This is Part 2, continued from Part 1 in the previous post.

Leaving time for the wagon trail was keyed to practicality: grass. Horses could bite short grass; cows and oxen could not. Horses eat by wrapping their tongues around longer grass. Journal entries spoke often of plants and grasses, which are remarkable considering they were seeing many new plants daily. The “tall grass prairies” had more feed than the “short grass prairies.” Many wagon trains began with a high number of wagons but this number was reduced enroute simply due to the available grass factor for the animals. 

Pat Packard said she’d never found mention of their finding, picking and then cooking any kind of greens along the route. She did find mention of fruit (in late summer) such as chockcherries and currants. While the adults avoided unknown berries when they saw the red-berry smears on the faces and fingers of their children, they realized that berries weren’t poisonous. Packard did mention the finding of wild onions, at least on the plains, but not in the far west. Fear of “death camas” was real and the pioneers hadn’t the knowledge to see the difference between wild onion and death camas. Cactus was mentioned as bein new and so pretty but not to eat….and stepping on them was rarely mentioned. 

On they they learned to make was “mincemeat” most likely of berries and chopped buffalo meat. This was a pemmican-like product that they learned about from the Indians. 

By the time they reached the Rocky Mountains, they were hungry for fresh greens but none was to be had. They were still somewhat fearful of unknown berries and then they encountered the huckleberry! Again, their unafraid children showed them the way. By the time they reached the Rocky Mountains signs of scurvy were really showing up. The “bloom” of the trip had definitely worn off and also by this point “pretty plants” were seldom mentioned in the journals.

Also by this time the grain was gone as was the wild-grass-seed-grass so the horses were really in a bad way. This ongoing problem of feeding the animals dictated every decision made along the trail. Sometimes this led to making river crossings at dangerous fords (like the second crossing of the Snake in southern Idaho). They also had found that in the deserts of the West, everything “sticks, stings or stinks.” Ms. Packard got a big laugh at that one. 

In 1852, some 72,000 people crossed the plains in more than 20,000 wagons. Imagine: 20,000 times four oxen or horses is a huge animal population needing feeding and leaving dung everywhere. No wonder the trail spread out with all those animals…and dust…. ahead of you. And remember that likely the children walked barefoot. 

Ms. Packard also explained the physiology of why plants affected horses and oxen differently. Horses take the food straight down into their stomach, where any in-plant poisons could immediately affect the animal. Oxen would take the food down into their “holding tank” stomach where the poisons could be neutralized before the food passed into the digestive stomach. 

TO BE CONTINUED…………………

In preparation for our EWGS May meeting, I thought I’d share something I submitted to our BULLETIN back in March 2009:

These are notes that I took in August 200-8, when I attended the Oregon California Trails Association (OCTA) Conference in Nampa, Idaho. Pat Packard was one of the featured speakers. She spoke on the plants of the Oregon Trail and how the folks perceived the plants and used them as they went along. I thought our EWGS readers might enjoy “hearing” her too. 

Plants fueled the trip for both men and animals. Plants dictated the route, the leaving times, the stopping times and points for the entire trip. They could not pack and carry with them enough food for their animals as they went along; horses and oxen had to eat along the way. 

Most of these families had already moved an average of five times. They thought of themselves as “movers.” Because of that, they had experience with new plants in new places. Also because of that, they had developed a theory that if they didn’t know what the plant was, and could not name it, they it was to be considered poisonous and not to be eaten. 

Most think they did glean and eat along the way. Not so, according to Pat Packard, for these reasons: 

(1) they were often in desert country where there was nothing to eat

(2) they travelled in summer when food-plants were less abundant

(3) they constantly encountered unknown plants and were fearful

Their basic diet was beans, bacon and biscuits. This is a diet high in carbs and protein. There was very little Vitamin C, and scurvy was the third highest cause of death on the Oregon Trail. English sailors had long ago discovered that limes helped and could be carried on long voyages. They got the idea that acid/sour substances were the cure for scurvy. The immigrants didn’t have limes, but they did have vinegar. In her research, Ms. Packard found little mention of the pioneers searching to find vinegar or pickles to pack and take with them. This seems obvious to us now but not to them then. They really needed fresh fruit and greens. They had some dried fruit but unfortunately drying the fruit destroys the Vitamin C. They kept in mind the old advice about beware of poisonous plants and even as they saw various fruits and greens, they were fearful to use them. On the Mormon trains it was better because in many cases folks had been over the same trail before and their advice was passed along to new immigrants. Nearly 100% of the Mormon pioneers utilized the wild plants they found. 

TO BE CONTINUED