History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834]

  • Source Note
  • Historical Introduction
Page 138
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the eye can glance the beautiful rolling prairies lay spread be around like a sea of meadows. The timber is a mixture of oak, hickory, black walnut, elm, ash, cherry, honey locust, mulberry, coffee-bean, hack-berry, box elder, and bass wood, together with the addition of Cotton wood, buttun wood, pecan soft and hard maple upon the bottoms. The shrubbery was beautiful, and consisted in part of plumbs, grapes, crabapples and persimmons. The prairies were decorated with a growth of flowers that seemed as georgeous grand as the brilliance of stars in the heavens and exceed description. The soil is rich and fertile, from three to ten feet deep, and generally composed of a rich black mould, intermingled with clay and sand. It produces in abundance, wheat, corn, and many other common agricultural commodities, together with sweet potatoes and cotton. Horses, cattle and hogs, though of an inferior breed, are tolerable plenty and seem nearly to raise themselves by grazing in the vast prairie range in summer, and feeding upon the bottoms in winter. The wild game is less plenty where man has commenced the cultivation of the soil, than it is a little distance further in the wild prairies. Buffaloe, elk, deer, bear, wolves, beaver, and many lesser animals, roam at pleasure. Turkies, geese, swans, ducks; yea a variety of the feathered race, are among the rich abundance that graces the delightful regions of this goodly land of the heritage of the children of God. [HC 1:197] Nothing is more fruitful or a richer stock holder in the blooming prairies, than the honey bee. Honey is but about twenty-five cents a gallon.
The season is mild and delightful nearly three quarters of the year, and as the land of Zion situated at about <​equal​> distances from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as from the Allegany and Rocky mountains, in the 39th degree of north latitude, and between the 16th and 17th degrees of of west longitude, it bids fair to become one of the most blessed places on the globe, when the curse is taken from the land, if not before. The winters are milder than in the Atlantic states of the same parallel of latitude; and the weather is more agreeable, so that were the virtues of the inhabitants only equal to the blessings of the Lord which he permits to [p. 138]
the eye can glance the beautiful rolling prairies lay spread around like a sea of meadows. The timber is a mixture of oak, hickory, black walnut, elm, ash, cherry, honey locust, mulberry, coffee-bean, hack-berry, box elder, and bass wood, together with the addition of Cotton wood, buttun wood, pecan soft and hard maple upon the bottoms. The shrubbery was beautiful, and consisted in part of plumbs, grapes, crabapples and persimmons. The prairies were decorated with a growth of flowers that seemed as georgeous grand as the brilliance of stars in the heavens and exceed description. The soil is rich and fertile, from three to ten feet deep, and generally composed of a rich black mould, intermingled with clay and sand. It produces in abundance, wheat, corn, and many other common agricultural commodities, together with sweet potatoes and cotton. Horses, cattle and hogs, though of an inferior breed, are tolerable plenty and seem nearly to raise themselves by grazing in the vast prairie range in summer, and feeding upon the bottoms in winter. The wild game is less plenty where man has commenced the cultivation of the soil, than it is a little distance further in the wild prairies. Buffaloe, elk, deer, bear, wolves, beaver, and many lesser animals, roam at pleasure. Turkies, geese, swans, ducks; yea a variety of the feathered race, are among the rich abundance that graces the delightful regions of this goodly land of the heritage of the children of God. [HC 1:197] Nothing is more fruitful or a richer stock holder in the blooming prairies, than the honey bee. Honey is but about twenty-five cents a gallon.
The season is mild and delightful nearly three quarters of the year, and as the land of Zion situated at about equal distances from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as from the Allegany and Rocky mountains, in the 39th degree of north latitude, and between the 16th and 17th degrees of of west longitude, it bids fair to become one of the most blessed places on the globe, when the curse is taken from the land, if not before. The winters are milder than in the Atlantic states of the same parallel of latitude; and the weather is more agreeable, so that were the virtues of the inhabitants only equal to the blessings of the Lord which he permits to [p. 138]
Page 138