flocks and herds it would claim a high place. Its grazing capabilities
are great; and even in the indigenous grass now there, an element
of individual and national wealth may be found. In fact the valuable
grasses begin within one hundred and fifty miles of the Missouri
frontier and extend to the Pacific Ocean. East of the Rocky Mountains,
it is the short, curly grass, on which the buffalo delight to feed
(whence its name of buffalo), and which is still good when dry and
apparently dead. West of those mountains it is a larger growth, in
clusters, and hence called bunch grass, and which has a second or fall
growth. Plains and mountains both exhibit them; and I have seen good
pasturage at an elevation of ten thousand feet. In this spontaneous
product, the trading or traveling caravans can find subsistence for
their animals; and in military operations any number of cavalry may be
moved, and any number of cattle may be driven, and thus men and horses
be supported on long expeditions, and even in winter in the sheltered
situations.

"Commercially, the value of the Oregon country must be great, washed
as it is by the North Pacific Ocean, fronting Asia, producing many
of the elements of commerce, mild and healthy in its climate, and
becoming, as it naturally will, a thoroughfare for the East India and
China trade."

Col. Fremont, in this beautiful and instructive passage of descriptive
writing, refers to the grass on which the buffalo "delight to feed."
It is eminently proper that we should add a few words for general
information concerning the grasses of the prairies, as also concerning
the timber, flowers, game, face of the country, etc., etc., in which
the whole life of Kit Carson has been spent.