The Profits Of A Share Last Year Amounted To $10,000!
A Factor Of The Company, After Serving Ten Years, Is Entitled To
Membership With The Profits Of Two Shares.
The aristocracy of the
settlement consists principally of retired factors and other members
of the company, who possess large fortunes, dine on juicy roast beef,
with old port, ride in their carriages, and enjoy life in a very
comfortable manner.
Two of the company's ships sail up into Hudson's
Bay every year to bring merchandise to the settlement and take away
furs. [1] But the greatest portion of the trade is done with
Minnesota. Farming is carried on in the neighborhood of the settlement
with cheerful ease and grand success. I was as much surprised to hear
of the nature of their agriculture as of anything else concerning the
settlement. The same kind of crops are raised as in Pennsylvania or
Maine; and this in a country, be it remembered, five hundred miles and
upwards north of St. Paul. Stock must be easily raised, as it would
appear from the fact that it is driven down here into the territory
and sold at a great profit. Since I have been here, a drove of
fine-looking cattle from that settlement passed to be sold in the
towns below, and a drove of horses is expected this fall. The stock
which comes from there is more hardy than can be got anywhere else,
and therefore is preferred by the Minnesotians.
[1 "The Hudson's Bay Company allows its servants, while making a
voyage, eight pounds of meat a day, and I am told the allowance is
none too much." (Lieutenant Howison's Report on Oregon, p. 7.)]
The following extract from Ex-Governor Ramsey's address, recently
delivered before the annual fair at Minneapolis, wherein he gives some
results of his observations of the Red River settlement during his
trip there in 1851, will be read with much interest:
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