LETTER IV. 



General View of the State of Illinois. Comparison of Soil and Extent with Eng- 

 land. Dunleith to Mendota. Vast Wheat Fields. Experience of a Scotch 

 Carpenter. Farming by Shares. Cost of Farm-houses. The River Illinois. 

 Coal Lands of La Salle. Corn Starch Factory. Bloomington. Settlers 

 from New York State. Account of his Operations by Pioneer of Settlement. 

 Unusual Failure of Wheat Crop. Discouragement caused by this. Temp- 

 tations of Credit System. Instance of Purchase and Cost of making a Farm. 

 History of an early Settler. The Banking System of the Country. Profits of 

 Banking." Shin Plaster" Banks. 



I CANNOT hope in the preceding description to have conveyed to 

 my reader more than I myself received in this hurried ride, 

 namely, a general impression of the main features of the coun- 

 try, and an idea of an almost endless extent of fertile soil. 

 Some time was required, and a careful study of the map, before 

 even the outline features of this extensive country became lu- 

 cidly fixed in my mind. I had first gone more than 300 miles 

 due south of Chicago, and had then turned back, and, by a 

 more westerly line, had run about 450 miles north, through the 

 centre of Illinois to its north-western boundary at Dunleith on 

 the Mississippi. To give a homely and at the same time pretty 

 accurate idea of its extent, and bearing in mind that England 

 and Illinois are nearly equal in size, let the reader imaging 

 himself starting at Newcastle and proceeding by York, Newark, 

 Peterborough, and Bedford to London, and then on to Brighton, 

 there let him turn back, retrace his course to London, and 

 then take a north-westerly route by way of Eugby, Stafford, 

 Manchester, Lancaster, Carlisle, and so on to Glasgow; let 

 him imagine the whole of this extensive country, with the ex- 



