528 Transactioxs of the American Institute. 



made strong with soap. Farms could be bought, from four to twelve 

 miles from Springfield, from forty dollars to seventy-five dollars per 

 acre, according to the improvements. Good free schools in every dis- 

 trict. I have written more than I intended, but thought I would tell 

 my eastern brother farmers some facts in regard to Illinois. 



Some discussion ensued about clover being advantageous in orchards. 

 The majority of speakers seemed to regard it as harmless. 



In regard to manures, it was stated that Illinois stood below I^ew 

 Jersey in the average acreable product of corn. The reporter thinks 

 the people begin to appreciate manure, for he saw many farmers 

 drawing manure from village stables to put upon their corn land, up 

 % in McIIenry county, last spring, and they told him there Avas no land 

 in Illinois that they knew of which would not be benefited by manure. 



The opinion was expressed that the cprn was generally badly culti- 

 vated, and that the fault was more in the lal)or than in the land. 



Mr. J. B. Ljnnan cited the authority of a lecture lately read before 

 the Illinois Industrial University for the statement that rich and fresh 

 as the soil of tliat State is supposed to be, the average crop of corn per 

 acre is less by nearly one-third than in poor, despised i^ew Jersey. 

 The average for the United States is twenty-five bushels an acre. In 

 Illinois, with a soil and climate precisely adapted to corn, the acreage 

 is no higher. In Jersey it is forty-three, in South Carolina six. 

 Illinois ought to give from the most of those deep, rich loams of hers 

 seventy-five bu!fehels of corn per acre. If Salem county, New Jersey, 

 does it, if parts of Monmouth, if the farms of eastern Pennsylvania 

 often yield ^hat much, it is because those fanners are awake to the 

 importance of saving and applying all the manure they can. "When 

 Illinois takes the lead of eastern States as a corn-growing surlace ; 

 when she beats Jersey on her sands, and Connecticut amid her stones ; 

 she will cease to wonder why this club is so much in earnest about 

 fertilizers. 



Mr. W.. S. Carpenter. — They have a practice in those prairie States 

 properly called " hogging." They turn a big drove of hogs into a 

 cornfield, and allow them to eat, and trample, and waste, and defile 

 all the grain they can. No usage can be more at war with a sound 

 and snug system. No wonder their corn and wheat crops grow 

 smaller. One idea casually mentioned in this letter I like. He says 

 he sows clover in his orchards. That is right. Clover draws its food 

 from the subsoil, and its effect is to keep the surface mellow and 

 moist. Timothy is drying in its nature, and will spoil the produc- 

 tiveness of an orchard. I never put timothy among my apple trees. 



