38 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



tridges, grouse, and pigeons are plenty ; quails are occasionally seen, but wild 

 turkeys are not as yet residents here. Of" depredators, we Lave plenty of mice, 

 squirrels, and gophers, (pouch rats,) but the common house rat has not got, as 

 yet, beyond the large towns; at least the farmers above the falls do not report 

 their presence. 



WILD RICE. 



We have in the northern part of the State a great abundance of this article, 

 which is much valued by the indians as an article of food, and, when well pre- 

 pared, is a palatable dish. In my vicinity, though quite plenty eight years 

 ago in the lakes and rivers, it has disappeared, as well as the cranberries in 

 some of the swamps. There are, however, in the State thousands of acres of 

 both rice and cranberries. 



SWAMP LANDS. 



In a country whose surface is so completely dotted with lakes, there is, of 

 course, a great quantity of swamp lands. From these a great deal of hay is 

 annually harvested, and they are relied upon by nine-tenths of the population 

 for all their hay. Annual cuttings, however, are causing them to run out in 

 their productions, and the cultivation of tame grass must soon be resorted to in 

 the old-settled parts of the State. The great majority of these swamps can be 

 ea.sily drained, and where they have been so treated, ploughed, and grass seed 

 sown, immense crops of hay repay the labor expended. Timothy and clover 

 yield well upon our prairie soil where the precaution is first taken to extermi- 

 nate the gopher, Avhich is easily done by putting a crystal of stryclinine into a 

 small potato, and dropping one in every hole where their presence is indicated. 

 An investment of seventy-five cents in this poison, last spring, enabled me to 

 exterminate them from five acres. 



Having glanced at nearly all the items that will naturally interest a person 

 seeking a home in a new country, I will now refer to other matters of general 

 interest. 



CITIES AND TOWNS. 



The largest city is St. Paul, the capital of the State, with a population of 

 twelve thousand inhabitants ; but there are numerous other points which, 

 though outnumbered in population at the present, are increasing rapidly, and 

 some of them will eventually surpass it. Manufacturing interests, aided by the 

 railroad facilities now being furnished, will bring other towns into prominent 

 notice. 



NATURAL RESOURCES OF WEALTH. 



Having already mentioned the fertility of the soil for agricultural pursuits, 

 also our vast forests of choice wood for all useful purposes, and our immense 

 water-power, I come next to our recently discovered coal deposits. On tlie 

 Big Cottonwood river, a tributary of the Minnesota, a shaft has been sunk, re- 

 vealing a vein of coal over five feet in thickness. This deposit is found in 

 place, and from the best geological opinion it is believed to extend through 

 the entire western part of the State northward, and again crops out in Dakota 

 Territory, at Lake Jessie. Heretofore our coal for gas and manufacturing pur- 

 poses has been imported from other States. Our coal is of superior quality — 

 bituminous. 



COPPER, 



Our vast deposits on Lake Superior are inexhaustible, and their extent and 

 quality of ore are too well known to need more th;in a passing notice. 



In the same vicinity immense veins of other valuable metals are reported to 

 exi^t, consisting of 



