back from Saskatchewan river the soil is light; not a very good country. The country immediately behind Fort Pitt, however, IS FIT FOR RAISING GRAIN. [Illustration: Oat field at Anglican Mission, Lac la Ronge.] The further north one goes in that country the better it is. The altitude is gradually getting less, and on Chipewyan reserve, south of Cold lake, there is as fine land as he had ever seen in his life. The grass is four and one half feet long, and people had been known to grow one hundred tons of hay the first season. Mr. Cook doubted whether wheat would grow the first year. Around Cold lake the fires had been very destructive. There had been timber there, and where it had been burnt over the grass was good. The soil was all right and the pea vine growing, and good rich grass, so that he thought the country down the Beaver would be a fairly good agricultural country. This district is one hundred and fifty miles north of the Saskatchewan. It would be northwest of Battleford about one hundred and fifty miles. At Stanley and Churchill, two hundred and fifty miles north of Prince Albert, they were raising all kinds of stuff. There was a sheaf of wheat in the Board of Trade in Prince Albert which was brought from there, and it was certainly a very fine specimen. Mr. Cook thought that in the area he had visited in the north there was a country that would be settled up and sustain a large population. The fires had been very destructive in parts of the Stanley country. The soil throughout at one time was a good soil, but where the fires were very heavy and hot it burnt the top of the soil. He would judge that seventy-three per cent. of that country would have good agricultural soil as soon as it was cleaned out.