294 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



ture. But perhaps the greatest help in the cause was given hy the organ- 

 izing, in iS6S, of the Jacksonville Horticultural Society, since which 

 time its progress has been steady and the interest gradually increasing. 

 The Superintendents of our State Institutions have all manifested a com- 

 mendable taste and zeal in the horticultural arrangement and adornment 

 of their respective grounds, thereby adding greatly to the credit of the 

 State and the beauty of our city. 



MONROE COUNTY. 



BY CHARLES HENCKLER. 



There are very few interesting points in the Horticultural record of 

 Monroe county, and although cut otl' and formed of parts of the old 

 counties of St. Clair and Randolph as early as 1816, it may be safely said 

 that there has never been a fine orchard in the county. There are, in- 

 deed, fruit trees here of near a centui-ys growth, but they are seedlings, 

 and of quite inferior qualities. There are also numerous small collec- 

 tions of excellent improved fruit, of modern date, but nothing deserving 

 the name of horticultural taste and improvement has ever been developed 

 or has ever found place in the county. Our horticulturists are all ama- 

 teurs, and have confined their operations within veiy narrow limits. 



Considered with reference to fruit raising, our county may be divided 

 into: 1st. Hickory and Black-oak ridges; 2d. The Mississippi bottom; 

 3d. Prairie lands; 4th. Post-oak lands; valuable, perhaps, in the order 

 named. The hickoiy and black-oak ridges form two narrow meridional 

 ridges — one near the bluffs, and the other running east of Columbia, 

 towards and through Waterloo, which, before clearing, are covei'ed with a 

 growth of black-oak, white-oak, hickory, hazel, sumach, sassafras, wild- 

 cherry, and wild-grape. The Mississippi bottom is four to six miles wide 

 along the Mississippi river. The prairie land is much like the black-oak 

 lands, and occupies the eastern part of the county. The post-oak and 

 black-jack lands are scattered all through the hill part of the county. 



The old seedlings are all small apples, of rather agreeable taste, gen- 

 erally gi'een, or green and red, with dark blotches, having accidental, 

 arbitrary, local, and luicertain names. After 1835 some improvement 

 began, and Russets or " Leather-coats," Big and Little Romanites, Pip- 

 pins, Bellflowers, Wincsaps, Red and Yellow Junes, began to be planted. 

 Since 1S45 nearly all the varieties of any catalogue have found place in 

 one part or another of the county. In one or two instances as many as a 

 thousand trees were put out by a single owner; but for the most part the 

 collections are small, hardly sufficient for home use. A little cider is 

 made, some vinegar, and an occasional load of fruit taken to market; but 

 very few farmers in the county have a real abundance of apples, or other 

 fruits, for their own home use. The old orchards m the American Bot- 

 tom were nearly all destroyed by the flood of 1S44; some few have been 

 set out there since, and seem to be flourishing. But the whole subject of 

 fruit-growing is, and has long been, greatly neglected in the county, with 

 here and there exceptions. Its iniprofitableness and uncertainty are the 

 principal causes of this, arising from the difliculty and distance of trans- 



I 



