The Mississippi Flyway: The Ancient Ones

Description

EXCERPTS FROM THE GAME MARKET CHAPTER . . . . Prior to the railroads, farm produce was marketable only in one’s local area. To many, hunting was more profitable than farm work and was as good as a trade. Only health, robust natures could withstand the strain of hard travels and uncertain fare, which market hunters had to endure. Nonetheless, the quiver of a duck’s wing was more potent than a farmer’s plow, so many followed the paths of Gypsies. Hunting, fishing and trapping were their pastime; flintlocks and percussion, their weapons.

Since there was no easy mode of transport, the game was given to family and friends, and the excess sold at the nearest town. Feathers were stripped for making pillows and mattresses. There were few buyers or sellers during the 1850s. Mallards brought $1.50 per dozen; chickens, the same; quail, 75 cents. Then prairie chicken were everywhere on the prairie and ducks came in immense flocks and passed so close overhead that one could see their eyes. Cornfields were full of them and the squawking on the marshes were heard for miles. Snipe, golden plovers and passenger pigeons flew in countless droves. One could scare up five or six flocks of prairie chickens, possibly a dozen when going through one stubble field, and the flocks were large.

At this time, one could travel almost in any direction outside the limits of a small town without seeing a fence. More than half of the land was largely neglected. One’s neighbor was distant, perhaps many miles; one’s crops brought low prices and transport by wagon to market was long and arduous. The little cash one had was like the survival of the fittest, not to be measured in value by things around you. One had to pay taxes, but few things could you sell. One did not want many things. Taste and fashion did not live where one dwelt. You raised your own meat; you could and often did without it. With grated corn, you made bread for your breakfast; mills were miles distant, and your travel there was necessarily infrequent.

There were no railroads, no cold storage, no refrigerators and very little demand for game outside one’s local area, except what the steamboats delivered. Guns were poor quality; rifles prevailed. Wing shooting was so seldom seen or practiced that a good shot was set upon as one to be watched and in general avoided.hen the railroads came and a few market hunters made attempts to market their game to distant markets. The express on perishable goods like game was high and often prohibitory. Consequently, many goods perished and many goods that were consigned to distant markets were never reported by the consignees, if they received them. Losses were seldom paid and seldom recouped by new shipments. Therefore, it was mostly a failure, as the railroads did little to foster the trade, and they were so infrequent and unreliable that trade languished in all but the necessaries of life and goods in which slow time was unavoidable.Railroads were not entirely to blame. Nobody seemed to think there was any market for any game anywhere except in cold weather, because nobody knew how to pack in hot weather. At first, in an attempt to preserve the birds, the box was packed so heavily with ice that, although the birds brought good prices, a market hunter got but few dollars out of it. About one-half the birds were “green” and they brought only about half prices.

Two things they learned from this experience. They must cut down the weight of their shipments by using less ice because the express shipment charges were high, and they must draw their birds when killed. In wintertime, they frequently shipped without packing in ice, especially if one lived in the northern clime.

However, to make a profitable market hunter, one had to learn how to ship during the warmer months, thus extending one’s time in which to make money. It was always necessary in the warmer months to keep the flies away, so when they killed a bird and had a fair amount, which they wished to unload while continuing to hunt, they buried the birds in mud, under laid with leaves, near some river or creek until night when they were gathered.

Eventually, the railroads, before refrigeration, became more reliable and the market hunters learned how to pack their game during the warmer months. Instead of using single boxes, they made a doubled box, placing sawdust between the two, and this was a great protection against the ice melting on the inside. Inside the box, sawdust and ice surrounded the birds. The sawdust was mostly oak, and the ice-water drippings through it made the birds look of a dirty red color. Once they arrived at the dealer, he removed them from the sawdust and threw them into ice water, by which means they were restored to a normal color and consistency. Then they were air-dried and the feathers fluffed for good appearance.

Many market hunters packed their own game and shipped it to dealers. Many, however, preferred to let shippers do all the work, thus they spent more of their time hunting. Some shippers specialized only in a certain kind of bird; some preferred ducks, some pigeons such as William W. Judy of St. Louis, who was perhaps the largest dealer in pigeons in the nation. At Chicago, E. Osborne shipped by far the greatest numbers of pigeons to eastern game markets. . . . . . . .

PRESENTLY OUT OF STOCK