Port Alfred and Petite Péribonka are important examples.