such trapping as their environments afforded, which increased the market at St. Paul by the addition of all Minnesota, which then included both of the Dakotas, and northern Wisconsin. The extent and value of this trade can better be understood by a statement of the increase of the number of carts engaged in it between 1844 and 1858. In the first year mentioned six carts performed all the required service, and in 1858 six hundred carts came from Pembina to St. Paul. After the year 1858 the number of carts engaged in the traffic fell off, as a steamer had been put in operation on the Red river, which reduced the land transportation to 216 miles, which had formerly been 448 miles, J. C. & H. C. Burbank having established a line of freight trains connecting with the steamer. In 1867, when the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad reached St. Cloud, the caravans of carts ceased their annual visits to St. Paul. St. Cloud then became the terminus of the traffic, until the increase of freight lines and the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Red river drove these most primitive of all transportation vehicles out of business. Another cause of the decrease in the fur trade was the imposition of a duty of twenty-five per cent on all dressed skins, which included buffalo robes, and from that time on robes that formerly came to St. Paul from the British possessions were diverted to Montreal. The extent and value of this trade to Minnesota, which was then in its infancy, can easily be judged by a brief statement of its growth. In 1844 it amounted to $1,400 and in 1863 to $250,000. All the money paid out for these furs, and large sums besides, would be expended in St. Paul for merchandise, in the shape of groceries, liquors, dry goods, blankets, household utensils, guns and ammunition, and, in fact every article demanded by the needs of a primitive people. Even threshers and mowers were included, which were taken apart and loaded on the return carts. This trade was the pioneer of the great commercial activity which now prevails. I cannot permit this opportunity to pass without describing the Red river cart, and the picturesque people who used it, as their like will never be seen again. The inhabitants of the Pembina country were principally Chippewa half breeds, with an occasional white man, prominently Joseph Rolette, of whom I shall hereafter speak as the man who vetoed the capital removal bill, by running away with it, in 1857. Their principal business was hunting the buffalo, in connection with small farming, and defending themselves against the invasions of their hereditary enemies, the Sioux. They were a bold, free race, skilled in the arts of Indian war, fine horsemen, and good fighters.