32 8 AVOYAGETO 



1779- bred and fattened in the neighbourhood, that they mud 

 ■ have had the advantage of both good paftures and meadows. 



For it is worth our notice, that the firft iupply we received, 

 confuting of twenty, came to us juft at the clofe of the win- 

 ter, and before the fnow was off the ground, and therefore 

 probably had tailed nothing but hay for the feven preceding 

 months. And this agrees with what is related by Krafcheni- 

 nicofT, that there is no part of the country equal in fertility 

 to that which borders on the River Kamtichatka ; and that 

 to the North and South it is much inferior both in point of 

 foil and climate. He relates, that repeated experiments have 

 been made in the culture of oats, barley, and rye, in dif- 

 ferent quarters near this river, which have generally fuc- 

 ceeded ; that, in particular, fome perfons belonging to the 

 convent of Jakutfk, who had fettled in that part of the 

 country, had town barley there, which had yielded an ex- 

 traordinary incrcafe; and he has no doubt but that wheat, 

 in many parts, particularly near the fource of the Biftraia 

 and Kamtfchatka, would grow as well as in the generality of 

 countries fituated in the fame latitude. Perhaps the fuperior 

 fertility of the country here fpoken of may, in a great mea- 

 fure, be accounted for, from its lying in that part of the penin- 

 fula, which is by much the wideft, and confequently fanned 

 removed from the fea, on each fide. The moill chilling fogs, 

 and drizzling weather, which prevail almoit perpetually 

 along the coaft, mud neceflarily render the parts adjacent 

 very unfit for all the purpofes of agriculture. 



It is natural to fuppofe, that the feverity of the climate 

 mull be in due proportion to the general llcriliiy of the foil, 

 of which it is probably the came. The fir it time we faw this 

 country was in the beginning of May, 1779, when the whole 

 1 ace of it was covered with mow, from fix to eight feet deep. 



On 



