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Show 24 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. It is often thought expedient, as a matter of safety, to rivet a light bar of iron the whole length of the wagon tongue. There should be a strong cotton (" factory ") cover to the wagon, and if double all the better; and what we mean by a double cover is, that there be one cover attached to the under or inside of the wagon hoops, that support the wagon cover, and the other upon the outside, as it offers far better protection against the beating winds and rains of the first three weeks, and the broiling sun of the rest of the journey. In the foregoing you have the motive power and the rolling outfit, for every four, or not to exceed five grown persons. As two men only can conveniently sleep in the wagon, a small tent is necessary, and the very best form, because the most convenient and cheapest, is the --=.:--,;-.-.;-_ --- - ----..-_--=_:_.-.~ • ---:::::::-~ - --- ·-- BEST FORM OF .A. TENT. , one here figured. It should be eight or ten feet square rl ' NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. 25 at bottom, and running to a point at top, with a single tent pole in the center, the bottom shod with an iron socket point, and the top passing for a few inches through an iron ring, to w9ich the tent cloth is attached at top. Small cords should extend from this ring down the sides, and all the way stitched to the cloth, to within a foot of the bottom. A sufficient number of tent pins of hard wood, and you have the simplest and best tent for your purpose that can be made. The cloth the same as for the wagon cover, strong " factory " or drilling, not duck or heavy goods ; and alike with the wagon cover, never painted or oiled. • Reach some · point on the Missouri river-if not a resident of one of the frontier States-in time fully to recruit your animals, previous to entering upon the plains. Be ready to start out from the first to the tenth of May, depending upon the season and the grass, or earlier if you have sufficient team and wagon room, totake feed along for your animals, for the first three or four hundred miles. Lay in your entire supplies at some point on the 1\'Iissouri river; they can be 'procured there at almost any place, in any quantity and of the finest quality. You may get through in from seventy-five to ninety days, but take on stores for one hundred, unless you go by Salt Lake. Don't try to drive more than twenty-five miles a day, nor ride your animals one unnecessary rod, in pursuit of game, or for the purpose of visiting natural objects or scenery, however strange or wonderful they \ |