Of oats and barley about ten thousand bushels, mostly barley, was raised. The wheat was ground and used to make bread for the people out there. The first market was at Fort Vermilion and the surrounding points, and whatever surplus there was was shipped down Peace river into Mackenzie river district. [Illustration: Sheridan Lawrence’s Farm at Fort Vermilion.] Mr. Lawrence stated that in 1906 he had cut spring wheat, fully matured, in eighty-six days. The time of cutting was the end of July. Wheat grown at Fort Vermilion is harder than grain of the same variety grown in Ontario. He explained that the river bottom proper only consists of points or flats in the bottom of the bed of the river, which “bottom” is practically about two miles in width, whereas, what is properly called Peace river valley, is in reality a broad tract of country. When you once get on to the height of land, this so-called “valley” covers three hundred miles in width, and extends from Rocky mountains on to Lake Athabaska. Peace river makes great bends, and on alternate sides of the river you find wide flats, where there is probably the richest soil there is in that northern country, made up of alluvial deposits all of black soil. There are places on the lower part of these points which get flooded, perhaps once in seven or eight years. Nearly all the points, however, are above the high water mark, and when these flats are cultivated the soil yields the heaviest of crops. On these flats cultivation of the soil was first undertaken in that part of the country, and it was supposed by many that they comprised the only part of Peace river country that was suitable for cultivation. People supposed that when they undertook the cultivation of grain on the height of land they would get into the muskeg and swamp that adjoined the river in many places, and grain could not be raised; but this has been proved to be a fallacy. The tableland is sometimes called “bench land,” and this bench land in some places is very wide. There are places in it, as at the south of Fort Vermilion, and to the north and west, where there is one hundred miles of this land on each side of the river. This land is not all suitable for cultivation. It has its swamps and its muskeg, and its LOW PATCHES OF LAND, that are found in almost any country where there is a large growth of scrub timber; but the larger part of this land, as Mr. Lawrence had found by travelling over the country away from the river, is suitable for settlement.