374 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



or chills the air and arrests vegetation in Cedar and Cross 

 Lakes on the Main Saskatchewan. Two and a half 

 degrees north of Cumberland, the soil is permanently- 

 frozen three feet below the surface. Sir John Bichard- 

 son relates that in 1851 he did not disengage his canoes 

 from the ice at the upper end of Lake Winnipeg until 

 the 9th of June. At the Touchwood Hills, horses are 

 allowed to remain in the open air all the winter, finding 

 sufficient pasture under the snow to keep them in good 

 condition. 



The vegetable in the gardens attached to Fort a la 

 Corne, with a brief notice of the periods of planting and 

 gathering, will show that the climatic adaptation of the 

 North Branch near the Grand Forks is not of a character 

 unfavourable to agricultural operations. As this subject 

 is one of great importance I have introduced some ex- 

 tracts from the journal of the Fort, which are both inter-, 

 esting and valuable. More extended extracts from this 

 journal will be found in the Appendix. 



On the 7th August, in the garden attached to Fort a la 

 Corne (about 18 miles below the Grand Forks), potatoes 

 were in flower, and the tubers of early varieties of the 

 size of hens' eggs. Cabbages were well formed ; beet- 

 roots and carrots quite ready for the kitchen ; Indian 

 corn in silk, from seed which was grown in the garden 

 last year, and peas ready for gathering. 



No disease has yet been noticed in the potatoes ; and 

 the grasshoppers, that scourge of the country south of the 

 Touchwood Hills, have not made their appearance at Fort 

 a la Corne. 



In the garden attached to the Nepowewin Mission, 

 under the charge of the Eev. Henry Budd (a zealous mis- 

 sionary of native origin), all the vegetables gave promise 

 of fair and remunerative crops. The potatoes were 



