122 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



is grown ; as the inhabitants mostly use corn, and wheat 

 will hardly pay transportation. If it were not for the 

 fact that farmers who haul produce to market, live in the 

 cheapest manner on the road, their loads would often be 

 insufficient to pay expenses. What would a New-England 

 farmer think of hauling produce 200 miles to market; 

 and during the whole trip sleep in his wagon and eat his 

 cheerless meals by his camp fire, along the roadside? Such 

 is the condition of things in portions of the great west. 



Although this is not the case upon the fertile lands oppo- 

 site St. Louis, yet there are times when to get a load of 

 wheat only a dozen miles along what the inhabitants are 

 pleased to call "the big road," would be such an undertak- 

 ing as no load of wheat would be sufficient to pay me for. 

 I don't know as the American bottom ever becomes abso- 

 lutely impassable ; but if it does not, it is because that no 

 state of roads can prevent western people from passing 

 them. It is probably impossible for any eastern man to 

 conceive anything half so bad. 



In my journey across the state of Illinois, I did not see 

 a herd of good cattle, notwithstanding it is such an excel- 

 lent grazing region. The cattle are all of the scrub breed, 

 and small at that. On the Kaskaskia, the milk sickness^ 

 prevails. It is a curious fact that beeves affected by this 

 complaint, cannot be driven to market. I saw some upon 

 the road that had given out. Cattle slightly affected often 

 recover. Care should be taken to keep them from salt, as 

 that aggravates and often kills. 



It is a common practice to run a beeve, before butcher- 

 ing, to prove it free from this disease, as fatal effects fol- 

 low from eating beef badly affected with this strange 

 poison, as well as eating milk or butter from cows so 

 affected. 



'Milk sickness (sometimes called "trembles") is a malignant 

 fever which attacks man and some of the lower animals, such as 

 unweaned calves and their mothers, horses and colts, sheep and 

 goats. Cause is supposed to exist in poisonous herbs which are 

 eaten by animals. Man is thought to be infected through cattle — 

 meat, milk, cheese, or butter. 



