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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Oak Openings"

We wrote a note to General Boden, as I found
our old acquaintance Ben Boden was universally termed, letting him
know I should visit Schoolcraft next day; not wishing to intrude at
the moment when that charming family was just reunited after so long
a separation.
The next day, accordingly, we got into a "buggy" and went our way.
The road was slightly sandy a good part of the twelve miles we had
to travel, though it became less so as we drew near to the
celebrated prairie. And celebrated, and that by an abler pen than
ours, does this remarkable place deserve to be! We found all our
expectations concerning it fully realized, and drove through the
scene of abundance it presented with an admiration that was not
entirely free from awe.
To get an idea of Prairie Round, the reader must imagine an oval
plain of some five-and-twenty or thirty thousand acres in extent, of
the most surpassing fertility, without an eminence of any sort--
almost without an inequality. There are a few small cavities,
howevers in which there are springs that form large pools of water
that the cattle will drink. This plain, so far as we saw it, is now
entirely fenced and cultivated.


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