“There was a large settlement of Sauk at the lower end of Sauk Prairie. I have often examined the remains of their tillage there, and should suppose they raised corn in one lot of at least four hundred acres * * * the four hundred acres is covered with well formed, regular corn-hills.”[4] Just what this writer means by “regular” is not quite clear—probably that the hills were of uniform size, and approximately the same distance apart, for it does not appear that the Indians often planted corn in rows, there being, with their mode of culture, very little occasion for such methods.[5] The Indians of northern Michigan at the present day generally care for their corn much as did their ancestors of a century ago; and the few who attempt its cultivation with a horse cultivator do not take the precaution to plant the corn in rows, but run here and there wherever there happens to be sufficient room between the hills. Whether or not the Wisconsin Indians, like those of Ohio or New England, girdled trees so as to rid the land of them, and leave it in a suitable condition for cultivation by their rude and ineffective tools, is not stated; but the probability is that little of such work was necessary.[6] The field at Sauk Prairie just mentioned, lay along the border of the woodland; and as the prairie was burned off nearly every year, it is reasonable to suppose that the fire crept into the woods for a greater or less distance, killing the trees and leaving a considerable belt neither distinctively prairie nor woods. Naturally this would become overgrown with weeds and saplings, which could be much more easily eradicated than the heavy growth of trees or grass. The prairie sod was altogether too tough to be subdued by the Indians, and nowhere do we find them tilling any considerable area of genuine prairie soil. There are one or two direct references to Indian fields within Dane County. While stationed at Fort Crawford, Jefferson Davis visited this section and left in his journal some remarks pertinent to our subject: “While on detached service in the summer of 1829, I think I encamped one night about the site of Madison. The nearest Indian village was on the opposite side of the lake. * * * The Indians subsisted largely on Indian corn and wild rice.”[7] Probably he referred to the place now known as Winnequah, on the eastern shore of Lake Monona, where a few Indian corn-hills are still discernable. The nature of the land here at the time of the Indian occupancy, cannot now be estimated with the same accuracy as in the case of the Sauk district. It is not on the edge of a prairie; but from the condition of the present woods about Winnequah, and the sandy nature of the soil, it is altogether likely that there were sufficient open spots for all the corn-fields which the small villages of Indians would be likely to cultivate.