From Dubuque, On The Western Shore Of The River, We Passed Over To
Dunleath, In Illinois, And Went On From
Thence by railway to Dixon.
I was induced to visit this not very flourishing town by a desire
to see
The rolling prairie of Illinois, and to learn by eyesight
something of the crops of corn or Indian maize which are produced
upon the land. Had that gentleman told me that we knew nothing of
producing corn in England, he would have been nearer the mark; for
of corn, in the profusion in which it is grown here, we do not know
much. Better land than the prairies of Illinois for cereal crops
the world's surface probably cannot show. And here there has been
no necessity for the long previous labor of banishing the forest.
Enormous prairies stretch across the State, into which the plow can
be put at once. The earth is rich with the vegetation of thousands
of years, and the farmer's return is given to him without delay.
The land bursts with its own produce, and the plenty is such that
it creates wasteful carelessness in the gathering of the crop. It
is not worth a man's while to handle less than large quantities.
Up in Minnesota I had been grieved by the loose manner in which
wheat was treated. I have seen bags of it upset and left upon the
ground. The labor of collecting it was more than it was worth.
There wheat is the chief crop, and as the lands become cleared and
cultivation spreads itself, the amount coming down the Mississippi
will be increased almost to infinity.
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