pease, Windsor beans and potatoes being far advanced; cucumbers started and raised in the open air, a very large crop, and a number of them were ripe on August 14.
“At Chipewyan mission, two miles from the fort, there were wheat, oats and barley, a good crop as regards grain. Windsor beans were ripe and pulled up on August 17. Wheat and barley were in stock August 26, and specimens of these, which I brought to Ottawa, are here on the table.
“At Red river fort a Frenchman named St. Cyr had a garden, and he told me he had a particular thing growing in the garden that he did not know anything about. I went out to look at it, and there was a splendid patch of cucumbers, many of them ripe. That was in August. I said: ‘These are cucumbers; how did you start them?’ He said: ‘I got the seed from England and put it in the ground, and that is what has come from it.’
“I passed down the Athabaska (from Chipewyan) to the Mission, and I found growing on soil that would be of no value here whatever, sand and muck, an old swamp where they had planted wheat on May 5, and I found it in the stook on August 26, and brought away from it the grain that was awarded the bronze medal at Philadelphia in 1876. It was forwarded to me, but I said that it did not belong to me, but to the missionaries at Athabaska. I exhibited this very lot of grain in Manitoba before Consul Taylor and many other gentlemen, and the matter of the number of grains in the fascicle was then discussed and made public. They took a quantity of the wheat from me and shelled it, and Mr. Gouin, Inspector of Inland Revenue, weighed it, and it showed a weight of sixty-eight pounds to the bushel.[[15]]
“The wild pea or vetch grows all through Peace river valley, but was particularly noticed on the plateau above Fort St. John (in British Columbia) in latitude 56°. Here it was actually measured by myself and was found to attain a height of eight feet, while the weeds, such as the purple fire weed of the east (Epilobium angustifolium) attained a height of seven feet. These are given in illustration of the wonderful luxuriance of the commoner plants on that high plateau. The vegetation throughout the whole Peace river valley is of the most luxuriant character, and it seems
More Like That of the Tropics
than a country drawing near the Arctic Circle.”
Professor Macoun explained that in Peace river country, the snow passes off so easily that as soon as it is off the ground and a few inches of the soil thawed, the ground is ready for seeding, because the soil is friable and the snow of little depth. The character of the month of September is almost identical with that of the very best Septembers in Ottawa—a smoky atmosphere with occasional white frosts in the morning, but generally a calm atmosphere. In October the frosts get more severe towards the last of the month. About the 25th at Chipewyan ice begins to form and the rivers and lakes soon close.
Professor Macoun furnished the committee with some data from notes kept by Daniel Williams of Fort St. John, commonly known as “Nigger Dan.” These notes showed that from 1872 to 1875 the date for planting potatoes varied from April 25 to May 10, and for sowing barley and oats from April 22 to May 7. After September 22, in 1874, Williams dug over one hundred bushels of potatoes.
William Ogilvie, D.L.S. (See p. [18]) in his report of 1884, wrote:—“Opposite Fort Vermilion, on the north of the river, there is an extensive tract of prairie and poplar bluff country, which extends from the Peace to the watershed between Peace and Mackenzie rivers, southwestward along the Peace for about forty miles or more, and northeastward along the river a few miles, until it merges into the country already described. This is said to be a first class country in every way, well wooded and watered, with a rich, deep, black loamy clay soil; and if the life of flowers and berries be any indication of freedom from frost, this district is favoured in this respect, as the berries ripen here when they are killed in the surrounding parts.