RICH CENTRAL PRAIRIE. 45 



I now retraced my course by the same line to the junction 

 at Centralia, but went northwards from that point by another 

 line, nearly through the centre of the State, meeting with the 

 same characteristics of soil as were noticed on the journey south- 

 wards. Near Tacusah there is another considerable settlement 

 of French Canadians from Lower Canada. On again reaching 

 the black prairie, after having been for some time accustomed 

 to the whitish grey soil of the southern prairie, it seemed to me 

 that the land looked richer and the grass greener. But we 

 were now traversing the richest part of Illinois, and for 100 

 miles north of Tacusah the whole country is very fine, much of 

 it settled and enclosed, and dotted with houses, as far as the 

 eye can see. The cultivation is on a larger and more regular 

 scale, the Indian corn and wheat both showing evidence of 

 more careful management. Hay and corn ricks are more nu- 

 merous ; woodland is to be seen in all directions, and the coun- 

 try is altogether more undulating, rich, and picturesque, than 

 any part of the prairie which I had yet seen. At Bloomington, 

 which is a very rising town, with 7000 people, 10,000 bushels 

 of grain are sent off daily by railroad to Chicago in a good 

 season. The country here is chiefly settled by farmers from 

 the middle States, Ohio and Kentucky. About thirty miles 

 farther north, near the station of Minonk, a large colony of 

 about 200 families from Vermont have settled. They sent be- 

 fore them a committee of their most skilful farmers to examine 

 the Western States and choose the most suitable and advan- 

 tageous position they could find. These men made a very 

 careful inspection of Illinois, and other States farther west, dur- 

 ing a four months' tour, and came to the conclusion that no 

 other locality which they had seen presented so great a combi- 

 nation of advantages as this. They bought altogether about 

 20,000 acres, upon which they have been settled for the last 

 three years. 



