ox can be made to
proceed at a tolerable quick pace; for, though his walk is only about
three miles an hour at an average, he may be made to perform double
that distance in the same time. Mr. Galton once accomplished 24 miles
in four hours, and that, too, through heavy sand!"

Cows will be found very useful upon long journeys when the rate of
travel is slow, as they furnish milk, and in emergencies they may be
worked in wagons. I once saw a small cow yoked beside a large ox, and
driven about six hundred miles attached to a loaded wagon, and she
performed her part equally well with the ox. It has been by no means an
unusual thing for emigrant travelers to work cows in their teams.

The inhabitants of Pembina, on Red River, work a single ox harnessed in
shafts like a horse, and they transport a thousand pounds in a rude
cart made entirely of wood, without a particle of iron. One man drives
and takes the entire charge of eight or ten of these teams upon long
journeys. This is certainly a very economical method of transportation.

STORES AND PROVISIONS.

Supplies for a march should be put up in the most secure, compact, and
portable shape.

Bacon should be packed in strong sacks of a hundred pounds to each; or,
in very hot climates, put in boxes and surrounded with bran, which in a
great measure prevents the fat from melting away.

If pork be used, in order to avoid transporting about forty per cent.
of useless weight, it should be taken out of the barrels and packed
like the bacon; then so placed in the bottom of the wagons as to keep
it cool. The pork, if well cured, will keep several months in this way,
but bacon is preferable.

Flour should be packed in stout double canvas sacks well sewed, a
hundred pounds in each sack.

Butter may be preserved by boiling it thoroughly, and skimming off the
scum as it rises to the top until it is quite clear like oil. It is
then placed in tin canisters and soldered up. This mode of preserving
butter has been adopted in the hot climate of southern Texas, and it is
found to keep sweet for a great length of time, and its flavor is but
little impaired by the process.

Sugar may be well secured in India-rubber or gutta-percha sacks, or so
placed in the wagon as not to risk getting wet.

Desiccated or dried vegetables are almost equal to the fresh, and are
put up in such a compact and portable form as easily to be transported
over the plains. They have been extensively used in