DCHP-1 Online
fertile belt 
1 Hist. the wide belt of fertile land stretching from the Red River to the foothills of the Rockies and from the North Saskatchewan River to the American border.
- 1861 Among the means of future wealth and prosperity they will find within the limits of the Fertile Belt, or on its eastern borders . . . iron ore widely distributed, of great purity, and in considerable abundance.
- 1936 A city-bred crowd, or even people from "the fertile belt," could not have the same sympathy with Henry Kelsey's effort as these people who live on the new frontier.
- 1963 Finally Granville decided the Company must be compelled to settle, and practically forced them to accept the Canadians' reluctant agreement to have Canada . . . grant . . . one twentieth of the "fertile belt" of the north-west. . . .
2 any tract of fertile land, especially one in the generally inarable expanse of the Canadian Shield.
- 1883 Only of late have people been convinced that the island contains fertile belts, noble pine-forests, extensive coal-fields, and vast mineral treasures.
- 1921 It was the heart of a vast fertile belt that was rapidly becoming the greatest of all farming districts.
- 1957 The fertile belt of clay, the rich fields, big barns, and sleek cattle around the dairy town of Earlton, about one hundred miles within the Shield, looked almost unbelievable after the sterile rock north and south of it.
- 1861 Among the means of future wealth and prosperity they will find within the limits of the Fertile Belt, or on its eastern borders . . . iron ore widely distributed, of great purity, and in considerable abundance.