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DESCRIPTION OF BACKWOODS
143

Corn grows like Reeds to eight or nine Feet high. Indeed in some Parts of the Country Wheat grows, but Tobacco and Indian Corn is the chief.

"From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-Pens, the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive up their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-Pen generally consists of a very large Cottage or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred Acres, inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for Corn, for the Family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their Calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-Pen, these run as they please in the great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the Cow-Pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive up the Cows with all their new fallen Calves;