For the most part, the practices and methods of these Indians resembled those of the tribes farther east. The Sauk and Foxes were scattered up and down the Wisconsin and Fox rivers; wherever found, they depended for a living, in part, on the cultivated product of the soil.[10] In raising a crop of corn, or other field products, the Indians had many difficulties with which to contend, even more perplexing than those connected with subduing the native soil. Perhaps the depredations of blackbirds and crows were the worst; for as soon as other food began to fail them in the fall, they pounced upon the corn, usually when it was about in the milk or “roasting ear,” and wrought sad havoc. The Indians were always inordinately fond of the tender, green corn, and this fact, together with the danger of loss by birds or frost from leaving it out until maturity, induced them to gather it early. They were familiar with the fact that corn may be cured while yet in the green state, and still be desirable food; this fact, as well as the method of storing, appears in the following quotation:[11] “I observed several women with bags on their heads and shoulders, appearing heavily laden, bent down and not raising their faces from the path they were upon. I never saw individuals contend more with a load that almost mastered them, than did some of these females. Following them a short distance to a place where they stopped, I found they were making a _cache_ of the ripe maize of the season. A sort of cave had been hollowed out in the side of the hill, about eight feet in diameter at the bottom, and not more than two or three at the top. To this _cache_ the women were bringing the corn, a distance of about three miles, and some very young girls were in the cave storing it away. * * * The ears of maize are gathered and cured whilst the corn is in the milk, and the bags when filled with it are laid in the cave upon layers of dry grass, one layer above another. When the cave is full, straw is put in and covered over with dry earth. They cure the corn in the milk, because the blackbirds are numerous enough to devour it all if it were left to ripen in the field.[12] From this it is seen that the agricultural methods of Wisconsin Indians were not different from those farther east and south—the women do the work; the corn is gathered before fully ripe, and put in _caches_ for safe keeping.