\\ I NX EB AGO COUNTY. 93 



Boys and women, with red stained hands, were gathering them into 

 1 taskets for the Eockford market. Orchards planted in nnexposed situa- 

 tions, or properly protected by timber belts, bear well, and the crop is 

 remunerative and reasonably sure. Hardy vines, with winter protec- 

 tion, bear bountifully, and may be made a source of profit. The straw- 

 berry, currant, and gooseberry may be raised in great abundance with- 

 out protection. The strawberry, however, does better with a covering 

 of coarse straw during the winter, which need not be removed in the 

 spring. 



As to the grape growing and wine producing facilities of this part of 

 the State, we refer those desirous of further information to our report 

 upon Whiteside county, where the subject has received more attention 

 from the horticulturists. 



Indian Antiquities. 



The Indian race is fading away before the resistless march of Anglo- 

 Saxon civilization. At his present rapid decrease the Indian will soon 

 be a historic man. But he has left memorials which will last when the 

 proudest builded monuments of his all-conquering foes have crumbled 

 into oblivion. The geography and significance of our Indian names is 

 a very wonderful subject. Flint arrow points and spear heads are fre- 

 quently picked up, while stone axes and smooth, oblong instruments, 

 sharp at one end, and used for skinning animals, are of not imfrequent 

 occurrence. 



But the most common objects of interest to the antiquarian are the 

 mounds, in common speech, thought to be of Indian origin. The mound 

 builders, whoever they were, once swarmed in the valleys and wood- 

 lands, sat down upon every picturesque spot along the streams, and 

 left their mound-builded structures as memorial monuments of their 

 bus\ lives. "SVe shall not in this place discuss their age or their origin, 

 but simply describe some of the most prominent ones noticed in this 

 county. They do not belong to its geology, but they are matters of 

 great interest to thoughtful men. The antiquarian and archaeologist, 

 if not geologists, are laboring in a field close bordering upon the do- 

 main of that earth-delving science. 



Three classes of these mounds were noticed and examined. There 

 was the common round mound, from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, and 

 from two and a half to five feet high. Mounds of this description are 

 very numerous. There is a large group of them on the banks of Kock 

 river, six or seven miles below Kockford. At many other places along 

 this stream they exist in scattered groups. On the north bank of the 

 river, within the city limits of Eockford, and a short distance above the 



