150 RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



formed of the extraordinary success of Mr. Gowler in 

 growing wheat, but I found upon inquiry that the prac- 

 tice he employed was simply not to grow wheat after 

 wheat ; he had grown fifty-six measured bushels to the 

 acre. The price of wheat at the time of my departure was 

 4s. 5 d. sterling a bushel, but last year at the same time 

 it had been 3<s. 6d. sterling. His turnips (Swedes) were 

 magnificent ; four of them weighed 70 lbs., two weighing 

 39 lbs., and two others 31 lbs. Whatever manure his yard 

 and stables supplied he gave to green crops and the 

 garden. A portion of the potato crop was still in the 

 ground ; they far surpassed in quantity, quality and size, 

 any I had ever seen before. Mr. Gowler very kindly 

 turned them up out of the soil wherever I pointed 

 out. I counted thirteen, fourteen, and sixteen potatoes, 

 averaging three and a-half inches in diameter, at each 

 root respectively. They were a round white-skinned 

 variety, like those known in Canada as the "English 

 White." The potatoes were planted on the 1st June, and 

 were ready for eating on the 16th or 18th August. The 

 winter supply was rarely taken out of the ground before 

 the beginning of October. The greatest enemy to the 

 turnip crop is the cut-worm (the grub of an elater). 



Indian corn succeeds well on Mr. Gowler's farm, and 

 onions of rare dimensions were growing in his garden. 

 He had had this year a splendid crop of melons, the seed 

 being sown in the open air at the end of May, and the 

 fruit gathered about the 1st September. At the time of 

 my visit the melons had all been consumed, but I had 

 several opportunities of tasting and enjoying this fruit, at 

 Fort Garry and elsewhere, on the Assinniboine and Bed 

 River. In every instance they were grown in the open 

 air, without any artificial aid beyond weeding, from the 

 time the seed was planted to the maturation of the fruit. 



