cxxx INTRODUCTION. 



extent, for the one. product flour; and notwithstanding the hazards and hardships to be encountered 

 in that trade at an early day, the extreme scarcity of money, combined with the restless and daring 

 character of the young men of that period, it was entered into with a will, and for a time the enter 

 prise was generally remunerative, and oftentimes highly so. The trials and hardships of a flatboat 

 voyage to New Orleans before the days of steamboats are but little appreciated by the present genera 

 tion. &quot; To float a boat down to New Orleans was easy enough, provided they got safely out of the 

 smaller streams ; but the return-trip of nearly one thousand miles by land, the greater part of the way 

 through an uninhabited and almost unbroken forest, was generally made on foot, and if the freshets in 

 the smaller streams did not occur until middle or late spring, these trips were oftentimes attended with 

 great mortality. Nevertheless, the trade flourished, and rapidly increased, until at length, some years 

 after the close of the war of 1812, the supply so far outran the demand that the business became very 

 precarious, oftentimes resulting in a loss to the shipper of almost the entire cargo. The consequence 

 was the price of wheat was reduced so low as no longer to be regarded as the staple product of the 

 western farmer, and indeed it finally ceased for a time to be a cash article ; and it was no uncommon 

 sight to see stacks of wheat rotting down in the field twenty-five cents per bushel in store-goods or 

 trade being the highest price obtainable by the farmer. 



The large bodies of rich bottom-land lying on the borders of the tributary streams of the Ohio 

 were not adapted to wheat-culture, and on the Scioto river much of the land was owned by immigrants 

 from the south branch of the Potomac river, Virginia, where the feeding of cattle had been carried on 

 for many years in a manner peculiar to that locality, and which materially differed from the mode prac 

 ticed in Pennsylvania or further north. The cattle were not housed nor sheltered, but simply fed twice 

 a day in open lots of eight or ten or more acres each, with unhusked corn with the fodder, and followed 

 by hogs to clean up the neglected grains and ears ; which practice was adopted here, and is still the 

 almost universal method throughout the west, having undergone but little or no material change in fifty 

 years. It may be worthy of remark here, that the method of securing the corn after maturity by 

 cutting ofTthe stalks near the ground, and stacking it in the field where it was grown in stacks of from 

 twelve to sixteen hills square, also originated with the feeders of cattle of the south branch, the con 

 venience and utility of which mode is made manifest by its general prevalence at the present day. 



Although the business of fattening cattle was well understood by many of the earlier pioneers, 

 and to find a market for corn was an anxious thought, yet they hesitated to engage in it. By many it 

 was considered that the great distance from market would render that mode of disposing of their sur 

 plus corn impracticable; the long drive to an eastern market would so reduce the cattle in flesh as to 

 render them unfit for beef; but some thought otherwise, and among the latter was George Renick, 

 lately deceased, an enterprising and intelligent merchant, who, owning a considerable landed estate, 

 concluded, himself, to try the experiment. Accordingly in the winter of 1804- 05, he fed a lot of 

 cattle and sent them to Baltimore the following spring (the first fat cattle that ever crossed the Alle- 

 ghany mountains;) the result was a complete success. Thus was another avenue of trade practically 

 opened, which for half a century contributed largely to the wealth of the Scioto valley; and from this 

 small beginning the trade increased gradually, but not rapidly, until some years after the close of the 

 war, when the failure of wheat to command cash gave a great impetus to the raising and feeding of 

 cattle and hogs; for, although the selling price of such stock was very low, they were the only remaining 

 cash articles of the farmer, and the cost of production was not very carefully considered. There was 

 no alternative, as he was obliged to have some money wherewith to procure the necessaries of life, pay 

 taxes, &c., and the business continued to increase rapidly until about the year 1850, notwithstanding 

 the opening of the New York and Ohio canals in the mean time, had added greatly to the resources of 

 the Ohio farmer by giving him access to a better and more reliable market, enabling him to sell for 

 cash, not only his wheat, but every other product of the soil, at much more remunerating prices than 

 formerly. The completion of the great through railroads added still further to the farmer s resources, 

 enabling him to diversify his pursuits, and assisted in bringing the corn-feeding of cattle, so far as Ohio 

 was concerned, to its culminating point. From his personal knowledge of the business, it is the con- 



