128 TRAIifSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



make your city alive witli the hum of wheels and the bustle of manufactures — all these, 

 and more, have blessed your lot over that of ordinary men. Only in our own unri- 

 valled valley of Rock river has nature been alike kindly in her manifold gifts. Our 

 prairies there are so beautiful, and our soil is so rich, that we believe some lucky 

 farmer, in sight of the glancing waters of our unrivalled stream, will some day find 

 the remains of the old stump of the old tree of knowledge, as he delves in his rich 

 fields. 



Man acts on nature, and nature in turn acts on man; and it is no wonder our State 

 has robbed the Old Dominion of her standing boast, and now arrogates to herself the 

 proud title of ''the mother of Presidents," as she has already so preeminently become 

 the mother of noble men! 



But pardon this digression, and I will add a closing remark about our soils. Their 

 various kinds of qualities I do not intend now to describe, except to say that while 

 there is a general similarity in the whole mass, the details differ infinitely, and make 

 a minute classification difficult. We have soils that are light, heavy, warm or cold, 

 wet or dry, compact or porous, fine or coarse, hungry, leachy, loamy, sour, sweet, 

 clayey, sandy, limey, marly, and various combinations of these, which the agricul- 

 tural chemist alone can determine. Silica, or the earth of flints; allumina, lime, 

 magnesia, potash, and various salts and metaloid compounds unite in various combin- 

 ations to make up these soils. The humus, which gives the richness and blackness 

 of color, is chiefly derived from the successive growths and decays of grasses and other 

 vegetation . 



The question as to what soils will produce and mature good and constant crops 

 of fruit, depends not only upon the nature of the soils themselves, but also upon 

 climatic and atmospheric influences, and the nature and property of the subsoils. 

 There is much more in these influences than any one might at first imagine. Vege- 

 table chemists and the best vegetable physiology demonstrate that the most of the 

 tree and plant, directly or indirectly, is derived from the atmosphere, and not from 

 the soil at all. SoUs, of course, are important, but they are not all-important. 



In speaking of the drift and drift forces, I have constantly used the word " soils." 

 Strictly speaking, this use of the word is inaccurate. The great glacial and drift 

 forces apply to the subsoils, and underlying masses of clays, sands, and gravels. 

 Soils, accurately speaking, are the surface deposits, covering these masses. These 

 surface soils are formed somewhat diflerently from those underlying drift materials 

 above referred to. And this brings us to speak of the origin of the prairies. I will 

 not discuss these at length, but simply give a few of the theories concerning their 

 formation. 



Lesquereaux believes they are a slow growth from ancient peaty marshes. Winchell 

 believes them to be of lacustrine origin, that is, that they are the bottoms of lakedike 

 bodies of water, not yet having time to be covered with forest growths. Foster 

 believes them chiefly owing to atmospheric and meteorological influences. Some 

 believe them owing to ancient Indian annual burnings. Judge Caton has still another 

 theory. All of these gentlemen argue their respective theories with ability; and in 

 this conflict it is hard to tell who is right. The probability is, that each of them 

 apply to certain localities, and explain all the phenomena of those localities. 



