72 BLUE GKASS. FAEINA. 



more wooded, but also, near the river bottoms, more liable to 

 fever and ague. 



Near Effingham there is a thriving German settlement. I 

 met a Kentucky proprietor who, two years ago, bought 5000 

 acres in this quarter for 105. 6d. an acre. He has begun to 

 improve it by breaking up the prairie for wheat, with which he 

 sows the land down with blue grass. His desire is to bring the 

 land early into good grazing ground, and the Kentucky blue 

 grass seems to be an object of adoration to Kentucky men : and 

 yet either it, or the soil of Kentucky, or the. climate, must be 

 inferior to our best limestone lands in England, for he admitted 

 that two acres of his best blue grass land were needed to fatten 

 a three-year-old short-horn ox. He hopes to make this land 

 profitable by using the open prairie with all his cattle for three 

 or four months, while at its best, and then having the cultivated 

 grass on his enclosed ground to feed his cattle, when the wild 

 grass becomes too coarse and rough in the autumn. As a 

 Kentucky grazier he had found great advantage by the intro- 

 duction of improved breeds of cattle from England, his expe- 

 rience being that a three-year-old short-horn ox, on the same 

 land, attained as good size and better quality than the unim- 

 proved breed of the country at five years old. 



Farina is a new station surrounded by this fine grey prairie. 

 Though not many houses are in sight there are a good many 

 settlers in the district of which this is about to become the cen- 

 tre. The stationmaster, an active and intelligent young man, 

 had within the week opened a store, in which he had large sup- 

 plies of all the requisites of a farmer's household. His sales 

 already reached 81. a day. He was prepared to deal in every 

 imaginable way, and for every imaginable thing. He bartered 

 broad cloth for wheat, candles for hazel nuts, ribbons for ap- 

 ples ; in fact nothing was brought to him that he refused to 

 take at a price, and to pay for in kind. There seems to be a 



