Editor’s Note: For those of you who are keeping track of this series, we inadvertently skipped a week in numbering. There was no No. 10. Our apologies for the confusion.
White River Agency, Colorado.
Jan. 6, 1879.
Sir: I am convinced that, with the working teams on hand, I shall not be able to plow the amount of land I wish next spring. I cannot count on more than two span of effective mules, one of which I bought last summer, owing to the age and bad condition of the remainder. The sod in Powell Valley is like the sod of the Eastern States, perhaps tougher, and it takes two span to run a plow, and they can break no more than an acre and a quarter a day. Of course, after the ground has been broken a year, a single span will plow with ease. I have been able to break only 40 acres, for reasons previously stated, and I would like to break 100 acres, at least, next spring, for corn, pease, and vegetables, leaving the 40 acres for wheat, or, perhaps, a little more, on fresh ground. We can probably commence plowing so that if anything like 100 acres in addition are to be broken we must have more teams. Besides, there is this whole valley before us, and during the summer we should break from three to five hundred acres, which we cannot do with our present force of animals.
I would therefore ask liberty or permission to purchase three span of mules, so that we can start three plows, which with harness and a ton of grain will cost at the railroad from $1,000 to $1,100, nearer the latter than the former sum for such teams as we ought to have.
While plowing will be going on we shall require two teams for other work, such as hauling fencing material, going to old agency, harrowing ground, and the like, which the indifferent stock can engage in, but they cannot plow to any good purpose.
We have two yoke of half-wild oxen, which are good to put on the road and snake logs, but they are wholly unfit for any steady work. I intend to have some yearling calves got up and broken so that we can have plenty oxen for heavy, slow work, but they cannot be had under two years.
Beside the work mentioned we shall have a pretty good log drive in the spring, and all the logs are to be hauled from where they are now lying to the river, from a quarter of a mile to a mile, and this will require a good month, all of May; and, though we can probably use the cattle, another team will be required to go to and from hauling supplies, tools, men, &c [etc.]. Therefore we must have more teams or cut down the amount of land to be plowed to a small area. An early attention is asked to this request.
Truly yours,
N. C. MEEKER,
Indian Agent.
HON. E.A. HAYT, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C.
