For some time past the inhabitants of Kentucky have taken to the rearing and training horses;[50] and by this lucrative branch of trade they derive considerable profit, on account of the superfluous quantity of Indian corn, oats, and other forage, of which they are deficient at New Orleans.

Of all the states belonging to the union, Virginia is said to have the finest coach and saddle-horses, and those they have in this country proceed originally from them, the greatest part of which was brought by the emigrants who came from Virginia {188} to settle in this state. The number of horses, now very considerable, increases daily. Almost all the inhabitants employ themselves in training and meliorating the breed of these animals; and so great a degree of importance is attached to the melioration, that the owners of fine stallions charge from fifteen to twenty dollars for the covering of a mare. These stallions come from Virginia, and, as I have been told, some were at different times imported from England. The horses that proceed from them have slim legs, a well-proportioned head, and are elegantly formed. With draught-horses it is quite different. The inhabitants pay no attention with respect to improving this breed; in consequence of which they are small, wretched in appearance, and similar to those made use of by the peasantry in France. They appeared to me still worse in Georgia and Upper Carolina. In short, I must say that throughout the United States there is not a single draught-horse that can be in any wise compared with the poorest race of horses that I have seen in England. This is an assertion which many Americans may probably not believe, but still it is correct.

Many individuals profess to treat sick horses, but none of them have any regular notions of the veterinary {189} art; an art which would be so necessary in a breeding country, and which has, within these few years, acquired so high a degree of perfection in England and France.

In Kentucky, as well as in the southern states, the horses are generally fed with Indian corn. Its nutritive quality is esteemed double to that of oats; notwithstanding sometimes they are mixed together. In this state horses are not limited as to food. In most of the plantations the manger is filled with corn, they eat of it when they please, leave the stable to go to grass, and return at pleasure to feed on the Indian wheat. The stables are nothing but log-houses, where the light penetrates on all sides, the interval that separates the trunks of the trees with which they are constructed not being filled up with clay.

The southern states, and in particular South Carolina, are the principal places destined for the sale of Kentucky horses. They are taken there in droves of fifteen, twenty and thirty at a time, in the early part of winter, an epoch when the most business is transacted at Carolina, and when the drivers are in no fear of the yellow fever, of which the inhabitants of the interior have the greatest apprehension. {190} They usually take eighteen or twenty days to go from Lexinton to Charleston. This distance, which is about seven hundred miles, makes a difference of twenty-five or thirty per cent in the price of horses. A fine saddle-horse in Kentucky costs about a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty dollars.

During my sojourn in this state I had an opportunity of seeing those wild horses that are caught in the plains of New Mexico, and which descend from those that the Spaniards introduced there formerly. To catch them they make use of tame horses that run much swifter, and with which they approach them near enough to halter them. They take them to New Orleans and Natches, where they fetch about fifty dollars. The crews belonging to the boats that return by land to Kentucky frequently purchase some of them. The two that I saw and made a trial of were roan coloured, of a middling size, the head large, and not proportionate with the neck, the limbs thick, and the mane rather full and handsome. These horses have a very unpleasant gait, are capricious, difficult to govern, and even frequently throw the rider and take flight.

The number of horned cattle is very considerable in Kentucky; those who deal in them purchase them {191} lean, and drive them in droves of from two to three hundred to Virginia, along the river Potomack, where they sell them to graziers, who fatten them in order to supply the markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. The price of a good milch cow is, at Kentucky, from ten to twelve dollars. The milk in a great measure comprises the chief sustenance of the inhabitants. The butter that is not consumed in the country is put into barrels, and exported by the river to the Carribbees.

They bring up very few sheep in these parts; for, although I went upwards of two hundred miles in this state, I saw them only in four plantations. Their flesh is not much esteemed, and their wool is of the same quality as that of the sheep in the eastern states. The most that I ever observed was in Rhode Island.

Of all domestic animals hogs are the most numerous; they are kept by all the inhabitants, several of them feed a hundred and fifty or two hundred. These animals never leave the woods, where they always find a sufficiency of food, especially in autumn and winter. They grow extremely wild, and generally go in herds. Whenever they are surprised, or attacked by a dog or any other animal, they either {192} make their escape, or flock together in the form of a circle to defend themselves. They are of a bulky shape, middling size, and straight eared. Every inhabitant recognizes those that belong to him by the particular manner in which their ears are cut. They stray sometimes in the forests, and do not make their appearance again for several months; they accustom them, notwithstanding, to return every now and then to the plantation, by throwing them Indian corn once or twice a week. It is surprising that in so vast a country, covered with forests, so thinly populated, comparatively to its immense extent, and where there are so few destructive animals, pigs have not increased so far as to grow completely wild.

In all the western states, and even to the east of the Alleghanies, two hundred miles of the sea coast, they are obliged to give salt to the cattle. Were it not for that, the food they give them would never make them look well; in fact, they are so fond of it that they go of their own accord to implore it at the doors of the houses every week or ten days, and spend hours together in licking the trough into which they have scattered a small quantity for them. This want manifests itself most among the horses; {193} but it may be on account of their having it given them more frequently.

Salt provisions form another important article of the Kentucky trade. The quantity exported in the first six months of the year 1802 was seventy-two thousand barrels of dried pork, and two thousand four hundred and eighty-five of salt.

Notwithstanding the superfluity of corn that grows in this part of the country, there is scarcely any of the inhabitants that keep poultry. This branch of domestic economy would not increase their expense, but add a pleasing variety in their food. Two reasons may be assigned for this neglect; the first is, that the use of salt provisions, (a use to which the prevalence of the scurvy among them may be attributed,) renders these delicacies too insipid; the second, that the fields of Indian corn contiguous to the plantations would be exposed to considerable damage, the fences with which they are inclosed being only sufficient to prevent the cattle and pigs from trespassing.

The inhabitants of Kentucky, as we have before stated, are nearly all natives of Virginia, and particularly the remotest parts of that state; and exclusive of the gentlemen of the law, physicians, and a small {194} number of citizens who have received an education suitable to their professions in the Atlantic states, they have preserved the manners of the Virginians. With them the passion for gaming and spirituous liquors is carried to excess, which frequently terminates in quarrels degrading to human nature. The public-houses are always crowded, more especially during the sittings of the courts of justice. Horses and law-suits comprise the usual topic of their conversation. If a traveller happens to pass by, his horse is appreciated; if he stops, he is presented with a glass of whiskey, and then asked a thousand questions, such as, Where do you come from? where are you going? what is your name? where do you live? what profession? were there any fevers in the different parts of the country you came through? These questions, which are frequently repeated in the course of a journey, become tedious, but it is easy to give a check to their inquiries by a little address; their only object being the gratification of that curiosity so natural to people who live isolated in the woods, and seldom see a stranger. They are never dictated by mistrust; for from whatever part of the globe a person comes, he may visit all the ports and principal towns of the United States, stay {195} there as long as he pleases, and travel in any part of the country without ever being interrogated by a public officer.

The inhabitants of Kentucky eagerly recommend to strangers the country they inhabit as the best part of the United States, as that where the soil is most fertile, the climate most salubrious, and where all the inhabitants were brought through the love of liberty and independence! In the interior of their houses they are generally very neat; which induced me, whenever an opportunity offered, to prefer lodging in a private family rather than at a public house, where the accommodation is inferior, although the charges are considerably higher.

The women seldom assist in the labours of the field; they are very attentive to their domestic concerns, and the spinning of hemp or cotton, which they convert into linen for the use of their family. This employment alone is truly laborious, as there are few houses which contain less than four or five children.

Among the various sects that exist in Kentucky, those of the Methodists and Anabaptists are the most numerous. The spirit of religion has acquired a fresh degree of strength within these seven or eight {196} years among the country inhabitants, since, independent of Sundays, which are scrupulously observed, they assemble, during the summer, in the course of the week, to hear sermons. These meetings, which frequently consist of two or three thousand persons who come from all parts of the country within fifteen or twenty miles, take place in the woods, and continue for several days. Each brings his provisions, and spends the night round a fire. The clergymen are very vehement in their discourses. Often in the midst of the sermons the heads are lifted up, the imaginations exalted, and the inspired fall backwards, exclaiming, “Glory! glory!” This species of infatuation happens chiefly among the women, who are carried out of the crowd, and put under a tree, where they lie a long time extended, heaving the most lamentable sighs.

There have been instances of two or three hundred of the congregation being thus affected during the performance of divine service; so that one-third of the hearers were engaged in recovering the rest. Whilst I was at Lexinton I was present at one of these meetings. The better informed people do not share the opinion of the multitude with regard to this state of ecstacy, and on this account they are {197} branded with the appellation of bad folks. Except during the continuance of this preaching, religion is very seldom the topic of conversation. Although divided into several sects, they live in the greatest harmony; and whenever there is an alliance between the families, the difference of religion is never considered as an obstacle; the husband and wife pursue whatever kind of worship they like best, and their children, when they grow up, do just the same, without the interference of their parents.

Throughout the western country the children are kept punctually at school, where they learn reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic. These schools are supported at the expense of the inhabitants, who send for masters as soon as the population and their circumstances permit; in consequence of which it is very rare to find an American who does not know how to read and write. Upon the Ohio, and in the Barrens, where the settlements are farther apart, the inhabitants have not yet been able to procure this advantage, which is the object of solicitude in every family.