SYMPOSIUM OX COXSERVATIOX 39 



the greater part of the materials of their trade. Barter for furs, 

 as. we all know, was almost the sole business of the first business 

 men of the State, and their food was probably even more largely 

 animal than that of the Indians among whom they lived, since 

 they killed their own game, but rarely planted any crop. An 

 employee of the American Fur Company, stationed, in 1819, at 

 an Illinois River post near the present site of Hennepin, says, in 

 his recently published autobiography : 



"Our roasted meat . . . was placed in the large wooden 

 bowl on the table, and each one helped himself by cutting oflf 

 with his knife and fingers as much as he desired. Usually we 

 had nothing else on the table except honey. The wild turkey 

 was used as a substitute for bread, and when eaten with fat 

 venison, coon or bear, is more delicious than any roast can be. 

 One of our luxuries, which was reserved for special occasions, 

 was corn soup, and this was always acceptable. . . . From 

 the ponds we gathered the seeds of the lotus, Avhich we used for 

 coffee, our ever-filled honey-trough furnishing the sweetening. 

 Our supply of salt and pepper was rather limited, and these were 

 used only on special occasions.''* 



It was not, in fact, until the farm-maker and the town-builder 

 appeared on the scene, bringing in a much denser population 

 than could live on the mere surplus product of our native plants 

 and animals — the bare interest on our capital in plant and animal 

 resources — that this primitive system of maintenance broke 

 down. \\ hen too heavily drawn upon, the animals of the State 

 began to yield a smaller instead of a larger product, because 

 an excessive demand had the effect to reduce the number of 

 producers : and a substitution of more productive resources 

 became a necessitw The white man being substituted in rapidly 

 increasing numbers for the scanty and stationary Indian popula- 

 tion, wheat, oats and corn and the tame meadow grasses were 

 substituted for the wild plants of the prairie turf, and to some 

 extent for the growths of the forest ; beef cattle, pigs and sheep 

 were substituted for buffalo, bear and deer ; and to these were 

 added milch cows, oxen, horses and mules, not represented func- 

 tionally by anything in the native fauna. Chickens, geese and 

 ducks were substituted for the prairie-hens, pigeons and wild 

 waterfowl ; and for the preservation of all these valuable but 

 defenseless animals, wolves and bears and all the other large 

 carnivora were virtuallv exterminated. 



*"The Autobiography of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard." The Lakeside Press. Chi- 

 cago. 1911, p. 57. 



