peninsula, which are almost infinite in number, are too small to
deserve a particular enumeration.

If I may judge of the soil, from what I saw of its vegetable productions, I
should not hesitate in pronouncing it barren in the extreme. Neither in the
neighbourhood of the bay, nor in the country I traversed on my journey to
Bolcheretsk, nor in any of our hunting expeditions, did I ever meet with
the smallest spot of ground that resembled what in England is called a good
green turf; or that seemed as if it could be turned to any advantage,
either in the way of pasturage, or other mode of cultivation. The face of
the country in general was thinly covered with stunted trees, having a
bottom of moss, mixed, with low weak heath. The whole bore a more striking
resemblance to Newfoundland, than to any other part of the world I had ever
seen.

It must however be observed, that I saw at Paratounca three or four stacks
of sweet and very fine-looking hay; and Major Behm informed me, that many
parts of the peninsula, particularly the banks of the river Kamtschatka and
the Bistraia, produce grass of great height and strength, which they cut
twice in the summer; and that the hay is of a succulent quality, and
particularly well adapted to the fattening of cattle. Indeed it should
appear, from the size and fatness of the thirty-six head that were sent
down to us from the Verchnei ostrog, and which, we were told, were bred and
fattened in the neighbourhood, that they must have had the advantage of
both good pastures and meadows. For it is worth our notice, that the first
supply we received, consisting of twenty, came to us just at the close of
the winter, and before the snow was off the ground, and therefore probably
had tasted nothing but hay for the seven preceding months. And this agrees
with what is related by Krascheninnikoff, that there is no part of the
country equal in fertility to that which borders on the river Kamtschatka;
and that to the N. and S. it is much inferior both in point of soil and
climate. He relates, that repeated experiments have been made in the
culture of oats, barley, and rye, in different quarters near this river,
which have generally succeeded; that, in particular, some persons belonging
to the convent of Jakutzk, who had settled in that part of the country, had
sown barley there, which had yielded an extraordinary increase; and he has
no doubt but that wheat, in many parts, particularly near the source of