Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/264

 without cultivating an acre of his land here, he has resold it, intending to keep a boarding-house in Albion. He, like the rest of his neighbours, knows nothing of agriculture. The land here seems very tempting to a British farmer, quite ready for the plough without any hewing or cleaving, or a blade of grass to obstruct the plough. The fire has laid the surface black and bare as a stubble ground, burnt in the fens of England. But what is land with men ignorant of, and too idle to work it? Without any cultivation at all, it annually offers an infinite supply of hay and grass, for any who choose to mow and gather it, or graze it; yet few or none, saving Birkbeck and Flower, have done so. What is gathered, is green and fragrant, but not so sweet as fine English hay. It is hard, harsh, and dry. Beef is well fattened on the grass, during the summer, the finest meat I ever saw; and sheep, with the assistance of corn, are fattened and now killing from Mr. Flower's flock, which all day ranges over {276} the prairies with a shepherd, who pens them at night close to the farmhouse, away from the wolves, which yesterday, in spite of the good shepherd, scattered them and devoured fifty. I tremble for the fate of this flock, which is now without grass or any substitute. The grass all dies in October; hard and dry food, which would starve an English flock, is now and must be their lot all winter. They drink constantly when water is near, like cattle, and water must be given them in troughs. And thus will they fare at lambing. What wasting, worrying, scattering, and death may not be expected? Would it not have been better to have waited for inclosures of cultivated grass for the herds and flocks?

Yesterday one of their fat bullocks was found dead near the Wabash, maliciously shot by a hunter; for the discovery of whom they offered 50 dollars reward.