USA > Illinois > Atlas of the State of Illinois, to which are added various general maps, history, statistics and illustrations > Part 14
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FACE OF THE COUNTRY .- Illinois presents few scenes of rugged grandeur, but rather the quiet beauty of rounded out- lines of surface, clothed with grassy plains or clumps of trees, often arranged in park-like order. At many points, wbere the streams, as on the Upper Mississippi, have cut channels two and three hundred feet deep through the nearly horizontal strata, we find precipitous scarps, but for the most part the fundamental rocks are concealed by a thick covering of detrital materials. There is not a mountain chain within its bordera, and its hills are the result of unequal denudation during the Drift epoch. The mean elevation of the country is about 600 fect uhovo the ocean. Adopting low water at Cairo as the greatest depression in the State (290 feet above the ocean), the culminating point intersected by the railroad surveys (Scales Mound on the Illinois Central Railroad, near the southern boundary of Wisconsin) is about S00 feet in height, while in tbe immediate vicinity are points 100 feet higher. The alti- tude of Lake Michigan is 583 feet above the ocean. The general slope of the country, as indicated by the streams, is to the southwest. This uniformity, however, is interrupted by a chain of hills in the latitude of Jonesboro, in the southern part of the State, which rise to the height of about 500 feet, hy which the waters of the Mississippi, in flood, through the channels of the Big Muddy and the Cash Rivers, intermingle with those of the Ohio.
The surface of the southern portion of the State, for the distance of sixty miles north of Cairo, is covered with a luxu- riant forest growth of various species of the oak, black and white walnut, tulip or white and yellow poplar (an excellent lumber tree), ash, elm, sugar maple, linden, boney locust, hack- berry, cottonwood, sycamore, mulberry, pecan, sassafras, per- simmon, and, in the immediate valley of the Ohio, is seen, for the firat time, that southern type, the cypress. The under- growth consists of the pawpaw, buckeye, redbud, sumac, wild plum, erab apple, grapo, hazel, dogwood, spice bush, etc.
The immediate valleys of all the streams in the Central and Nortbern portions of the State are well wooded, and occasion- ally there are to be seen isolated copses or groves on the open prairie ; but the trees do not exbibit that thrifty growth char- acteristic of the forests in the Ohio Valley. While, in the immediate valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, a forest-covered surface is the general rule, in the central and northern portions of the State it is the exception. There, the eye ranges over boundless plains of waving grass, which stretch out like a hemisphere, and the line of the distant horizon settles down, as it were, upon the waves of a petrified ocean.
The absence of a forest growth over nearly two-thirds of the State is no detriment to its development, since beneath the sur- face, at accessible depthis, aro stored inexhaustible supplies of fossil fuel, and the borders of the Upper Lakes are fringed with forests of pine affording the best quality of Inmber, which can bo delivered in the Chicago market at comparatively cheap rates. The soil which sustains these pine forests contains only three or four per cent. of organic matter, and is unfitted for agriculture; while the prairie soil contains organic matter suffi- cient for fifty successive crops; and hence, so far as the mate- rial interests of the State are concerned, it is better that she draw her supplies of lumber from these sources, than to set apart for tree culture a portion of her soil already prepared for the plow.
ORIGIN OF THE PRAIRIES .- They are due, not to the me- chanical texturo or chemical composition of the soil, but to the unequal distribution of moisture. They are the first phase in a gradation between the densely wooded belt, where the mois- ture is equally distributed, and the inhospitable desert, where it is almost wholly withheld. The excess of moisture which is precipitated on the plains during the spring and summer months, and the consequent deficiency which ensues during the fall and winter months, are conditions not favorable to the growth of trecs. Leaving the thickly wooded crests of the Alleghanies, and traveling westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains, the observer will witness the gradual disappearance of those
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noble forms of arhorescent vegetation which aro depondent for their growth on an abundant and equahle supply of moisture, and their final replacement by other forms, like the caetus and artemisia, which flourish where the moisture is almost wholly withheld.
RIVERS,-For about two-thirds of the distance, the State is bounded by navigable waters, and is nearly hisected in a north- easterly and southwesterly direction by the Illinois River, which is navigable for 220 miles Lake Michigan, l'or sixty miles, skirts the northeastern boundary of the Stato, which is thus brought in intimate commercial relations with the entire valley of the St. Lawrence. . The Wabash, the largest affluent of tho Ohio on its northern slope, l'orms the southeastern houudary for about 120 miles; its southern boundary is washed by the Ohio for a distance of more than 130 miles ; and its entire western houndary, more than 550 miles in extent, is washed hy the noble Mississippi. Thus the State has a natural internal navigation of more than 1,000 miles in length, making it a connecting liuk between the two great valloys of North America. Illinois, then, apart from the fertility of its soil and the salu- hrity of its climate, occupies a commanding position in the union of the States,
Of the subordinate streams, may be mentioned the Des Plaines and Kankakee, whose union forus the Illinois River ; Roek River, and the Kaskaskia or Okaw, the tributary to the Mississippi; and the Embarrass, Little Wabash and the Saline, tributary to the Wabash River.
CANALS .-- The Illinois & Michigan Canal is a part of a series of internal improvements projected by the State in 1836, and the only one which was carried to completion. It is 100 miles in length, and conuects the waters of Lako Michigau with those of the Illinois River, at La Salle. Its original dimen- sions wero sixty feet wide at the top, and six feet deep.
A project has been matured, which has twice received the sanetion of the House of Representatives of the United States, to enlarge the present canal to one hundred and sixty fect in width at the surface, and deepen the excavation at the summit, and at the same time to slaekwater the Illinois River, so that the largest class of boats arriving at St. Louis can pass to Lake Michigan. The whole amount of lockage from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan would be 170 feet, the distance being 320 miles.
The route, for the most part, pursues the ancient channel through which Lake Michigan formerly discharged a portion of its waters into the Mississippi. The water-shed between the two river systems is but eight feet in height.
Such a canal would eonfer inestimable benefits on the com- munity of both the East and the West, linking togetber, by a ehcap and expeditious water communication, tho two great valleys of North America.
RAILROADS .- Illinois has a railway system reacbing every considerable commercial point within its limits. The report of the Railway and Warehouse Commissioners for 1874 shows the main lines and branches to be 6,735 miles, not to mention the proportion in Illinois of 610 miles of douhlo track, and 1,806 miles of sidings belonging to roads centering here. The detailed list is as follows :
Cairo & St. Louis 90
Cairo & Vincennes. 149
Carhoudale & Shawneetown, 17
Chicago & Alton. 548
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. 778
Chicago, Danville & Vincennes 115
Chicago & Illinois Southern ...
32
Chicago & Iowa.
80
Chicago & Northwestern.
490
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul.
47
Chicago & Pacific. 36
Chicago & Padueah, 128
Chicago, Pekin & Southwestern 64
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacifio. 235
Cincinnati, Lafayette & Chicago. 32
Columbus, Chicago & Indiana Central 28 Edwardsville ...
8
Evansville, Terre Haute & Chicago. 6
Gilman, Clinton & Springfield 111
Grand Tower & Carbondale. 24 Illinois Ceutral. 705
Illinois & St. Louis Railroad and Coal Co. 18
Indiana & Illinois Central 76
STATE AGRICULTURE.
Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western ...
263
Indianapolis & St. Louis.
185
Irou Mountain, Chester & Eastern
42
Lako Shore & Michigan Southern, 14
Louisville, New Albany & St. Louis ..
18
Michigan Central.
36
Ohio & Mississippi.
147
Paris & Danville
34
Paris & Decatur.
90
Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville ..
83
Peoria & Rock Islaud
91
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago.
15
Quincy, Alton & St. Louis.
46
Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis.
293
St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute ......
71
St. Louis & Southeastern ...
131
Springfield & Illinois Southeastern.
228
Sycamore & Cortland.
5
St. Louis, Vandalia & Terre Haute .. 158
Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw .. 230
Toledo, Wabash & Western. 386
Hannibal & Naples. 50
Lafayette, Bloomington & Mississippi .. 81
Pekin, Lincoln & Decatur 67
Western Union. 144
6,725
Several of the above lines have sinee been extended, some new ones have been completed, and others are in process of construction.
AGRICULTURE.
BY M. L. DUNLAP-"RURAL."
REVISED BY B. A. CAMPBELL.
No State in the Union presents to its rural population so many advantages-so much of the erude elements of a nation's wealth as the State of Illinois.
We have no forests to hew down with the patient blow after blow of the woodman's axe-no rocky dykes with upturned edges-no hill sides beyond the reach of the " steel clipper"- no wide, insalubrious marshes that scoff the drainer's art-no sandy plains that do not yield to enlture; but every broad aere rich in all the elements of plant growth, and ready to yield an abundant reward to the hand of intelligent labor.
Passing through nearly four hundred miles of latitude, with its southern point resting on the cotton States, and to some extent growing that staple-fanned with the breath of tho tropics that has been pressed northward over fields of cotton and sugar-eane, the land of the magnolia and the oypress, to the " grand ehain," redolent with the apple, peach, pear, plum and grape-in the very court of Pomona, where the goddess smiles amid the hills teeming with the luscious fruits.
Spring first kisses these hills with her halmy breath and then marches through the hasin of " Egypt," over the undulating plains of ecutral and northern Illinois-gently rising from the head of the Lower Mississippi three hundred feet above the sea, to eight hundred at the Wisconsin line -- a gradation of climate from the solt Italian skies of the fruit bills to the rich pastures and fast flowing rivers that give to the dairy region of the north its most valued gifts.
With a few small exceptions-small only comparatively- the surface soil is prairie-drift, ranging from arenaceous, through the various elay loarus to the heavy clays. Tho exceptions are the ridges of the lead region, where the drift has been swopt away, the Loess of the river bluffs, the alluvium of the river bottoms, and the beds of Tertiary of the south part of the State. These give great variety of soil adapted to a diversity of agricultural and horticultural products ; and taken in connec- tion with the wide range of climate, make up a sum total of advantages for the State in its varied employments of rural-labor, that accounts for its rapid progress of development.
Wo may suhdivide the Stato into three if not four divisions- the northern, eentral and southern. The fourth would be the Loess or belts of river sites along the bluffs of the larger streams.
CORN .- This great staple is grown on every farm, from Villa Ridge to the Wisconsin lino, and from the Wahash to the Mis- sissippi, but the eoru zone par excellence is embraced in the
great plateau of Central Illinois. The " Illinois River Corn " has for years, and will for all time to come, hold the highest position in the market for milliug purposes. This is due to the superior quality of the soil along the river, known by geolo- gists as Loess, an arennceous river deposit of aneicut date. This is often overlaid hy drift from one to ten feet in depth, hut so naturally drains the surface soil that corn may be planted as early as desired, without much regard to ruiny weather. All farm erops grow remarkably well on this soil without the aid of manuro. Unlike other sandy soils, it does not wash, but a perpendicular bank of it will remain perfect for years, as may be seen at Quiney and Alton, Our farmers have not, as yet, fully comprehended the great value of this soil for the garden, the orchard, or the farm.
Tho great corn region of the State is about one hundred miles wide, running across the State, and extending south to about 39° 30', or where the light, chalky soil of the basin of "Egypt " meets the dark-colored clay-loamy soil of the central counties. It presents field after field of this grain, only broken by pastures and meadows, that only need surface draining to bring them under eulture.
It is estimated that, on an average, to grow and market a bushel of eorn costs twenty to twenty-two cents, leaving all that it commands over that figure for rent. This accounts for the popularity of this crop among our hest cultivators, and yet a far better result wight he reached by the use of manure and more thorough culture.
WHEAT .- Winter wheat is but little grown in any part of the State, Madison, Macoupin, Jersey and St. Clair being the largest growers of this grain. It produces good crops in the timber region south of the Big Muddy River, but fruit, tobacco, cotton and castor beans have thrust it aside for the present, and it cuts an unimportant figure where it was formerly the chief staple of export.
For the want of a snow covering, it is liable to winter-killing throughout all the prairie country south of Minnesota. Our open winters are unfavorable to it ; hut as bedges and shelter- belts increase, it will become more and more popular, and in a few years, with elover, will hold a fixed position in the economy of the farm.
In the north part of the State, spring wheat is a prominent feature on almost every farm, and many millions of bushels are grown annually, while it is also rapidly extending south, and is at this time quite popular in the central part of the State, and in due time will be also grown even in the south part of the State.
In the culture of spring wheat there are two points of para- mount importance that must he ohserved-autumn plowing for preparing the soil, and carly seeding immediately on the frost coming out of the surface, and if the season is late, so soon as the surface will allow of the use of the harrow. If muddy, no matter, the spring frosts will soon pulverize the clods. Water must not be allowed to stand on the erops for a single day, for in case the sun should come out, the plants will be apparently scalded and the crop lost. In common with all the cereals, surface draining is not to be neglected.
In point of value, the wheat erop is second on the list, and of great importance to tbe State, supplying, as it does, one of the sinews of our commercial strength. As an element in a system of rotation with other crops, its value has not been fully appreciated. It is always best following a hoed crop, for those crops act a part of the old summer-fallow, which modern husbandry has made obsolete.
In the south part of the State, the winter wheat ripens the last of May and first of June, and is often followed with a crop of eorn the same season.
The chinch hug has proved destructive to late sown spring wheat, and the remedy is in early seeding, as before stated; it is then too far advanced at the time of their attack to he seri- ously injured.
The rust, which was formerly tho great drawhack to the culture of this orop, has been much lessened by the same prao- tice of early seeding. The change of climate, occasioned by the exposure of the surface by culture and pasturage, has heen in our favor in this respect. By early seeding the crop is ma- turcd before the advent of very hot weather, or before the mid- summer drouth, or, what is often worse, hot showery weather. A cool seasou is tho best for this orop, while a hot one is bet- ter adapted for eorn. It is, therefore, desirable to divide these erops, for if one is a partial failure the other is almost sure to be superior. For this reason they should form the basis of a
172
rotation with elover, grass and the minor crops, as the con- dition of the soil and the demands of tho market may suggest.
OATS .- This crop is grown in all parts of the State, though less in the center than to the north and south. There corn is too much a favorite to easily yield. The average yield and quality both fall below that of the States of the North. A change of seed from the north, onee in five years, is very bene. fieinl. Oats follow wheat, barley, flax or hemp in the rotation, aud is better on autumn plowed land, but should bo well stirred, at the time of seeding, with a sulky cultivator. The seeding must be a little later than that of wheat. Farmers often seed to meadow with this erop, hut its benvy growth of foliage make it one of the worst erops for this purpose. On very rich land it is liable to lodge, and is oceasionally subject to rust. As a commercial crop, its value is quite secondary.
BARLEY .- Nothing short of high prices can induee the farmer to grow this crop, though it gives a fair averago yield. Its fluctuation in the market, the great care required in harvesting. the want of barns for threshing, and the risk of unfavorable weather, all conspire to make it unpopular, and hence it is not largely grown for shipment, its eulture being mostly near the large cities, where it can be wagoned to market. It requires a well drained, rich soil, similar to that of wheat, and should be sown early, and on land plowed in autumn.
FLAX .- This is not a favorite erop for general eulture. It needs a deep, rich, rather moist soil, and a moist climate suits it best. On well drained river bottoms and saudy loams it is a profitable crop, when hoth seed and lint are in demand. As manufactures increase this crop will grow in favor. The fluc- tuations iu price of seed and flax straw have had an unfavorable effect ou this erop. In a rotation it is nearly equal to a sum- mer fallow for wheat.
HEMP .- This erop was largely grown in the central eouu- ties thirty years sinee, and there is no reason why it may not be grown to as good advantage as in Kentucky or Missouri.
Flax and hemp need two departments of labor to induce their culture-the farmer, who grows the staple, and the home manufacturer, who prepares it for market. Both staples need vats for steeping, and mills for cleaning and preparing the fiber for market. When these conditions are complied with, flax and hemp will be valuable aids to our industries.
CASTOR BEANS .- A large share of the castor oil of coul- merce is made from beans grown in this State. Until within a few years, the use of this oil was coufined to medical pre- seriptions, but now its use is extending to manufactures and machinery, and the demand constantly increasing, and it gives promise of becoming a profitable erop for the south part of the State. In the tropies it is a perennial shrub, often six to ten inches in diameter, hut here it is an annual plant of most luxuriant habit.
SWEET POTATOES .- As far north as 40° the Nansemond and otber early varieties of the sweet potato produce fair crops, especially in the more arenaceous soils. They are grown in all parts of the State to some extent, but the northern markets ob- tain their supplies mainly at Alton, Centralia and points south. The crop is reliable and profitable on suitable soils.
POTATOES .- This crop is only grown for home use, though the northern and central portions would find it a profitable crop to ship south. The early or quick-growing varieties have proved the most desirable ; planting very carly for the sunrmer supply and the last of June for winter, so as to mature the early erop before the heat of summer, and the late crop during the eool days of autumn. South of 39º 30', under ordinary eon- ditions, tho quality of the potato is inferior. Annual supply of seed from the north is desirable. Mulching with straw, prairie bay, leaves and other refuse matter is useful in im- proving both quantity and quality.
HAY .- Timothy hay is produced in all the State north of the Big Muddy River at a profit, and is one of the great staple values of the State, both for home consumption and for ship- ment. The crop is always reliable, producing au enormous yield of superior secd. Being free of the seeds of the Canada thistle and other noxious weeds, it is much sought after, and forms an important item of commerce.
The demand for hay in the cotton States has made this a valuable erop for shipping, and, hefore the war, was one of great importanee.
PASTURAGE .- North of 39° 30' the pasturage is abundant, well adapted to grazing or the dairy. As we go north, the
STATE CLIMATOLOGY.
climate is hetter suited to the latter, and it is there wo find cheeso factories and butter dairies. A rotation of erops, and a somewhat modified system of culturo, will no doubt improve the pasturage of the south part of the State.
White and red clover, timothy, herd grass and Kentucky blue grass aro common to tho pastures of tho north and eenter, while red elover and blue grass are found at the south.
THE APPLE .- This fruit is grown in all parts of the State, and we find large eommorcial orchards scattered through tho country, adding to the health and wealth of the people.
THE PEAON .- This fruit is more chary of its favors. We go south on the Illinois Central to Rantoul, and on the Chicago & Alton Railroad at Funk's Grove to meet a favorable elimate for this fruit. This condition of things has only one value, that for home use and the local market, for the Michigan fruit region is its competitor and the winner of the market race.
Madison, Macoupin and Jersey Counties have commercial peach orchards, hut Centralia and points south along the Illi- nois Central Railroad send this fruit to market in great ahun- dance. From the first of Angust to lato in October, this fruit is the chief staplo of shipment, and thousands of acres are planted to this queen of the orchard. Inseets and errors in culture have mado some impression on the profits, but these will he met, and the growing of the pcach hold its position as one of the most desirable departments of rural employment. With the exception of
THE BLACKBERRY, all the other orchard and garden fruits, including the grape, do well in all parts of the State. The blackberry is reliable south of 40° when subjected to severe cutting baek in summer.
At Alton we have the base of a wine region that extends nortb to 40° 30' along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Throughout the eorn zoue, before mentioned, the grape is re- markably healthy and productive. Our American grapes will not flourish under the European mode of vine-dressing ; and tbe new system now being adopted is bringing this fruit within tbe reach of all. When we divest ourselves of the grape litera- ture of the hooks, and treat our grapes in a simple and rational Dianner, this fruit will be found in every garden in the State.
We are often asked why this State is incapable of producing crops common to the Atlantie slope, four to five degrees of latitude farther north than it is there possible to grow them. The answer is simple, and the result constant. The trade winds that blow eastward for six months along the equator are stopped by the Andes, and forced northwestwardly into the Gulf of Mexico, a portion is deflected along the Gulf Stream, and the remainder is forced up the Valley of the Mississippi, where it is spread out, fan-shaped, following the river groves and forest belts until it is lost, by mingling with the eool winds of the north. When the trade winds are withdrawn, the north winds supply the place, and we have a winter climate corre- sponding to the latitude. We have a normal winter, but from our position in the pathway of the trade winds as defleeted north, we have a modification of summer that extends the spring and autumn, giving us a short winter, subjeet to sudden waves of cold. Practically we grow our crops in a climate of a latitude several degrees south of us, and winter them at home. This accounts for many peculiarities of our erops, and, when well understood and acted upon, will be found of great value to all of the varied industries of tho State.
CLIMATOLOGY.
The State of Illinois, extending, as it does, through nearly six degrees of latitude, affords as great a diversity of climate, both in reference to the amount of rain-fall and the range of temperature, as is observed on the Atlantic coast in the inter- mediate space between Boston and Norfolk. The map on which these varying conditions are shown was prepared by Mr. Lorin Blodget, the value of whose lahors in this field is recognized hy every seientifie man.
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