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THE FIRST FARMER IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. After a temporary abandonment, the Spanish resumed occupancy of Nootka in 1791, under the command of Francisco de Eliza. For the first time a troop of soldiers were brought to Nootka, a company of Volunteers of Catalonia led by Lt. Col, Pedro de Alberni. The presence of Alberni proved advantageous, not because he and his soldiers were needed, but because he undertook to experiment with the development of agriculture. Accustomed as we are to think of Nootka as a remote, desolate, water-sogged area, it is enlightening to realize that here was developed British Columbia's first farm. Alberni's farming was not a hit or miss planting of crops. He was interested in learning what could or could not be grown. He therefore not only planted a great variety of crops, but he planted many of them at weekly intervals so that he could determine growing seasons. He enjoyed mixed success. Barley, potatoes, beans, he found to grow readily, but wheat, corn, chick peas, tomatoes failed to ripen. Cabbages, onions, garlic, turnips, beets, carrots, spinach, squash, artichokes, parsley all flourished. Alberni tried his hand at livestock too, and found that chickens and cattle, given sufficient fodder, did very well. Not that all was a bed of roses. After an interval, Alberni found that his vegetables were being menaced by rats that his chickens were fair game for the weasels. One night alone, he lost sixty chickens. But these were problems, not defeats. With proper precautions, he found he could forestall the predators, and his crops flourished. Having recently seen a vegetable garden on Galiano Island fenced to keep out the deer, and netted over the top of the fence to keep out the grouse, I can appreciate Alberni's problems. One has only to read the accounts of some of the early voyages to understand the importance of Alberni's work. Of his voyage north to Alaska in 1774, Perez reported: "It was quite cold and a heavy mist fell. I think the dampness is the cause of the "mal de Loanda", or scurvy; for although during the whole voyage there have been some persons affected by this sickness, these cases have not been as aggravated as they are now, when there are more than twenty men unfit for duty, in addition to which many others, though able to go about, have sores in their mouths and on their legs____" Perez had twenty of a crew of eighty-four totally incapacitated. On a later voyage. Quadra was to work his way home with only three men able to work the sails and the rudder. That Perez should attribute the sickness to dampness is puzzling as his ship carried two jars of lemon syrup as an antiscorbutic measure. Alberni's farm, and the fresh vegetables that it could provide might well have reduced or abolished the threat of scurvy on the journeys up and down the Pacific Coast. But alas, Alberni's farm was to become nothing more than a historic curiousity. It was in operation only the one year as Alberni returned to San Bias with Eliza at the end of the 1791 season. When Galiano and Valdes made their voyage in 1792, Quadra was the governor and there were no soldiers to do any farming. For all that, Alberni was indeed the first farmer in British Columbia and he should be so recognized. A SPANISH DINNER The theme of the Annual General Meeting of the B.C. Historic Federation, held on Galiano Island from 1 May to 5 May 1985 was the Spanish Presence in North Pacific Waters. The Spanish ambassador was in attendance. The banquet consisted on Spanish dishes - quite different but quite delicious.