Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/249

 difference of twenty-five or thirty per cent in the price of horses. A fine saddle-horse in Kentucky costs about a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty dollars.

During my sojourn in this state I had an opportunity of seeing those wild horses that are caught in the plains of New Mexico, and which descend from those that the Spaniards introduced there formerly. To catch them they make use of tame horses that run much swifter, and with which they approach them near enough to halter them. They take them to New Orleans and Natches, where they fetch about fifty dollars. The crews belonging to the boats that return by land to Kentucky frequently purchase some of them. The two that I saw and made a trial of were roan coloured, of a middling size, the head large, and not proportionate with the neck, the limbs thick, and the mane rather full and handsome. These horses have a very unpleasant gait, are capricious, difficult to govern, and even frequently throw the rider and take flight.

The number of horned cattle is very considerable in Kentucky; those who deal in them purchase them {191} lean, and drive them in droves of from two to three hundred to Virginia, along the river Potomack, where they sell them to graziers, who fatten them in order to supply the markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. The price of a good milch cow is, at Kentucky, from ten to twelve dollars. The milk in a great measure comprises the chief sustenance of the inhabitants. The butter that is not consumed in the country is put into barrels, and exported by the river to the Carribbees.

They bring up very few sheep in these parts; for, although I went upwards of two hundred miles in this state, I saw them only in four plantations. Their flesh