p. 7

-655-
1848.

neighborhood of zero is not to be supported by many people but must often be encountered on the prairies. Many persons have lost their lives in this encounter; and it is found to be especially dangerous on those roads which most abound in licensed taverns: The track of the road in winter can never be smooth and well beaten as in the timbered land. The track made by your sleigh is soon filled with drifted snow; other sleighs following in the same track beat down this additional snow. Hence every sleigh has to break for itself a new track which is a very great inconvenience, as all know who have attempted it. The result of this process is that in a short time, if there is much travel along the road it becomes a high ridge of har beaten snow, just wide enough for your team with soft snow banks on each side. A team with much of a load is constantly liable to be thrown off on either side and tumble over into a soft snow bank some four or six feet deep. These inconveniences with the want of timber, the liability of fires, &c. make the prairies less desirable than they are usually supposed to be. In corroboration of these views I have only to mention the fact that many persons who at first, attracted no doubt by the beauty of the prairies, settled in the counties of Racine and Walworth, are now clearing timberd land in the counties of Washington and Dodge; thus presenting the most conclusive arguements in favor of the superior advantages of timberedland.

Our territory affords much valuavle material and many themes for poetry and literature, which will be drawn upon at no very distant day. Many thrilling incidents have concurred in these

-655-
1848.

neighborhood of zero is not to be supported by many people but must often be encountered on the prairies. Many persons have lost their lives in this encounter; and it is found to be especially dangerous on those roads which most abound in licensed taverns: The track of the road in winter can never be smooth and well beaten as in the timbered land. The track made by your sleigh is soon filled with drifted snow; other sleighs following in the same track beat down this additional snow. Hence every sleigh has to break for itself a new track which is a very great inconvenience, as all know who have attempted it. The result of this process is that in a short time, if there is much travel along the road it becomes a high ridge of har beaten snow, just wide enough for your team with soft snow banks on each side. A team with much of a load is constantly liable to be thrown off on either side and tumble over into a soft snow bank some four or six feet deep. These inconveniences with the want of timber, the liability of fires, &c. make the prairies less desirable than they are usually supposed to be. In corroboration of these views I have only to mention the fact that many persons who at first, attracted no doubt by the beauty of the prairies, settled in the counties of Racine and Walworth, are now clearing timberd land in the counties of Washington and Dodge; thus presenting the most conclusive arguements in favor of the superior advantages of timberedland.