USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Past and present of the city of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois > Part 53
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In 1881. by the suggestion of the State Board of Agriculture, a County Farmers' In- stitute was organized in Adams county by the election of G. W. Dean. President ; C. S. Booth, Secretary, and A. R. Wallace. Treas- urer. We had no way to support it except by the encouragement of such men as P. S. Judy (known as "I'nele Phil"). A. R. Wallace, W. A. Booth. S. N. Black and a number of others. With this support it became popular,
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and instructive meetings were held in October and May of each year. We used mostly home talent, securing an expert when we could do so. Our success encouraged other counties to organize, and thus an interest was created throughout the state. But being satisfied that it would be impossible to get the best results from a farmers' institute at individual ex- pense, a number of interested farmers met at the Leland Hotel, at Springfield, Ilinois, dur- ing the Thirty-ninth General Assembly and formulated the bill which chartered the Illi- nois Farmers' Institute by an act of the Gen- eral Assembly. This bill was placed in the hands of Col. Chas. F. Mills to look after its passage. Col. Mills placed the bill in charge of Hon. G. W. Dean, then a member of the General Assembly, with instructions to use all honorable means in his power to have it be- come a law. The bill was passed. It provided for a Farmers' Institute to be held in each county, not less than two days in each year. The next General Assembly appropriated $50 to every county in the state that held an in- stitute, subject to the conditions of the char- ter of the said Farmers' Institute. This placed it upon its feet, and every county in the state is organized and holds one or more institutes each year. In every state in the Union the farmers' institute is protected by law.
The farmers employ the best available tal- ent at their institutes. which makes it ex- pensive. costing from $30 to $250 each. Con- sidering this, the Forty-second General Assem- bly increased the appropriation to $75 for each county. The institutes work under rules and regulations adopted by the Board of Directors, and there is a rule that no more than one-third of the appropriation shall be paid to foreign instructors. That means that we can get two speakers from the Agricul- tural College, who instruet us on two different agricultural topies each. They cost the insti- tute nothing but expenses, as they are salaried instructors.
The number of institutes were attended by speakers from the College of Agriculture and Experiment Station at Urbana, season of 1904-5. These instructors delivered one hun- dred and fifty-nine speeches. embracing al- most every conceivable topie, from soil in- vestigation to the marketing of the crop. The farmers in the locality where the institute is held are interested and take part in the dis- cussions. From this fact institutes are held at different parts of the county to accommo- date the audiences of the different localities.
There are supposed to be 500,000 farmers in the state. and the total attendance at insti- tutes is 52,000. The average attendance of
school children is 20,000. of teachers 2,000, of farmers' wives 10,000; and may we not hope that some of the 448,000 farmers who do not attend institutes can be reached by some of the teachers and scholars who are to form the next "generation of farmers?"
It is the custom for the director of each Congressional district to call a conference of the presidents of all the counties in his dis- triet to meet at some convenient place in the district, to arrange dates in such a manner that the speakers will have a week's work on one trip. Thus money is saved and time economized.
It is reasonable to expect from the present indications that the time is not distant when the Farmers' Institute will open the way for teaching agriculture in the common schools. Therefore her 27.000 teachers are already fall- ing into line for this coming event, and the elements of agricultural science are gradually finding their place in the primary and see- ondary schools through instruction of their teachers.
The value of nitrogen-fixing bacteria has been thoroughly demonstrated. and greatly increasing yields of leguminous plants with accompanying prodnetion of nitrogen in the soil is one of the great features of soil im- provement as taught at our agricultural col- lege and experiment station. At the Uni- versity we are taught to use commercial fer- tilizers, and our institutes have embraced the opportunity and have learned to apply the necessary elements-nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium -- to a very great advantage: hut commercial fertilizers are costly, and the farmers of Adams county have learned that our soil is of such a nature that these ele- ments can be furnished the land by simply a rotation of crops. These three principal ele- ments in the land of Adams county are abso- Intely necessary to the production of crops, and in the protection of nitrogen, the principal element in vegetable growth, will add to the soil enough phosphorous and potassium for all purposes.
The rich bottom lands of Adams county contain 7,880 pounds of nitrogen per acre. and all the other elements necessary to raise a erop of corn. With these conditions 100 pounds of nitrogen will produce 100 bushels of corn. Thus the land is impoverished only one pound of nitrogen for every bushel of corn raised on the land. But if the corn is gathered from the stalk, and the stalks are left on the field they will return a half-pound or more of nitrogen to each bushel of corn. as the stalk is mostly composed of nitrogen and the ear is composed of other compounds.
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most of which can be furnished from the ground, perhaps for a thousand years. This land is very valuable. The bluff or table and prairie soils of Adams county are the second best soils known, containing 5,800 pounds of nitrogen per acre, and all the other soil ele- ments necessary to raise a crop of corn. There- fore, three crops of corn can be raised without perceptible injury to the soil, but constant corn raising will wear the land out in time. To obviate this, instead of buying commercial fertilizers a rotation of crops is all that is necessary to restore the lost fertility after the three crops of corn. There should be a rota- tion of oats, followed by wheat, then clover in the spring, then let it stand two years, and the soil will be ready for another rotation. each erop paying for itself, and necessary for the regular farmer.
BACTERIA AND LEGUMES
The soils of Adams county are a composition of such fertilizers as will grow legumes with- ont inoculation. Clover is grown for this purpose, and where the soil is in good condi- tion and the spring favorable, a catch of clover is almost certain. The nitrogen-gather- ing bacteria or tubereles on the roots of the clover plant have the power to take free ni- trogen from the air and cause it to unite with other elements to form compounds suitable for plant food. There are about seventy-five million pounds of atmospheric nitrogen rest on every aere of land, and it can be obtained in unlimited quantities.
The land situated on a hillside sometimes fails to grow clover. In this case a light dressing of barnyard manure will almost al- ways insure a stand of clover, and its nitrogen- gathering bacteria that live in the tubereles on the roots of leguminous plants will prop- erly inoeulate the soil.
Adams county is rich in plant food, and if it has been used in crops it has, in and of itself, the elements necessary to restore its fertility, all the while bringing profitable re- turns. This makes her valuable above other counties on account of agricultural wealth, yielding her products with the least possible expense. In comparison with the southern division of Illinois, with 31.80 pounds of nitro- gen and half enough potassium and phos- phorns to the acre to produce agricultural crops, it requires no extraordinary conception to appreciate the difference. When we con- sider the northern division, with her 5,800 pounds of nitrogen per acre, with plenty of phosphorus and potassium to prodnee abun- dantly. it is somewhat surprising that so much
of her division is composed of peaty swamp lands and sand and alkali soils.
The corn crop of Adams county has always been greater than the state average, because the southern division, on an average, raises about one-half as much to the acre as the rest of the State. The State average is (1903) thirty-five bushels, while Adams county's av- erage is forty-two bushels; and the State average for thirty years has been thirty bushels, and the price ran for the same time from 58 cents to 20 cents per bushel. In 1903 the acreage of corn was 99,833, with an aver- age yield of thirty-four bushels per acre. at 42 cents per bushel, making $1.425,615, as its total value. Cost of production, $993,338, which leaves a profit for the farmers of the county of $438,277.
Although the eorn crop of 1903 was hitherto withont eqnal, the crop of 1904 has exceeded it. and the general result is that the farmers have accumulated much more wealth than they ever have done in one year. "One conspicuous item that has contributed to the corn erop" is it produced nearly two and a half million of bushels, and its high price gives it a "farm value" of over one billion dollars. The Ser- retary of Agriculture says: "With this crop the farmers could pay the national debt and interest thereon one year, and still have enough left to pay the expenses of the na- tional government for a large fraction of a year." An occupation that has produced so unthinkable a sum as one aggregating $5,000,- 000,000 within a year may be better measured by some comparisons: All the gold mines in the entire world have not produced, since Columbus discovered Ameriea, a greater vale of gold than the farmers of this country have prodneed in wealth in two years. This year's produet is over six times the amount of the capital stock of all national banks: it comes within three-quarters of a million dollars of equaling the value of the manufactures of 1900 less the cost of the material used: it is twice the sum of our exports and imports for a year: it is two and a half times the gross earnings from the operations of the railways; it is three and a half times the value of all minerals produced in this country, including coal, iron ore, gold, silver and quarried stone."
Adams county, lying geographically in the center of this great corn-growing belt, shares equally in the honors extended to the farmers in Secretary Wilson's eulogy on agriculture.
The acreage of wheat for the year 1903 was 79,949, and the yield twelve bushels per aere, making 959.388 bushels at the average price of sixty-five cents, $62,350. Taking out of this four and one-half bushels per capita to
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feed the eighty thousand inhabitants of the county, there remains 579,388 bushels for ex- portation. The average yield of the crop for 1904 is not yet reported : it was a less estimate than usual, but the average price being one dollar and three cents per bushel, it has brought more money to the farmer than the previous crop.
We do not know why the State Board of Agriculture did not report the oats crop last December. but we do know that it is an im- portant erop and bountifully fed in hot weather by the farmers, and that the supply is equal to the demand for both county and cities therein.
The pastures of the county have an acreage of 53.292, with a value per acre of four dollars and twenty-five cents, and the total value of $226,491 for 1903. The acreage and value have not varied much for many years.
There is a small potato patch of 1,151 acres in AAdams county, that yields 39,134 bushels, valued at $33.264; total cost of production, $18,213. and net profit, $15,021: besides a sweet potato field of forty-two acres, yielding 2,730 bushels, valued at $3,139; also a field of timothy for seed which prodneed 1,052 bush- els, valmed at $1,368; and a clover patch that produced 1,802 bushels, valued at $9,370.
A large number of small fruits are raised in the county, a few of which I will mention, with their value as reported from the State Board of Agriculture: Grapes, $145; wine, $654; other fruits and berries. $6 589. Also some dairy products; pounds of butter sold in 1905. 152,621, valued at $28.998: cheese. 6.426 pounds. valued at $1.028; and 51,853 gallons of milk, valued at $5,185: 8,142 gallons of cream. $6,514.
BEEF CATTLE.
Number of cattle, May, 1903, 34,378; total live weight, 8,895,375: price. four dollars per hundred pounds; total value, $355,815. Dairy cows, number, 370; price per head, $32; total value, $12,128.
HOGS.
Hogs numbered 49,469; average weight, 207 : average price per hundred pounds. $5.55: value, live weight. 471,706. The number of sheep. 12,018: average live weight, 100 lbs. Total live weight. 264,400; price per hundred, $4.15. Wool, number of pounds shorn, 1903. 43,185; price per pound, 18c; total of the product, $7.773. Wool has been running 18c per pound for a long time.
HORSES.
The number of colts foaled since 1893, np to the year 1902, averaged 1,252 annually, and in 1903 there were 1,340; from 1892 up to 1897 there were horses and colts, 11,894 annually; from 1897 to 1900 there were 13.913 annually; in 1901 there were 17,546; in 1902, 16,665; in 1903. 16,214. Although horses have in the main been on the increase, a good horse now (1905) will command a fabulous price, and any horse will bring his worth. The Secretary of Agriculture in his report says : *Farm horses have increased slightly in number, and more in value, and in the aggregate they never were so valuable as in 1904, with a total of $1,136,940,298."
"The value of farm nmiles also reached its highest point in 1904, $217,532,832." A de- ficiency of 5 per cent in the number of mules in the State this year as compared with 1903 exists, but the mule interest is manifest and in sympathy with the horse interest.
POULTRY.
The rapid increase of poultry in numbers and in quality, together with the increase in value of products, leads to some astonishing results for 1904, when compared with former years. The Secretary of Agriculture reports : "The farmers' hens are now producing one and two-thirds billions of dozens of eggs yearly, and these hens during their busy sea- son lay enough eggs in two weeks, at the high price of eggs that have prevailed during the year, to pay the year's interest on the national deht." The value of poultry sold in the county in 1903. $10,650: eggs sold. $9,848.
HORTICULTURE.
As horticulture does not belong to agricul- ture, except so far as the cultivation goes, it will not be discussed here. There is a mani- fest interest in the county that would lead to a great system of orcharding, if a means of spraying conkt be devised to effectually de- stroy the insects that are so injurious to the apples from year to year. If a perfect apple could be thus assured, the possibilities are there are thousands of acres of land in Adams county not very profitable as plow lands that would grow good apples. There are large orchards now which have been profitable, and horticulture is on the increase. But restore the perfect apple again, and horticulture would be comparatively in its infancy.
ROADS.
The roads of Adams county are numerous and in greater demand centrally becanse
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there are no railroads accessible to haul farm products to market, and it all must be done by wagon. The farmers under existing con- ditions build their own road in some locali- ties. Burton township is setting apart forty cents on the $100 of assessment as a special tax for hard roads; this has been in existence ten years, and with the money thus obtained they have made a good road on the roads run- ning into the city of Quincy on Broadway and Stato streets, almost through the township. The highways could be made very much bet- ter if they were graded high enough to run the water off the roads. If this were done, there would be less complaint. This spring we crossed three townships; in two of them about one-half of the water ran in the middle of the road, and they were impassable with a load; the other was nicely graded and the road was good all the way through.
May we not hope that by levying a tax to the full limit of the law all our roads may be graded high enough to drain all the water off on their sides? If a hard road law ever passes in the State of Illinois, in all proba- bility it will provide for submission to the people by townships or counties, in which case Illinois is likely to be as old as the Roman Empire was when she made good roads before a general system of road making will be es- tablished. If the roads are first well graded, they will be in good condition for a perma- nent improvement when the time comes.
The Board of the Western Society of En- gineers report that Illinois has "unlimited material for the manufacture of Portland cement." This being true, may we not hope that the hard road problem is solved by find- ing a road building material that will be economical and durable and that can be reached.
In conclusion we want to say by way of repetition, that because of the general farm- ing on the soils, the great agricultural central west is the present, and we may say, "the future, granary of the world." The land whose fertility can be kept up by rotation of erops is as good as Abraham's choice to dwell in the land of the plain of Jordan, ammilling the world's historic verdiet, "Westward the course of empire takes its way," and substi- tnting therefore, "Here a permanent agrienl- ture holds sway.
It has been the tendency heretofore in the civilized world for the farmers to run their land down and then ery " Westward ho, young man!" The farmers did not know that lost fertility could be restored. As the farmer's stock is fed the products of the farm to pro- duce to sustain the human body, even so the
soil must be fed the elements necessary to re- tain its fertility. Ile who speaks differently knows not whereof he speaks. Two years ago this was more noticeable because the South is enjoying prosperity owing to the increased value of her cotton erop in addition to her general progress in agriculture. The Eastern farmer, who has been long in the background in competition with the rapidly expanding upper Mississippi River Valley, is enjoying normal conditions on account of varied indns- tries. The Pacific coast is prospering with its "work famed specialties." The mountain States glory in the fruits and prospects of irrigation. In the early settled prairie States the farmer bought much of his land at $1.25 an aere, which now sells at $100; and the American Desert, very lately nothing but a buffalo range, is now settled by prosperous farmers, making money from the proceeds of their products. The fertility of the Adams county soils need not and ought not be reduced below its original prodnetive capacity.
May we not hope that the farmers will as- sist to establish a system of farming which will insure a profitable and permanent agri- enlture. Let us not repeat the history of the great Mohawk Valley in New York, or the James River Valley in Virginia, both of which were once famous for their fertility and pro- duetive capacity.
Prof. JJoseph Carter, of Champaign, said not long ago, in a public address, that he recently traveled throngh the valley of the James River in oldl Virginia, and he found there that some of the beautiful farm lands which once grew crops of tobacco which made Vir- ginia rich, are now absolutely abandoned, and no man will own them. A well-regulater sys- tem of rotation of crops would have saved this once fertile land, and old Virginia would be growing tobacco yet.
The farmers are learned now, and may they not hope that those of Adams county will im- prove their already fertile lands ?
HORTICULTURE IN ADAMS COUNTY. By C. H. Williamson.
To whatever instinct is dne the development of horticulture, the passion for gain or the passion for beauty, it is certain that the his- tory of horticulture in Adams county is prae- tically synchronous with its earliest settle- ment ; more particularly is this true of Quincy, whose founder, Governor JJohn Wood, was also the first tree planter. It is hard today to esti- mate what the city owes to this truly great citizen: but not the least of the debts it owes
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to the loving care and remarkable foresight of its founder is his establishment of its first or- chard and the beautiful shade trees which kindled a love more enduring than brass in our people, and an enthusiasm which has reached the heart of every dweller in the town whose first walls he reared, so that it might almost be said that every child who is born in the town is baptized into a love of trees. This passion which his love first kindled has so taken root and spread that today Quincy is one vast park of beautiful shade trees, promi- ment among all the cities of the west in this regard. But if it owed so much to him, its debt is hardly less great to a line of men who. coming later, have had his passion for the beauty of trees in no less remarkable a degree. Among these whose names I cannot forbear to mention are Lorenzo Bull, one of the city's greatest benefactors; Ilenry Whitmore, who personally planted many of the trees that are now the glory of the beautiful east end; Ed- ward JJ. Parker, the father of the city parks and the untiring preacher of the gospel of civic beanty. If Quiney owes much to Gov- ernor Wood as the pioneer. it owes more to Mr. Parker in its uplift to higher ideals of civic beauty and practical plans for realiza- ing those ideals. These men have left and are leaving monuments that will carry their names to the ages. In passion for rare and beautiful trees, and in generous sympathy with every aim that added to the city's tree wealth and beauty. I cannot forbear to men- tion Richard F. Newcomb. A richness of de- light in tree beauty made him a center of in- fections enthusiasm. Not least among those whose example has been contagious and in- spiring are the honored names of Henry Bull, O. H. Browning, Nehemiah Bushnell, Willard Keyes, Henry Asbury. But these names, in- complete as they are in a roster of those who have deserved well of their city in respect of its beauty. are but a part of the story. That is the most remarkable that the whole city is leavened with the same spirit, and that the beauty of the city is not sporadic and a thing of parts. but of all parts and generic. Quiney's ontward beauty is the ontward and visible sign of a deep and inward sense for things beautiful that is universal, and tonehes not some. but all.
But if hortienlture is in its deepest and truest sense the outward result of the inward «raving for the beautiful, and therefore first to be mentioned, it is not less true that it has a practical sense, and that an honorable one. For if such men as I have mentioned deserve well of the city, not less to he remembered and revered are the pioneers in practical hortienl-
ture-sneh men as William Stewart, Sr., of Payson: Deacon Scarborough, of the same town; Clark Chatten and Robert Rankin, of Fall Creek ; Henry Kent and Edward Sinnoek, of Ellington: D. (. Benton, and Harges & Sommers, of Quincy. And in this line, too, as I have before indicated, stands first Governor John Wood. It was he who planted the first orchard. In 1820 he was living near Atlas, in Pike county, when as the earlier history of the county tells us, he and Willard Keyes, both young and unmarried men, were tem- porarily housekeeping and farming in partner- ship.
In the spring of that year he made a jour- ney on foot to the orchard of one Avery, who lived a short distance above St. Louis, and bought of him one pint of apple seed, paying a dollar for it. He planted these seeds and just three of them grew. This did not satisfy his appetite for tree planting nor discourage his determination to have an orchard.
In the autumn he made another pedestrian journey to Griffith's orchard, on the river op- posite the old French settlement of Portage d Sionx. Here he was permitted to take the pomace from a cider mill and wash ont as much seed as he wished. Ile made these jour- neys on foot. as he also did many other longer and more difficult ones, because he was then too poor to own a horse. About the same time he came into possession of another small quan- tity of apple seeds in the following manner: Wood and Keyes had made a quantity of maple sugar, and finding a family by the name of Sprague who were very destitute, and the parents and most of the children sick. Mr. Wood made them a liberal present of sugar, and wishing to express in some way their gratitude, and having nothing else to give, they insisted on his accepting a portion of a supply of apple seed they had brought with them to the county. From the product of these two lots of seed the young men were able to supply not only themselves, but many of their neighbors, with trees for planting. In the spring of 1823 Mr. Wood, who in the meantime had removed to where Quincy now stands, planted a portion of his trees on a traet of land now embraced between Twelfth and Fourteenth and State and Kentucky streets. About the same time he planted some peach seeds, which were set out in the orchard in 1824. In 1827 he gathered fruit from both his apple and peach trees. Some of these apple trees are still living. About the year 1830 Governor Wood planted a quantity of chestnuts and set the young trees on his grounds. Before the year 1832 Major Rose, Willard Keyes. James Dunn. Silas Beebe and
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