22 

 CENTRAL ILLINOIS 



which includes all that section of the State known as the "Corn 

 Belt," and which may be said to begin near the north line of 

 Livingston county, extending as far south as Pana, to the 

 marl soil which near there, with few exceptions, continues 

 southward for more than a hundred miles, until the hills which 

 extend across the State from east to west are reached, is much 

 larger and possesses a greater variety of soil than either of the 

 other sections, and a more extensive list of products can be 

 grown. 



Although noted for its great fields of corn, oats, and 

 wheat, for its immense meadows, and the number of its horses, 

 cattle, and hogs, its production of fruit is by no means insig- 

 nificant in value. Large orchards of apples may be found in 

 every county from the Indiana to the Iowa line, a distance of 

 some two hundred and forty miles. It is in this section that 

 many of the largest nurseries for the propagation of all kinds 

 of fruit trees are to be found, and from the earliest settlement 

 the quantity and quality of its tree fruits have been admitted. 

 Any one who has attended the annual State Fair during the 

 past thirty-five years, must have been forcibly struck with the 

 magnitude and beauty of the various exhibits from that section 

 as well as by the general excellence of individual varieties; the 

 completeness of the displays and great number of varieties of 

 the different kinds of fruit. Much of this is due to the local 

 nurserymen, many of whom are fruit raisers as well as tree 

 growers, who seek to inculcate by example what they preach 

 in theory. It may be said with truth that given an intelligent 

 and conscientious nurseryman in a given locality, that the 

 yield of fruit in that vicinity will be greater, owing to his ex- 

 ample and instruction, than in a place where such a man is not 

 located. We might cite many cases to prove this, such as 

 Princeton, in Bureau county; Bloomington, in McLean; Cham- 

 paign, in Champaign; Freeport, in Stephenson; and Centralia, 

 in Marion county, near all of which places large nurseries have 

 in former times exerted an influence, and in some of them con- 

 tinue to work for the increase of that "art which doth mend 

 nature." 



