“For a distance of six or seven miles back from Peace river valley there is much prairie and meadowland, with some woods and swamps scattered over it. The soil is an excellent black clay loam as rich as any I ever saw, and the growth of hay and grass bears testimony to this fact. The dip of the valley from this plain is very sharp and the banks very steep, falling about eight hundred feet in a mile. “At Fort St. John the Hudson’s Bay Company have a small patch on which they raise potatoes and garden stuff along with barley and oats. The grain always ripens and the vegetables are as good as one would wish to use. Mr. Gunn, the officer in charge here, has been in Peace river district since 1883, and in the interval he has wandered around the adjacent country a good deal. “The Hudson’s Bay Company have several bands of horses in the vicinity of Fort St. John, only a few of which have ever been broken. These animals live on the prairie on the north side of the river, winter and summer, and VERY SELDOM ARE THERE ANY LOSSES, except by wolves, or when the Indians are starving they may quietly dispose of one or two and report them lost. “At Dunvegan, the Company has grown wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and garden stuff generally for many years with astonishing success. When I was there in 1883-84, I saw grain and vegetables fully equal in quality and quantity to any I have ever seen anywhere, the garden vegetables being especially fine. Last year everything was harvested and stored when I got there, but what I saw of the produce was excellent. I saw two sunflowers which measured fourteen inches across the disc. With the corolla attached, these flowers would have been nearly two feet in diameter. The seeds of each weighed fourteen ounces and measured nearly a quart. A head of cabbage was shown from which I stripped off all the loose leaves leaving it fit for cooking and then measured and weighed it. It measured fifty-three and one-half inches in circumference, and weighed twenty-eight and one-half lbs. This was an exceptionally large head, of course, but the general run of both cabbage and cauliflower was large and would be considered so anywhere. Mr. Round, the officer in charge of the post, told me he two years ago made a departure from the old fashioned method of growing these plants, and instead of developing them in hot beds, he simply planted the seed once for all in drills in the garden, and when they arrived at the proper stage, pulled out the superfluous ones. He found this method just as satisfactory and much less troublesome. The other garden vegetables were just as large and good as one would wish to see them. Mr. Round informed me he planted fifteen bushels of potatoes last summer, and after using them freely for the sustenance of his family (five members) and the servants, in all eight or ten, from the time they were fit for use, until they were harvested, he harvested upwards of two hundred bushels. He sowed about