The Mormons who can afford such luxury generally purchase for the transit of the plains an emigrant’s wagon, which in the West seldom costs more than $185. They take a full week before well _en route_, and endeavor to leave the Mississippi in early May, when “long forage” is plentiful upon the prairies. Those prospecting parties who are bound for California set out in March or April, feeding their animals with grain till the new grass appears; after November the road over the Sierra Nevada being almost impassable to way-worn oxen. The ground in the low parts of the Mississippi Valley becomes heavy and muddy after the first spring rains, and by starting in good time the worst parts of the country will be passed before the travel becomes very laborious. Moreover, grass soon disappears from the higher and less productive tracts; between Scott’s Bluffs and Great Salt Lake City we were seldom out of sight of starved cattle, and on one spot I counted fifteen skeletons. Travelers, however, should not push forward early, unless their animals are in good condition and are well supplied with grain; the last year’s grass is not quite useless, but cattle cannot thrive upon it as they will upon the grammas, festucas, and buffalo-clover (_Trifolium reflexum_) of Utah and New Mexico. The journey between St. Jo and the Mormon capital usually occupies from two to three months. The Latter-Day Saints march with a quasi-military organization. Other emigrants form companies of fifty to seventy armed men--a single wagon would be in imminent danger from rascals like the Pawnees, who, though fonder of bullying than of fighting, are ever ready to cut off a straggler--elect their “Cap.,” who holds the office only during good conduct, sign and seal themselves to certain obligations, and bind themselves to stated penalties in case of disobedience or defection. The “Prairie Traveler” strongly recommends this systematic organization, without which, indeed, no expedition, whether emigrant, commercial, or exploratory, ought ever or in any part of the world to begin its labors; justly observing that, without it, discords and dissensions sooner or later arise which invariably result in breaking up the company. In this train I looked to no purpose for the hand-carts with which the poorer Saints add to the toils of earthly travel a semi-devotional work of supererogation expected to win a proportionate reward in heaven.