Wisconsin and Missouri Lead Resrion. 71 



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too, their remoteness is a serious objection ; they are one hundred 

 and forty miles by road from Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi 

 river. The country between is unsettled and poor, and little 

 communication is had across it. All the supplies of weight and 

 bulk must come up the Current river, so that all kinds of store 

 goods are of high price and not easily obtained. 



The hills in the neighborhood can never pay for cultivation. 

 It is only the narrow strips along the sides of the large streams 

 that are fertile ; these, however, may be made to support a con- 

 siderable population. The climate is exceedingly unfavorable to 

 enterprise, six months of the year at least being hot and oppres- 

 sive, if not unhealthy ; if the people become accustomed to it, 

 they also become very indolent in their habits, and a laborer there 

 accomplishes in a day about half as much as in other parts of the 

 United States. Still the price of labor for the most common 

 hands, is up to from $12 to $25 per month and found, and a regu- 

 lar miner receives from $20 to $30. There are few slaves in 

 this section of the country. In regular mining, it is considered 

 preferable to pay so much for the ore raised than to give wages, 

 no confidence ever being reposed in the faithfulness of agents. 

 And this is another serious objection — the liability to encoun- 

 ter difficulties with the hands, they being generally of unset- 

 tled habits, and all possessing a most independent spirit, that 

 hardly permits them to work for others at all, and causes them to 

 quit for the slightest cause, particularly when the lands around 

 them shall be subject to entry, and they can for a few dollars 

 purchase a farm of their own. Selling the ore is to them, there- 

 fore, the most satisfactory way of proceeding, while the mine 

 itself is left to suffer from bad management and want of thorough 

 explorations. The provisions required by the people are of the 

 cheapest kind — corn and bacon, coffee and sugar, being nearly 

 all they need. Corn may be bought at prices varying from twen- 

 ty five to fifty cents a bushel, and bacon at about eight cents a 

 pound ; the other articles at about double their value in a civ- 

 ilized country. Horses are suffered to take care of themselves ; 

 they will fatten in the woods after the 10th of April ; an abun- 

 dance of wild hay might be cut if wanted. But few of the 

 settlers keep a supply of hay, fodder or oats ; all, however, are 

 well supplied with corn. Cattle can do very well in the woods, 

 and with little expense could be raised in great numbers ; so of 



