Necessary outfits for emigrants to Oregon or California, taken from Palmer’s Journal of Travels to Oregon—Additional advice by the Author.

For burthen wagons, light four-horse or heavy two-horse wagons are the size commonly usd. They should be made of the best material, well seasond, and should in all cases have falling tongues. The tire should not be less than one and three fourths inches wide, but may be advantageously usd three inches; two inches, however, is the most common width. In fastening on the tire, bolts should be usd instead of nails; it should be at least five eighths or three fourths of an inch thick. Hub boxes for the hubs should be about four inches. The skeins should be well steeld. The Mormon-fashiond wagon-bed is the best. They are usually made straight, with side-boards about 16 inches wide, and a projection outward of four inches on each side, and then another side-board of 10 or 12 inches. In this last, set the bows for covers, which should always be double. Boxes for carrying effects should be so constructed as to correspond in hight with the offset in the wagon-bed, as this gives a smooth surface to sleep upon.

Ox teams are more extensively usd than any others. Oxen stand the trip much better, and are not so liable to be stolen by the Indians, and are much less trouble. Cattle are generally allowd to go at large, when not hitchd to the wagons, whilst horses and mules must always be stakd up at night. Oxen can procure food in many places where horses cannot, and in much less time. Cattle that have been raisd in Illinois or Missouri, stand the trip better than those raisd in Indiana or Ohio, as they have been accustomd to eating the prairie grass, upon which they must wholly rely while on the road. Great care should be taken in selecting cattle—they should be from four to six years old, tight and heavy made.

For those who fit out but one wagon, it is not safe to start with less than four yoke of oxen, as they are liable to get lame, have sore necks, or to stray away. One team thus fitted up may start from Missouri with twenty-five hundred pounds, and as each day’s rations make the load that much lighter, before they reach any rough road, their loading is much reducd.—Persons should recollect that every thing in the outfit should be as light as the requird strength will permit. No useless trumpery should be taken. The loading should consist of provisions and apparel, a necessary supply of cooking fixtures, a few tools, &c. No great speculation can be made in buying cattle and driving them through to sell, but as the prices of oxen and cows are much higher in Oregon than in the States, nothing is lost in having a good supply of them, which will enable the emigrant to wagon through many articles that are difficult to be obtaind in Oregon. Each family should have a few cows, as the milk can be usd the entire route, and they are often convenient to put to the wagon to relieve oxen. They should be so selected that portions of them would come in fresh upon the road. Sheep can also be advantageously driven. American horses and mares always command high prices, and with careful usage can be taken through,—but if usd to wagons or carriages, their loading should be light. Each family should be provided with a sheet-iron stove, with boiler. A platform can easily be constructed at the hind end of the wagon, and as it is frequently quite windy, and there is often a scarcity of wood, the stove is very convenient. Each family should also be provided with a tent, and to it should be attachd good strong cords, to fasten it down.

The cooking fixtures generally usd are of sheet iron—a Dutch oven and skillet of cast metal are very essential. Plates, cups, &c., should be of tinware, as queensware is much heavier and liable to break, and consumes much time in packing up. A reflector is sometimes very useful. Families should each have two churns, one for carrying sweet and one for sour milk.—They should also have one eight or ten-gallon keg for carrying water, one axe, one shovel, two or three augers, one hand-saw, and if a farmer, he should be provided with one cross-cut saw and a few plow-molds, as it is difficult getting such articles. When I left the country, plows cost from twenty-five to forty dollars each. A good supply of ropes for tying up horses and catching cattle, should also be taken.

Every person should be well supplied with boots and shoes, and in fact with every kind of clothing. It is also well to be supplied with at least one feather bed, and a good assortment of bedding. There are no tame geese in the country, but an abundance of wild ones, yet it is difficult procuring a sufficient quantity of feathers for a bed. The Muscovy is the only tame duck in the country.

Each male person should have at least one rifle gun, and a shot gun is also very useful for wild fowl and small game, of which there is an abundance. The best sized calibre for the mountains is from thirty-two to fifty-six to the pound—but one of from sixty to eighty, or even less, is best when in the lower settlements. Buffaloes seldom range beyond the South Pass, and never west of Green river. The larger game are elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep or bighorn, and bear. The small game are hare, rabbit, grouse, sage hen, pheasant, quail, &c. A good supply of ammunition is essential.

In laying in a supply of provisions for the journey, persons will doubtless be governd in some degree by their means, but there are a few essentials that all will require.

For each adult, there should be two hundred pounds of flour, thirty pounds of pilot bread, seventy-five pounds of bacon, ten pounds of rice, five pounds of coffee, two pounds of tea, twenty-five pounds of sugar, half a bushel of dried beans, one bushel of dried fruit, two pounds of saleratus, ten pounds of salt, half a bushel of corn meal—and it is well to have a half bushel of corn, parchd and ground—a small keg of vinegar should also be taken. To the above may be added as many good things as the means of the person will enable him to carry, for whatever is good at home is none the less so on the road. The above will be ample for the journey, but should an additional quantity be taken, it can be readily disposd of in the mountains and at good prices, not for cash, but for robes, dressd skins, buckskin pants, moccasins, &c. It is also well for families to be provided with medicines. It is seldom, however, that emigrants are sick—but sometimes eating too freely of fresh buffalo meat causes diarrhoea, and unless it be checkd soon prostrates the individual, and leaves him a fit subject for disease.

The time usually occupied in making the trip from Missouri to Oregon city is about five months, but with the aid of a person who has traveld the route with an emigrating company, the trip can be performd in about four months.

Much injury is done to teams in racing them, endeavoring to pass each other.

Emigrants should make an every-day business of traveling—resting upon the same ground two nights is not good policy, as the teams are likely to ramble too far.

Getting into large companies should be avoided, as they are necessarily compeld to move more tardily. From ten to twenty-five wagons is a sufficient number to travel with safety. The advance and rear companies should not be less than twenty, but between, it may be safe to go with six.

The Indians are very annoying on account of their thieving propensities, but if well watchd, they would seldom put them in practice.

Persons should always avoid rambling far from camp unarmd or in too small parties; Indians will sometimes seek such opportunities to rob a man of what little effects he has about him, and if he attempts to get away from them with his property, they will sometimes shoot him.

There are several points along the Missouri where emigrants have been in the practice of fitting out. Of these, Independence, St. Josephs and Council Bluffs, are the most noted. For those emigrating from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and northern Missouri, Iowa and Michigan, I think St. Josephs the best point, as by taking that route the crossing of several streams (which at the early season we travel are sometimes very high) is avoided. Outfits may be had at this point as readily as at any other along the river. Work cattle can be bought in its vicinity for from twenty-five to thirty dollars per yoke, cows, horses, &c., equally cheap.

Emigrants should endeavor to arrive at St. Josephs early in April, so as to be in readiness to take up the line of march by the middle of April. Companies, however, have often started as late as the tenth of May; but in such cases they seldom arrive in Oregon until after the rainy season commences in the Cascade range of mountains.

Those residing in northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, &c., who contemplate traveling by land to the place of rendezvous, should start in time to give their teams at least ten days’ rest. Ox teams, after traveling four or five hundred miles in the States, at that season of the year, would be unfit to perform a journey across the mountains; but doubtless they might be exchangd for others, at or near the rendezvous.

Farmers would do well to take along a good supply of horse gears. Mechanics should take such tools as are easily carried; as there are but few in the country, and those are held at exorbitant prices. Every family should lay in a good supply of school books for their children.

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Since the advice of Mr. Palmer was given to Oregon emigrants, relating to outfits for the overland route to that country, some advantages have been experiencd by the use of mule instead of ox teams. In the first place, that animal is much more sure-footed than the ox or the horse, and in the next place, he can live on kinds of food that the ox or the horse will not eat, and he will also live on a much less amount. The mule is more hardy than the horse or the ox, and will endure fatigue when the others will faint. Another circumstance which I do not recollect to have seen mentiond by any writer, and which it may not be improper to add in this place, is the failure of oxen upon the emigrant route, from lameness by traveling over ground bestrewn with salts of various kinds, but mostly alkali. To neutralize the alkali so as to prevent the oxen from becoming lame, their hoofs should be rubd with lard or tallow at least twice each day, till the tract of country containing such salt is passd over. It is, however, probable that in a few years the place of oxen will be supplied by the use of mules, though attention will doubtless need to be paid to the hoofs of mules, to keep them sound, as well as of oxen.

If persons wish to leave the States for California by the overland route, earlier than the time mentioned by Mr. Palmer, it would be necessary to leave the States with as much provision for their teams as they could at first well haul, after having first supplied themselves with their own necessary food to last them through their journey. In such case a considerable distance may be overcome before the early production of grasses upon the plains.

A few words by way of advice to persons wishing to go to California to dig for gold, may not be uninteresting here. I have noticed that miners from the States carry to California a great amount of baggage and implements for mining operations at great costs of transportation and removal from one place to another, which I deem wholly unnecessary. This oftentimes enormous expense can be savd from the fact that clothing and mining implements of all necessary kinds are very abundant in California, although at a higher price than in the States, yet still the cost of most articles in the mines will not equal the cost in the States, added to transportation costs from the States to the seat of mining operations in California. I would therefore say that one suit of substantial coarse clothes, and money enough to defray expenses there, is all that is best to carry. The amount of money necessary to defray expenses, by way of the isthmus, from the States to the seat of mining operations in California, cannot at present be less than 200 dollars to each person, at the cheapest mode of traveling. Conveyance by steamer, with best accommodations, will cost not much short of 500 dollars, but in no case, considering contingencies, will it be safe to start with less than 300 dollars.

Another circumstance which I have seen much chanted in the public papers, although not particularly connected with the foregoing information, is the scheme of making a railroad from the States overland to California. I can only speak for one person, and this much it is, that if Whitney knew that out of 2000 miles overland, more than 1500 of it is a waste, barren tract, and likewise much of it very rugged, he might be prepard to think as I do, that the income of such a road would never keep it in repair.