102 NOTES FKOM THE PRAIRIE 



being utilized in that way. Seen for the first 

 time, there is something grotesque in the 

 appearance of those long arms forever reaching 

 out after something they never find, like a 

 petrified octopus. Those fences are an evi- 

 dence of Eastern thrift — making an enemy 

 serve as a friend. I think they would frighten 

 our horses and cattle, used as they are to the 

 almost invisible wire fence. ' Worm ' fences 

 were the fashion at first. But they soon 

 learned the necessity of economizing wood. 

 The people were extravagant, too, in the outlay 

 of power in tilling the soil, sixteen yoke of 

 oxen being thought absolutely necessary to run 

 a breaking- plough; and I have seen twenty 

 yoke used, requiring three men to drive and 

 attend the great clumsy plough. Every sum- 

 mer you might see them in any direction, look- 

 ing like ' thousand - legged worms. ' They 

 found out after a while that two yoke answered 

 quite as well. There is something very queer 

 about the bowlders that are supposed to have 

 been brought down from northern regions dur- 

 ing the glacial period; like Banquo's ghost, 

 they refuse to stay down. Other stones beside 

 them gradually become buried, but the bowlders 

 are always on top of the ground. Is there 

 something repellent about them, that the earth 

 refuses to cover them? They seem to be of no 

 use, for they cannot be worked as other stone; 

 they have to be broken open with heat in some 

 way, though I did see a building made of them 

 once. The bowlders had been broken and put 



