Chapter 9 cont. FARMING It is difficult for the writer to separate the different parts of his narrative, this section belonging not to the Iowa but to the Rock Island side of his life history.  All farm work was done by the squaws.  In fact, they did all work including packing the ponies; also, when stopping at night, they cut the poles and made the wiccaups which were just the shape of the upper half of a palm leaf fan.  In 1827 there was a brush fence running from the foot of the bluff, south of where the Rock Island station now is (in Rock Island) down to Rock river (Sinnisippi) west of what is now Black Hawk's tower.  This fence was built by setting posts in the ground, then lashing poles with withes to these posts and weaving in brush, perhaps four feet high.  This was done to keep out the Indian ponies.  The ground was dug up with a heavy hoe, worked into large round hills, similar to the southern sweet potato hills, which were planted with corn. beans, potatoes and squashes.  The corn was called squaw corn.  It had small ears, grains short and flat intermixed with blue and white, soft and easily cooked, a little sweetish to the taste and readily dried.  The same hills were used year after year, with little additional work. Debbie Clough G-erischer G-erischer Family Web Site http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ List Manager for: IASCOTT-L * G-erischer-L * D-encker-L Fitzpatirck-L * V-lerebome-L * Huntington-L * Otis-L * Algar-L EIGS-L * Pickens-L * McNab-L * Patris-L - Rankin-L