A New Guide for Emigrants to the West

by John Mason Peck

Of the trefoil, or clover, there is but little cultivated. A prejudice exists against it, as it is imagined to injure horses by affecting the glands of the mouth, and causing them to slaver. It grows luxuriantly, and may be cut for hay early in June. The white clover comes in naturally, where the ground has been cultivated, and thrown by, or along the sides of old roads and paths. Clover pastures would be excellent for swine.

Animals. Of wild animals there are several species. The buffalo is not found on this side the Mississippi, nor within several hundred miles of St. Louis. This animal once roamed at large over the prairies of Illinois, and was found in plenty, thirty-five years since. Wolves, panthers and wild cats, still exist on the frontiers, and through the unsettled portions of the country, and annoy the farmer by destroying his sheep and pigs.

Deer are also very numerous, and are valuable, particularly to that class of our population which has been raised to frontier habits; the flesh affording them food, and the skins, clothing. Fresh venison hams usually sell for twenty-five cents each, and when properly cured, are a delicious article. Many of the frontier people dress their skins, and make them into pantaloons and hunting shirts. These articles are indispensable to all who have occasion to travel in viewing land, or for any other purpose, beyond the settlements, as cloth garments, in the shrubs and vines, would soon be in strings.

It is a novel and pleasant sight to a stranger, to see the deer in flocks of eight, ten, or fifteen in number, feeding on the grass of the prairies, or bounding away at the sight of a traveller.

The brown bear is also an inhabitant of the unsettled parts of this State, although he is continually retreating before the advance of civilization.

Foxes, raccoons, opossums, gophers, and squirrels, are also numerous, as are muskrats, otters, and occasionally beaver, about our rivers and lakes. Raccoons are very common, and frequently do mischief in the fall, to our corn. Opossums sometimes trouble the poultry.

The gopher is a singular little animal, about the size of a squirrel. It burrows in the ground, is seldom seen, but its works make it known. It labors during the night, in digging subterranean passages in the rich soil of the prairies, and throws up hillocks of fresh earth, within a few feet distance from each other, and from twelve to eighteen inches in height.

The gray and fox squirrels often do mischief in the cornfields, and the hunting of them makes fine sport for the boys.

Common rabbits exist in every thicket, and annoy nurseries and young orchards exceedingly. The fence around a nursery must always be so close as to shut out rabbits; and young apple trees must be secured, at the approach of winter, by tying straw or corn stalks around their bodies, for two or three feet in height, or the bark will be stripped off by these mischievous animals.

Wild horses are found ranging the prairies and forests in some parts of the State. They are small in size, of the Indian or Canadian breed, and very hardy. They are found chiefly in the lower end of the American Bottom, near the junction of the Kaskaskia and Mississippi rivers, called the Point. They are the offspring of the horses brought there by the first settlers, and which were suffered to run at large. The Indians of the West have many such horses, which are commonly called Indian ponies.