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quality inferior. Randolph, average $15 per acre ; a portion very rich, covered 
with hickory and oak. Franklin, $5 per acre, principally timber; one-sixth 
bottom lands, the remainder average tillable land, some of the best quality. 
Union, $15 per acre. Alexander, $9 per acre, black sandy soil, broken and 
bottom lands, good for grain and grass. Pulaski, $10 per acre. Massac, $3 
per acre, swampy, but the driest portions are fine for grass. Pope, $3 50, 
mostly broken or hilly, with any amount of sandstone on the surface. Hardin, 
$5 per acre, good ridge lands, suited to grain and potatoes. Williamson, $9 per 
acre; quality tolerably good for general farming. In 1860 the improved land 
numbered 13,096,374 acres against upwards of 22,000,000 acres (including 
water surfaces) unimproved, but at this date the proportions are greatly changed. 
3. Illinois is probably better supplied with timber than any other prairie State, 
and were it equally distributed no part of the State would be deficient. In some 
counties there is a large superabundance, as in Pulaski, from which our reporter 
writes that every acre of their land was originally covered with a dense forest 
of poplar and oak, giving employment to a large number of hands at the vari- 
ous mills and shingle and lath machines; while in other sections there is not 
sufficient for general home purposes. The varieties of timber most abundant 
are the oaks, black and white walnut, ash, elm, maple, locust, hickory, hack- 
berry, linden, cottonwood, mulberry, pecan, sycamore, wild-cherry, sassafras, 
and persimmon. In the southern and eastern parts of the State, yellow poplar 
and birch are the peculiar growth, and near the Ohio are clumps of yellow pine 
and cedar, and the alluvial soils of the rivers produce cottonwood and sycamore 
timber of amazing size. 
The northern portion of the State is rich in minerals, while coal, limestone, 
and sandstone are found in almost every section. Iron is found in considerable 
quantity in the southern, and lead and copper in the northern portions of the 
State. The coal deposits are spread over a large extent of country, being found 
in the ravines and bluffs of the Mississippi, and in immense beds on the line of 
the Illinois and other rivers, but as yet are comparatively little worked beyond 
the demand for neighborhood consumption, owing to lack of capital and facili- 
ties for transportation. About two-thirds of the counties responding to our cir- 
cular report the existence of coal in greater or less quantities. Superior lime- 
stone is also reported in various quarters, whereit is being extensively converted 
into lime—35,000 to 40,000 barrels per annumin Rock Island. Kaolin is found 
in Pope county ; immense beds of peat in McHenry; salt springs in Gallatin, 
Jackson, Vermillion, and other counties, and sulphur and chalybeate springs in 
some localities. 
The agricultural resources of Illinois, however, constitute her chief source of 
wealth and material prosperity, the State now ranking next to New York the 
highest in the aggregate value of agricultural products, reaching over $160,000,000 
in 1866, and $184,000,000 in 1867. he character of the soil of the State is 
too well known to require detailed mention here. 
4. Wheat, Indian corn, oats, hay, and potatoes, are the leading crops of the State 
being extensively grown in all sections, but the first two named are the great 
staples, the crop of Indian corn of 1866 aggregating nearly 156,000,000, bushels, or 
more than one-sixth of the entire crop of the country; and of wheat about 28,500,000 
bushels, and about the same proportion of the total yield. As in all the north- 
ern States, a mixed husbandry prevails throughout the State, the full list of 
products suited to the latitude being grown to a greater or less extent in each 
county. ‘The money values of the several promiuent crops during the past year 
foot up in round numbers as follows: Indian corn, $74,000,000; wheat, 
$60,000,009; hay, $25,000,000; oats, $15,000,000; potatoes, $4,400,000; tobacco, 
$1,260,000; barley, $1,270,000; rye, $760,000; buckwheat, $273,000. The wheat 
is the chief money crop, however, a large portion of the corn and grass crops being 
fed out upon the farm to cattle and hogs, and thus converted into more compact 
