142 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
NOTES OF TRAVEL IN THE WEST—No. III. 
BY SOLON ROBINSON. 
At the close of my last communication, I think we had just begun 
to get among the mineral hills of Missouri. And what can we find 
in this rugged, uncultivated, and almost uncultivatable district, to 
interest the readers of an agricultural paper, when the only staple is 
that same heavy commodity with which guns and brains are some¬ 
times alike loaded ? I have to hope that my present leaden article, 
may not be thought to emanate from a brain overfilled with that sub¬ 
stance, or that I shall infuse such a quantity of the arsenical vapor 
that arises from the smelting furnaces, into this letter, that I shall 
kill off my friends who have traveled with me thus far. But we 
must proceed. These rocky hills and mountain sides have to be 
climbed, before we can reach that rich and sunny southern clinm 
where we hope to find more matter of a practical kind to interest the' 
agricultural reader. I wish I had been favored with that branch of 
education that ought to be taught in all schools, and I would give 
you here an interesting view of an “ old Spanish house” that I pass¬ 
ed this day, January 24th. There are many of these old houses yet 
to be seen in this country, but they are fast disappearing. This one 
was only different from many others, that it must have belonged to 
one of the aristocracy of olden times. It was perhaps an hundred 
and fifty feet long, one story high, elevated upon high stone pillars, 
a wide portico the whole length, under which were the several en¬ 
trances to the different apartments; that into the center hall, being 
fitted with very wide, massive paneled doors, the windows small, 
roof steep and ornamented by three high peaked projections or tur¬ 
rets, in the face of which were small windows or loop-holes, that 
look as though designed to reconnoitre for savage foes that might be 
lurking in the romantic valley of this location. The vallies of this 
region are all fertile, and ever will continue to be, while the lime¬ 
stone hills continue to disintegrate and send down the best of ma¬ 
nure. Col. Snowden, a gentleman whom I met with to-day upon 
one of these rich bottom farms, tells me that he raises as fine hemp 
as he ever raised in Kentucky. I also was informed by Dr. Cooley, 
(with whom I dined,) another gentleman in the same valley, who 
lives upon an “ old grant,” that the long and continued cropping of 
this land had no perceptible effect upon it. In buying an “ old 
grant,” a man has a great advantage over one who enters land sur¬ 
veyed by the United States, because the old settlers having no rigid 
rules to confine them to straight lines, have run them in all kinds of 
curious angles so as to make up the amount of their claim entirely 
of the best lands contiguous. 
At Hillsboro, the County seat of Jefferson county, I very unex¬ 
pectedly met with a warm friend of agricultural improvement, who 
not only reads himself, but induces others to subscribe for such pa¬ 
pers ; and yet this man is not a cultivator himself, but as is often the 
case, is a much more efficient friend of every thing that tends to im¬ 
prove the condition of that class than they themselves are. The 
reason is soon told. He reads —and what is all important, he 
knows just enough to know that he yet can learn more. The most 
di fficult class to contend with, being those that already know so 
much that they cannot be taught any more. This gentleman, John 
S. Matthews, Esq. clerk of the county, has a very fine cabinet of 
minerals, nearly all of which he has collected himself. It was here 
that I saw some beautiful specimens of shell marble, quantities of 
which exist in the neighboring hills, and which might be profitably 
worked. lie also showed me some specimens of carmel coal of 
excellent quality, from the Osage river, where it has lately been 
discovered, and will prove of great value to the prairie region of the 
west, it being much lighter for transportation, and answering in the 
place of charcoal for mechanical purposes. 
Mr. Matthews informs me that the oak ridges of this country, 
which are at present but little cultivated, are very fertile, and the 
north sides invariably the most so; and that they produce as great a 
burthen of blue grass as any land that he is acquainted with. Here 
then is another “ good country for sheep.” Yet none are here, for 
no one has money to buy sheep in a country where silver turns to 
lead ; and often stays turned. For although fortunes are sometimes 
made by mining, yet taken as a class, the miners are not as well off 
in the world, as those •who follow the slow and sure road to com¬ 
fortable independence in the cultivation of the earth. Jan. 25th, I 
visited one of the largest mining establishments in this part of the 
State, and at present yielding probably the most lead for the amount 
of labor employed, of any one in the United States. It is known as 
the u Mammoth Diggings,” and is situated in Jefferson county, 55 
miles south-west of St Louis. The method of hunting for mineral 
is this: a man goes upon any land where the external appearances 
indicate mineral; in fact it is often found in small quantities upon 
the surface, and commences “ prospecting,” that is, digging holes 3 
«>r 4 feet in diameter, and more or less deep as the prospect induces, 
and if he discovers lead, then he goes on t; proving” until he finds 
whether it is worth following, or till the lead give out. The whole 
country is full of these prospect holes, some of which prove barren, 
and in others, the miner discovers mineral enough to pay him for 
liis labor, but the " prospect is too poor” to induce him to penetrate 
into the solid rock below the earth and loose stones near the surface, 
and he abandons that spot and goes to another, in the hope of even¬ 
tually making a “ discovery,” which will lead to quick and certain 
fortune. 
But in this, as I will soon illustrate, as in agriculture, it often hap¬ 
pens that a steady and untiring perseverance in the “ old diggings,” 
continually turning up the earth a little deeper, would lead to more 
certain fortune than an abandonment of the old and familiar ground, 
for a new beginning upon an untried soil, when like the desperate 
gambler, we place all upon the cast of a single die. At this t! Mam¬ 
moth Digging,” some poor fellow about 15 years ago. was within a 
foot of his fortune: but he was a surface skimmer, and knew not the 
value of aubsciling; and so he missed the crop that since has been 
made. But to explain. Some 18 months since, a boy in the neigh¬ 
borhood, who was out “ prospecting” among the rugged hills, begun 
digging out one of these old holes, and in a little time discovered the 
“ blow out” of the mine beneath. This lead being followed up, and 
the earth and rocks removed a few feet further, opened into a cave 
lined all around the sides and arch with immense masses of ore, to 
the amount of one hundred thousand pounds, and so pure that it yield¬ 
ed 75 to 80 per cent of pure lead. And here again is a lesson to en¬ 
courage perseverance ; for after this cave was exhausted, the work 
was suspeuded for some time, till at length a small lead was discov¬ 
ered, that lead into a second cave of equal size and richness, and 
from that to a third one still better, and when I visited the diggins, a 
single blast of powder had thrown open a passage into a fourth cave 
which by some, was supposed to contain 200,000 pounds, but I think 
that amount may be divided by two, which still leaves an immense 
mass to be exposed to one view. The opening of the cave is in the 
side of a hill, and the descent so gradual, that the ore is brought to 
the surface in wheel barrows, where it is cleared of the adhering 
rock, called by the miners “ tiff,” a white metallic substance which 
I am unable to name correctly. It is probably a corruption of tufa. 
It is then hauled to the furnace, where the operation of smelting has 
been so simplified within a few years, that I believe I can “tote” 
fuel enough to melt a thousand pounds of lead. The fuel is dry ce¬ 
dar chips and charcoal, which is mixed with the broken mineral in 
a furnace holding a bushel or two, and the fire kept in blast by a 
blow-pipe, driven by a steam engine. In other locations, water 
power is used. The extent this digging has penetrated into the hill, 
is about 200 feet, and there is no telling lmw long they will continue 
to discover other caves. At other diggings, caves have been found 
in larger numbers, but lesser size, and much further from the sur¬ 
face. 
Some diggings are dry, others so wet as to require a steam engine 
to pump out the water. Large quantities of mineral have been 
found in different places in “ clay diggins” near the surface. This 
mineral clay is almost red, very unctuous and very productive. The 
ore in the clay is in detached cubular masses. In the caves, in glo¬ 
bular form—in the rocks, in sheets, varying from the thickness of 
this paper, to two feet, and these veins are sometimes followed 
down into the rocks by blasting an hundred feet deep, always with 
the exciting hope of finding a mass. Many of these mines have 
been worked for a long time. Those at a place called old mines,” 
for forty years, by the French residents who still occupy the place, 
and from the appearance, in the same log cabins they did at first. 
But those at “ Riviere La Motte” in Madison county, are the old¬ 
est. there being still an unsettled claim upon the tract, by the heirs 
of Rino, a Frenchman, who was here in the employ of the king of 
France in 1723, but as is now supposed, looking for silver instead of 
lead. There is a large amount of business done at these mines by a 
poor looking population who work without the hope that animates 
the class in other places, as here they are all tenants, and have to 
give the proprietors of the tract of land, which is I believe 3 miles 
by 6, one-tenth of all their earnings. There is now here ten smelt¬ 
ing furnaces for lead, and one or two for copper are building. Co¬ 
balt, nickel, and manganese ores are also found here. The south¬ 
western part of Missouri is rich in mineral wealth, but shows few 
examples of agricultural wealth; and the mining population are of 
that class that every thing that comes light goes lighter, and they 
live to day, and live poor too, with no thought of the morrow. Now 
although money may be sometimes easier made by mining than 
farming, it is an uncertain business, and does trot seem to produce so 
good a state of society as that old fashioned mode of making a good 
living at least, in the cultivation of the earth. But the business 
withdraws an immense amount of labor from cultivation, and profit¬ 
ably employs a large amount of capital, and furnishes a market for 
all the surplus produce of the few farms in the mining region, f 
must not forget to mention one of this class who I found in the vici¬ 
nity of the Mammoth Diggings, Willard Frissell, Esq. whose rich 
and well cultivated farm has enabled him to live free from the temp¬ 
tation of mining some of the rich mineral hills which skirt the fine 
bottom land that he has in cultivation. Having long been a reader 
of the Cultivator, I found myself warmly welcomed as an old ac¬ 
quaintance. and rested with him over a lovely sunny day, the last 
Sabbath in this month. But I have to charge this man, and I doubt 
not the charge will fit many other readers, with a failnre to profit by 
what he has read. His only water is “ toted” up a long steep hill to 
the house from a spring at the foot, when right by the side of that 
spring runs a stream of water, that if applied as directed by Mr. Be- 
ment, would bring a constant supply from the spring to the house 
and as “ time is money,” would save enough every year to pay the 
expense. Reader—T mean you, don’t apply it to your neighbor—have 
you profited by what you have read, any better ? If not, now is the 
right time to do so. If you have no spring to make run up hill; I’ll 
bet a bucket of cool water you have a well as hard as lime can 
make it, and no cistern to make your wife look so good natured 
“ wash day.” 
Jan. 27th. A warm spring-like rain detained me nearly all the 
forenoon. This is the first u sprinkle” since I left home, which pro¬ 
ved rather a hard one in the course of the day; for lured by false ap¬ 
pearances, I undertook to drive a dozen miles over a road that the 
very thoughts of is enough to make the bones ache, of one who is 
accustomed only to the smooth prairie roads. But patieuce and per- - 
severance accomplished the task and before the next morning, the 
rain turned to snow, and for the first time this winter, coated all na¬ 
ture in a white mantle about two inches deep, that soon melted in the 
morning sun. making as fine a compound of snow and mud and wa 
ter as ever was mixed together. At Old mines, I saw as fine a 
young apple orchard as ever grew, proving what might have been 
proved long before, that the country is well adapted to raising fruit 
as well as lead. The owner also showed me the benefits of manure 
as well as lime, upon this limestone soil. By the use of lime, the fi¬ 
nest crops of grass can be raised, and many of the hill sides could be 
set with fruit trees, that are unfit for cultivation. 
