Seo. 1.] CATTLE OX A MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT. 15 



Such is not the right way to keep stock ; but so long as men will keep it 

 thus, it is not of much advantage to try to improve the breed. 



Tliere is a great want of information, not only upon the subject of 

 improvements iu the kinds of stock, but in the modes of keeping it. It is 

 not my intention, in this chapter upon domestic animals, to attempt to give 

 all tliis information, but only a few brief hints, which may lead to reflection 

 and improvement. 



Above all tilings that will tend to improvement, are annual visits to great 

 cattle-shows, where the varieties in the breeds of cattle may be studied, and 

 judged as to which would be the most profitable, or whether either would 

 be more so than the old-style breed at home. 



It would be of great importance, too, to all formers to travel more. IIow 

 strange it would aeem, at first sight, to a Yankee farmer, who had occupied 

 a forty-acre farm all his life, to see a thousand hogs, and half as many 

 bullocks, all turned into a grand-prairie corn-field, of a size large enough to 

 cover his entire farm and that of twenty or thirty of his neighbors ! His 

 first exclamation would probably be, " Oh, what a waste !" His subsequent 

 opinion would be about like this: " "Well, after all, I begin to believe that 

 is not so bad a way of harvesting corn as I thought it was." 



And this is not the only curious thing that he might see in relation to 

 farm-stock in traveling through the West. He would see the same bad 

 management as at home, about bringing the stock into winter quarters, for 

 they are too often allowed to run in a corn-field, after the grain has all been 

 harvested, living upon the dry stalks until after the first snows of winter. 

 He might also see some very amusing, as well as instructive things, in 

 connection with cattle. 



Shipping cattle on a Mississippi steamboat, as I once witnessed, afforded 

 infinite amusement; and I am disposed to give a photograph of it, before I 

 take up the more practical details of farm-stock. 



Engagements for boats to stop and take cattle on board at various 

 landings are frequently made before leaving port, and it often happens that 

 tlie boat reaches these points in the night ; and tlien a scene occurs whicli 

 might employ a more graphic pen than mine to describe, or which would 

 have been a fit subject for Hogarth to paint. 



I will try to give my readers some idea of such a scene, although one so 

 common on the Mississippi it rarely meets a passing notice ; yet it is full 

 of interest. 



The steamer left St. Louis about sundown of a dark day, during the latter 

 ]>art of which tiio rain came down in torrents, corresponding to the size of 

 the great river tiiey were destined to fill. Of couree mud was a component 

 part of all the little tributary streams ; but it did not discolor the great 

 river — that is always muddy. 



At ten o'clock we saw a light on the right l)ank, and run in for it. 

 Though the rain had ceased, the night was dark — one which gave the pilot 

 but little chance to see any but the most prominent landmarks. 



