From the richness and extent of its pasturage, and the dryness of its soil and climate, British Columbia offers great advantages to the breeder of stock. But there are certain drawbacks, the principal of which is that an immense extent of country would be required by each stock farmer. The only grass is the “bunch-grass.” It covers the terraces of the Fraser, and the rolling swells and mountain-sides of the central region. Growing in the separate “tufts” from which it has taken its name, it fixes but a slight hold upon the light, powdery soil with its slender roots. Horses and cattle pull much of it up in grazing, and sheep, which thrive equally upon it, crop the delicate plant so closely that it frequently does not recover. In this way the Lilloet flats, which were once celebrated as rich feeding grounds, have now become bare, dusty plains, on which a few scattered plants of wild sage and absinthe still remain, where the bunch-grass has been destroyed. The facts, too, that the bunch-grass requires three years to come to perfection, and fully recover after being eaten down, and that, from its mode of growth in distinct tufts, the ground is really but scantily covered with herbage, confirm the belief that, for a stock farm to be successful, its range of pasturage must be very extensive. But there is room enough now, and any who may devote themselves to the raising of sheep and cattle will certainly reap a rich harvest of profit. Strange to say, from some cause--either want of capital, or the prospect of more rapid profit from other pursuits--it has been little followed hitherto, and the land lies open to the first-comer. The extent of agricultural land in British Columbia is very limited indeed. With the exception of a small district between the south end of the Okanagan Lake and the Grand Prairie, on the road from thence to the Thompson River; a few other patches of good land in the interior; and the delta of the Fraser, which is covered almost entirely with dense forest, and exposed to the summer floods, it is a country of rocks, gravel, and shingle. The surface of the country east of the coast range of mountains consists, principally, of a high table-land, from which rise up mountains and hills, and indented by the valleys of the Thompson and Fraser, and their countless tributaries. These valleys are deep and narrow, and their sides generally steep. On the table-land the night-frosts, prevalent throughout the summer, preclude the cultivation of almost every description of produce. In the valleys the land is generally very dry and sandy, or stony, and unless some very perfect system of irrigation and manuring is adopted, would yield a wretched return.