AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 173 



perliaps, 40 per cent of the forest. The waters abound in fish ; soft-shelled 

 turtles, plenty. Cranberries so plenty that we have shipped fifty thousand 

 barrels of them to all parts of tlie river Mississippi ; they are of large 

 size. Corn is raised to sixty, and sometimes one hundred, bushels an acre. 

 He saw tobacco there six and a half feet high. Corn, a yellow flint, ripened 

 in sixty-seven days after planting. Soil generally a fine sandy loam. 

 Eain, when it falls — occasionally, does so at night chieflj. About half of 

 the land is prairie. Raspberries, wild, are so plenty, said Mr. Disturnell, 

 that in Michigan upper peninsula, a house there had made, in the season, 

 eleven tons of raspberry jam. 



Mr. Chute. — The white pmc trees often from two to two and a half feet 

 in diameter. There are some seveji ?nillio?i acres of forest there. 



Mr. Disturnell read from the report of a select committee of the House 

 of llepresentatives of Minnesota, 1858, "on the overland emigration 

 route from Minnesota to British Oregon," some passages as to the Red 

 river, in latitude 50°. " Its west side lined continuously, for thirty miles, 

 with farms, &c. These farms have each a front of twenty-four rods on the 

 river, and extend back a mile or two. The dwellings and barns, &c., are 

 near the river ; have lawns and shrubbery, and trees and vines. There are 

 large churches ; clean, whitewashed school-houses; mansions of pretentious 

 dimensions, for gentlemen ; elaborate fencing ; the seats of retired ofl&cers 

 of the Hudson Bay Company ; an English Bishop's parsonage, with a 

 boarding, or high school, near by ; a Catholic Bishop's massive cathedral, 

 with a convent of sisters of charity attached ; windm'.lls on the points of 

 land on the river — twenty of them, with their large sails, are seen at work 

 when there is a good breeze. The whole of the upper plains on both 

 branches of the River Saskatchewan, have an agricultural value superior, 

 naturally, to the fields of our New England, when in their primitive con- 

 dition. Away up the Peace river, on the northern slope of the Rocky 

 Mountains — around the Hudson Bay posts — General Colville states that 

 as fine barley as any in the world, is raised, in 60'^ north latitude, a thou- 

 sand miles nearer the north pole than Minnesota is." 



The club ordered for next subjects, " Earm Eruits, and Preservation of 

 Fruits," and "Late Eall Elowers." 



The club adjourned. 



H. MEiaS, Secretary. 



November 16, 1858. 



Present — Messrs. Doughty, of Jersey; Adrian Bergen, of Gowanus, 

 Long Island; Chilson, Dr. Adamson, Euller, Burgess, Provost and De 

 Witt, of Long Island ; John M. Bixby, Pardee, Lawton, of New Rochelle ; 

 Landis, of Hammonton, New Jersey ; Prof. James J. Mapes, and others — 

 27 members. 



William Lawton in the chair. Henry Meigs, Secretary. 



