58 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



can ever be settled until timber has been cultivated, 

 which no doubt could be very profitably done. Hedging 

 will in time become a common and cheap method of fenc- 

 ing, — but now it is far cheaper and easier to haul rails 

 five or six miles (which is the greatest distance neces- 

 sary,) than it is to clear off heavy timbered land to 

 make a farm. 



On a Prairie, no preparation of the ground is neces- 

 sary before ploughing. The first breaking requires a 

 strong team — from three to five yoke of oxen. After that 

 one horse will plough it, as the land is as mellow as a 

 garden. The first, or "sod crop" is light — averaging of 

 corn about 20 bushels — oats 30, wheat 25. An "old 

 ground crop" will be double, and some assert threble. 

 Potatoes, turneps, beets, melons, pumpkins, peas, onions, 

 and almost every kind of vegetables, flourish well. The 

 soil is too rich for fruit trees, — they outgrow themselves. 

 I fear orchards will never do well. But we have an 

 abundant supply of a good substitute: cranberries, 

 plumbs, crab apples, some grapes, and plenty of wild 

 strawberries of rich flavor, — all kinds of tame grass so 

 far as tried appear to do well, so also of flax and hemp, 

 and if not too far north the soil will produce the best 

 crops of tobacco, and never become exhausted. The white 

 mulberry has been tried, and will flourish. 



The cost of breaking up and fencing Prairie, where it 

 lies contiguous to timber, is $3 per acre, and it has been 

 proved by actual experience, that the first crop will pay 

 for breaking, fencing, sowing, harvesting, &c, and leave 

 a surplus to pay for the land. The present wholesale 

 prices of produce in Laporte county are, for wheat, 50 

 cts, corn 50, oats 37y 2 ; pork in the hog 31/2 to 4 cts., 

 salted 6 to 7; beans and peas $2, and scarce; potatoes 

 scarce, and for seed only, 50 cts. to $1 per bushel. 1 At 

 Chicago, these articles bring about double these prices, 

 and even higher. This town is growing more rapidly 

 than any other that I know of in the United States, and 



1 Cf. post, 317. 



