FARMING LAND. 3S9 



to the summer floods, it is a country of rocks, gravel, 

 and shingle. The surface of the country east of the 

 coast range of mountains consists, principally, of a 

 high table-land, from which rise up mountains and 

 hills, and indented by the valleys of the Thompson 

 and Fraser, and their countless tributaries. These 

 valleys are deep and narrow, and their sides generally 

 steep. On the table-land the night-frosts, prevalent 

 throughout the summer, preclude the cultivation of 

 almost every description of produce. In the valleys 

 the land is generally very dry and sandy, or stony, and 

 unless some very perfect system of irrigation and 

 manuring is adopted, would yield a wretched return. 



In all the instances we saw where attempts had 

 been made to raise crops of cereals on the terraces of 

 the Thompson and Eraser, or, indeed, anywhere in the 

 region of shingle and gravel, they had failed. Cab- 

 bages, and vegetables of similar kind, if well watered, 

 seemed to flom-ish very well ; but the oats and barley 

 were short in the ear, and the straw weak, stunted, and 

 miserable. Water is sufficiently abundant, but the 

 soil of the irrigated tracts is so extremely light, and in 

 most parts underlaid by such a depth of gravel and 

 shingle, that the water percolates through as through 

 a sieve, and the streams disappear without spreadin 

 over the surface. The decay of the sparsely-growin 

 bunch-grass cannot have rendered the land rich in 

 vegetable mould. Occasional fei^tile spots, of a few 

 acres in extent, occur on the margin of the rivers, as 

 along the north and south branches of the Thompson 

 above Kamloops. There are also patches of good land 



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