In this 150th anniversary of the creation of sa国际传媒, we are looking back at editorials published in our predecessor newspaper in 1867.
This week, the editors again marvelled at the agricultural potential of the Interior.
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The well-directed exertions of the agriculturists in the Interior of the mainland have caused the country to 鈥渂lossom like a rose鈥� and the 鈥渃attle of a thousand hills鈥� to roam over rich pasture ranges that extend for miles and miles on both sides of the Alexandria wagon road.
From Thompson River to Soda Creek, it is estimated that nearly 1,500 acres have been laid down in wheat, barley and oats 鈥� wheat predominantly in the ratio of four to one.
To convert this wheat into flour, there are several grist mills of large capacity within easy reach of the farmers, and the cost of producing the flour will not be much enhanced over that of a mill located, say, at Victoria.
The quantity of vegetables grown on the farms from which we have statistics will exceed the demand.
In horned cattle, the increase has been astonishingly rapid. Few head are lost during the winter, the weather being seldom sufficiently severe to endanger the young stock.
Within the limits we have named, the number of horned cattle is stated to be 9,000 head, in round numbers, and the horses at 2,000 head; sheep and hogs are very numerous, the lowest estimate placing both species at 20,000.
Poultry thrive wonderfully in the Interior, and every farm has chickens, turkeys and geese in abundance. Last winter, the settlers turned their attention to putting up hams and bacon, and they are now supplying the Cariboo market with a superior mixture of both.
Next year, the miners will require but little in that line from abroad.
Butter and cheese are produced on all the farms, and the wayside inns furnish meals for the entertainment of guests that would be creditable to the best Victoria hotel.
A gentleman who lately travelled down the wagon road declares that he ate the best meal he has enjoyed in the country at one of these houses.
The good wife placed before him juicy beefsteaks and muttonchops, delicious bacon and fresh eggs, flanked with 鈥減iping hot鈥� biscuits, sweet butter and new potatoes, an excellent cup of coffee, with the concomitants of crushed sugar and 鈥渟uch cream!鈥� all contributed to furnish a breakfast fit for a prince; and every article on the table, with the exception of the coffee and sugar, was 鈥渞aised鈥� on the farm attached to the inn.
Think of this, ye city-fed gourmands, and say if the farmer is not among the most favoured of individuals?
But notwithstanding the favourable change that has come over the Interior in the past two years, many head of horned cattle were driven in last fall from Oregon.
Most of the American cows were bought by the farmers and turned in upon their 鈥渞anches鈥� for breeding purposes; but the steers were sold and slaughtered for beef.
The importation of stock will, however, nearly cease with this season, and it is hoped and believed that the last hoof coming northward will have crossed the line into British Columbia before the close of the year.
The country is now fairly started on the road to 鈥渇eed itself,鈥� and when it shall have succeeded in doing so, the gold that will be retained in the colony, and applied to its material advancement, will soon make itself felt in every branch of industry.
What amount this gold thus retrained would reach, we cannot now estimate; but looking to our own Island, the statistics show that for the first six months of the present year, 5,800 sheep and 1,000 head of beef cattle were imported from the American side.
Setting the value of each sheep at $85.50, and of each beeve at $50, we have a total of upward of $82,000 in six months, or $164,000 in 12 months, sent abroad for the purchase of the prime necessaries of life that we might as well not have grown within our own borders.
Had our farmers been as provident in the past as they appear likely to be in the future, this $200,000 (to say nothing of the enormous sums sent abroad for the same purpose in former years), might have been circulated today through the various channels of business to the material benefit of every person into whose hands a portion of it passed.
It is safe to estimate that at least $250,000 left the upper country last year to pay for livestock, flour, bacon, butter and other articles that will now be raised in the colony, and the money heretofore sent abroad will remain to enrich the producer.
The agricultural prospects of the upper country are in the highest sense encouraging, even though the population should receive no augmentation for a year or two.
No foreign flour or grain can compete with that raised in the Interior.
The cost of the carriage of flour alone is sufficient to prevent consignments from the seacoast, to say nothing of the duty of $1.50 per barrel exacted at the custom-house. Bacon, hams, butter and cheese, too, are safe from foreign competition for the same reasons, the producer saving not only the freight but the duty, while the cost of producing is no greater than in Oregon or California.
The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle
July 27, 1867
