Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/290

 destroy them by cunningly quarrelling with the sow, while a party of the wolves seize the pigs in their nests. Mr. Devan, this morning, shot a fat pig between the eyes; it fell dead instantly; the English mode, he says, is murder. He offered me a fine pet deer, which follows him everywhere, leaping over ten feet fences, and giving chace to the fleetest dogs, which she instantly distances. She holds communication with the wild bucks of the wood, three or four of which follow her. I regretted that I could not transport this beautiful animal.

Mr. Devan manufactures and cultivates the tea of China; I received from him some seed and tea for use. The shrub resembles young quicking, or two years old hawthorn. Its seed should be sown in {307} the autumn, and it will vegetate in May. He states that flax and currants are found wild in perfection, 1,500 miles up the Missouri territory, where also buffaloes are tamed for the yoke. He has a fine apple orchard, yielding plenty of fruit, the third year after being planted small from the nursery, and peach-trees from the seed, growing faster than osiers in England, being now from fifteen to twenty feet high, full of bearing branches. Fifteen years in England would not, I think, produce such an orchard. He has twelve children, and expects to leave them one quarter section each of improved rich land. The old gentleman tells many anecdotes respecting the uncommon cunning of the Indians. He believes that Birkbeck is sinking his capital by unskilful purchases and management, and by employing bad labourers, and omitting to cultivate. But the money goes, never to return. His land may rise to 15 or 20 dollars an acre, if he keeps it. He believes that skilful capitalists, even here in Indiana, after the second or third year, might enrich themselves