before. Among the flowers I recognized the violet and larkspur, the
former in great abundance. Earlier in the summer the hills were
literally carpeted with flowers. I could not learn that any skilled
botanist had ever visited Kamchatka and classified its flora. Among
the arboreal productions the alder and birch were the most numerous.
Pine, larch, and spruce grow on the Kamchatka river, and the timber
from them is brought to Avatcha from the mouth of that stream.

The commercial value of Kamchatka is entirely in its fur trade. The
peninsula has no agricultural, manufacturing, or mining interest, and
were it not for the animals that lend their skins to keep us warm, the
merchant would find no charms in that region. The fur coming from
Kamchatka was the cause of the Russian discovery and conquest. For
many years the trade was conducted by individual merchants from
Siberia. The Russian American Company attempted to control it early in
the present century, and drove many competitors from the fields. It
received the most determined opposition from American merchants, and
in 1860 it abandoned Petropavlovsk, its business there being
profitless.

In 1866 I found the fur trade of Kamchatka in the control of three
merchants: W.H. Boardman, of Boston, J.W. Fluger, of Hamburg, and
Alexander Phillipeus, of St. Petersburg. All of them had houses in
Petropavlovsk, and each had from one to half a dozen agencies or
branches elsewhere. To judge by appearances, Mr. Boardman had the
lion's share of the trade. This gentleman's father began the Northwest
traffic sometime in the last century, and left it as an inheritance
about 1828. His son continued the business until bought off by the
Hudson Bay Company, when he turned his attention to Kamchatka.
Personally he has never visited the Pacific Ocean.