120 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



will eat it in preference to timothy or red top. The dry 

 prairie also affords good hay, but very tedious gather- 

 ing. The common marsh hay is no better than the "bog 

 meadow hay" of the east. For a grazing country, none 

 can be superior to this. Prairie grass beef, butter and 

 cheese, is equal to any other for sweetness and richness ; 

 sheep are ever fat. Hogs, I cannot tell what they would 

 do, for there are no animals here but would disgrace the 

 name. Horses do not do well upon prairie feed, summer 

 or winter ; but the way we can raise oats and wheat upon 

 our prairie land, is more wonderful than all the great 

 fires that I have ever seen. It seems to be the delight 

 of some writers to propagate error; but no person who 

 has ever traveled over a prairie country, will believe that 

 man or beast ever lost life in the "great conflagration" 

 of dry grass which covers the land, which will not aver- 

 age more than six inches high. If the growth was very 

 great, it could not be turned under with the plow at mid- 

 summer, which is the time that it is sought to be done 

 by every good farmer. 



Speaking of plowing, reminds me that it may be amus- 

 ing to eastern readers, to hear a description of a "prairie 

 plow." Fancy, then, a plow share weighing 1251bs., the 

 beam fourteen feet long, attached to a pair of cart wheels, 

 to the tongue of which are hitched from three to seven 

 yoke of oxen, turning an unbroken sod, eighteen to 

 twenty-six inches wide, and sometimes a mile in length, 

 and you have a picture of "breaking prairie," more true, 

 and more interesting than some accounts of a "burning 

 prairie." 



The sod of the prairie grass is very tough, and some- 

 times full of the roots of a diminutive bush called "red 

 root," that are exceeding strong, and which require a 

 sharp plow and strong team. A great fault, in my opin- 

 ion, in breaking prairie, is not plowing deep enough. I 

 have seen thousands of acres plowed only from two to 

 three inches deep. If the season is wet, the sods will 

 rot, but if dry, they become hard, and are in the way 



