In the reports of the government explorers a great deal of interesting information will be found as to the soil, climate, and agricultural possibilities of Peace river country. Professor John Macoun was the first scientific explorer to draw attention to the agricultural possibilities of Peace river country, after making a thorough examination of the natural flora, the soil, climatic conditions, etc. Mr. Macoun had accompanied the first Canadian Pacific Railway survey expedition, and had subsequently been botanist to the geological survey party appointed to investigate this very country. There was much information as to the agricultural possibilities of the country in Professor Macoun’s official reports, and he summarized his conclusions in his book “Manitoba and the Great Northwest,” published in 1882. He defines a tract lying between the upper reaches of Athabaska river and the fifty-seventh parallel of latitude, in Peace river basin, which he considers “may be classed as fertile,” and estimates its area as about thirty-one thousand five hundred and fifty square miles. Speaking of this tract, he states:—“Its average elevation may be stated as little over two thousand feet, and this is maintained with considerable uniformity, for though the general surface slopes slightly from the north and south toward Peace river, the region as a whole may be considered as a plateau through which the great gorge-like valley of the Peace has been excavated. “The northern banks of Peace river valley are also very generally open grassed, and parts of the valley of the Smoky and other rivers have a similar character. The total area of PRAIRIE LAND, WEST OF SMOKY RIVER, may be about three thousand square miles. The remainder of the surface is generally occupied by second-growth forest, occasionally dense, but more often open and composed of aspen, birch, and cottonwood, with a greater or less proportion of coniferous trees. Some patches of the original forest, however, remain, particularly in the river valleys, and are composed of much larger trees, chiefly coniferous, among which the black spruce is most abundant. Handsome groves of old and large cottonwoods are also to be found in some of the valleys. Where the soil becomes locally sandy and poor, and more particularly in some of the more elevated parts of the ridges before described, a thick growth of scrub pine and black spruce, in which the individual trees are small, is found, and in swampy regions the taramack is not wanting, but grows generally intermixed with the black spruce. “Though the prairies are most immediately available from an agricultural point of view, the regions now covered with second growth and forest, where the soil itself, if not inferior, will eventually be equally valuable. The largest tract of poor land is that bordering the valley of the Athabaska on the north.”