"Then the privates share in the pleasure of the day. How should a soldier be employed but in active service? besides, what a capital chance to desert! One, who is tired of calling 'All's well' through the long night, with only the rocks and trees to hear him, hopes that it will be his happy fate to find out there is danger near, and to give the alarm. Another vows, that if trouble wont come, why he will bring it by quarrelling with the first rascally Indian he meets. All is ready. Rations are put up for the men;--hams, buffalo tongues, pies and cake for the officers. The batallion marches out to the sound of the drum and fife;--they are soon down the hill--they enter their boats; handkerchiefs are waved from the fort, caps are raised and flourished over the water--they are almost out of sight--they are gone." Apart from these trips abroad and the stated drills and terms of guard duty the tasks which occupied the time of the soldiers depended upon the season of the year. A general order of September 11, 1818, had commanded the making of gardens at all the military posts.[249] In the fall of 1819 when the temporary cabins at New Hope Cantonment had been built, the soldiers began ploughing for the crop of the next summer.[250] Major Long, in 1823, found two hundred and ten acres under cultivation--one hundred of wheat, sixty of maize, fifteen of oats, fourteen of potatoes, and twenty acres in gardens.[251] All through the history of Old Fort Snelling the soldiers were employed as farmers. A visitor in 1852 observed that "its garrison is rather deficient in active employment, and we noticed a number of the rank and file taking exercise in a large corn and vegetable field attached to the Fort. It was certainly not exactly soldierly employment, but it was more manly, to our mind, than shooting and stabbing at $8 a month, and no question asked."[252] For the horses and cattle kept at the fort a great deal of hay was necessary for the winter months. This was obtained from the broad prairies of the military reservation. A group of men called the "Hay Party" were employed during the summer in cutting and stacking the long grass. But one officer was of the opinion that this task caused discontent--the enlisted man was no more than a common laborer and hence he lost the pride of a soldier. The diverse tasks at which a soldier might be called to labor are indicated by a summary of the employment of the troops in 1827. Seven soldiers were acting as teamsters, five were performing carpenters' duties, two were quarrying stone, two men and a sergeant composed the party guarding the mills at the Falls of St. Anthony, and eight others were "Procuring forage by order of Col. Snelling".[253]