The land lay in a succession of timber-lined valleys and open prairie ridges.

Groves of walnut, oak, hickory, elm, ash at first were frequent, slowly changing, farther west, to larger proportions of poplar, willow and cottonwood.

The white dogwood passed to make room for scattering thickets of wild plum.

Wild tulips, yellow or of broken colors; the campanula, the wild honeysuckle, lupines--not yet quite in bloom--the sweetbrier and increasing quantities of the wild rose gave life to the always changing scene.

Wild game of every sort was unspeakably abundant--deer and turkey in every bottom, thousands of grouse on the hills, vast flocks of snipe and plover, even numbers of the green parrakeets then so numerous along that latitude.