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 knees of all present were bent to the God of their good fathers. Sunday passes unnoticed in the English prairie, except by hunting and cricket matches.

The bears, during the summer, are lean and hungry, and seize the hogs and eat them alive. It is no uncommon thing to see hogs escape home {238} with the loss of a pound or two of living flesh. These creatures sleep all the winter quite fat. Rattle-snakes abound here. Mr. Ingle killed four or five beautiful snakes of this species this summer, and one or two vipers.

8th.—I accompanied J. Ingle, and water-cart, to the spring, half a mile off, on the farm of Major Hooker, a hunter, who sold us half a fat buck at three cents a pound; thus killing and selling from four to six per week, besides turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, racoons, squirrels, and bears. This half buck, weighing 70 pounds, Mr. Ingle carried home on a shoulder-stick. The major's, and other families here, raise cotton for domestic uses, which, in warm and dry seasons, flourishes well. What I saw in pods, and that which the women were spinning, seemed of excellent quality. The seed of this plant was, in slave states, thought nutritious enough, when boiled, for the support of negroes; but as many died in using it, it was abandoned.

The China leaf, or tea-plant, has been propagated at Princeton, in Mr. Devan's garden, and at Harmony, from seed brought from China. It is said to grow luxuriantly, yielding more leaf than is used, and making a useful decoction, similar in flavour, though not so pleasant, as that procured from the imported plant. It is manufactured by sweating it in an oven, and when {239} taken out, it cools and curls up, and becomes fit for use. The indigo also is a little cultivated. The woods abound with med