ACUOSS THE ROCKVT MOUNTAINS, ETC. 171 



Mr. N. and myself walked over the farm with the doctor, to 

 inspect the various improvements which he has made. He has 

 already several hundred acres fenced in, and under cultivation, 

 and like our own western prairie land, it produces abundant 

 crops, particularly of grain, without requiring any manure. 

 Wheat thrives astonishingly ; I never saw better in any country, 

 and the various culinary vegetables, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, 

 &c., are in great profusion, and of the first quality. Indian corn 

 does not flourish so well as at Walla-walla, the soil not being so 

 well adapted to it; melons are well flavored, but small ; the greatest 

 curiosity, however, is the apples, which grow on small trees, the 

 branches of which would be broken without the support of props. 

 So profuse is the quantity of fruit that the limbs are covered with 

 it, and it is actually packed together precisely in the same manner 

 that onions are attached to ropes when they are exposed for 

 sale in our markets. 



On the farm is a grist mill, a threshing mill, and a saw mill, 

 the two first, by horse, and the last, by water power; besides 

 many minor improvements in agricultural and other matters, 

 which cannot but astonish the stranger from a civilized land, 

 and which reflect great credit upon the liberal and enlightened 

 chief factor. 



In the propagation of domestic cattle, the doctor has been par- 

 ticularly successful. Ten years ago a few head of neat cattle 

 were brought to the fort by some fur traders from California ; 

 these have now increased to near seven hundred. They are a 

 large framed, long horned breed, inferior in their milch qualities 

 to those of the United States, but the beef is excellent, and in 

 consequence of the mildness of the climate, it is never necessary 

 to provide them with fodder during the winter, an abundant sup- 

 ply of excellent pasture being always found. 



On the farm, in the vicinity of the fort, are thirty or forty log 

 huts, v/hich are occupied by the Canadians, and others attached 



