p^-- 



1861. 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMER. 



55 



ing suns and driving rains, and call it economy, 

 in the great saving of shade trees and farm buil- 

 dings. Their homes have tfb attraction because 

 they lack those surroundings that should make 

 up the sum of comforts, that give to the family 

 those bonds of the useful and beautiful that ce- 

 ment them together. Western fa^-ming, to a 

 large extent, is but a caricature, and living on 

 the farm an empty shadow and wasting of the 

 substance, which is found in good buildings, well 

 stocked gardens, and fruitful orchards, where 

 Flora stands sentinel amongst the comforts of 

 rural life. 



A chAjSge of subject. 

 As our readers know, we sometimes travel, 

 and most generally by rail, when it does not cost 

 too much ; and a« we are good looking and dis- 

 posed to conversation, we are generally in the 

 secrets of our fellow passengers and know just 

 what they are after. Of late there has been a 

 wonderful scarcity of ladies and children, old 

 maids and bandboxes, young gentlemen with 

 small sticks and old gentlemen with high polish- 

 ed stove pipe hats, and in their place is a goodly 

 share of plain dressed people, farmers and me . 

 chanicp, real clever, sensible traveling compan- 

 ions, who as soon as they hear our name, begin 

 to crowd around and ask us all manner of ques- 

 tions about the country, the particular advan- 

 tage of this or that county for farming, or the 

 advantage of this or that village for mechanics, 

 and so busy are we in this kind of pleasant chat 

 that we are sometimes in danger of being carried 

 past the station where we intended to stop, and 

 we fear we shall be, unless the names of the sta- 

 tions are put in large letters over the doors of 

 the station houses. But to return, in these con- 

 versations we have made the discovery that near- 

 ly all the passengers are of the working class, 



looking up homes in this great West of ours. 



They have told us a great many things, in confi. 

 dence, of course, about the country where they 

 live, and how they have to dig and haul off great 

 quantities of stone from t>>e land, and to haul 

 great heaps of manure ; that the land is piled up 

 into bills, and otherwise spoiled by great ledges 

 of rocks or great deep swamps ; that it takes a 

 life time to clear up and put a farm in order 

 while here, on the broad swe?p of our rolling 

 prairie, a home, with all the comforts and con- 

 veniences of life, can be carved out and set up in 

 perfect order in two or three years ; and that the 

 mechanic has there to pay exhorbitant prices for 

 Illinois beef and flour, and they are now deter- 

 mined to settle here and become growers and con- 

 sumers ; that next fall their wives and little ones 



will be coming West, when the balance will 

 again be adjustfd between the male and female 

 passengers, but all on the incoming trains, as no 

 women and children will be found traveling East. 

 We let you into the discovery, having confidence 

 you will not be telling it to outsiders, so that it 

 will get back to these worthy people who hare 

 confided their plans to us with so much confi- 

 dence in our discretion. 



Genius Wrecked. — Something over a year 

 since a dilapidated gentleman called on us and 

 claimed to be the inventor of the Fawkes Steam 

 Plow, then as now, standing on cur farm. A 

 glance showed us that rearon had tottered from 

 its throne, yet it had left him the address of a 

 true gentleman. Ilis statements, though border- 

 ing on the marvelous, were always clothed in 

 language correct and respectful, giving the most 

 indubitable evidence that he had been well edu- 

 cated. He gave his name as that of Greenleaf 

 R. Drake, and sa'id that he was formerly of the 

 State of Maine, but had spent some time in Mc- 

 Donough county. He eximined the plow with a 

 deep intent, and remarked that it was not built 

 as he directed. A few days after he returned 

 and wished to take possession of the plow, and 

 for the purpose he went to the depot for a car 

 and coal. He also claimed to be the inventor of 

 Waters' Steam Plow, at Detroit, for which place 

 he left. The Detroit papers announced his arri- 

 val at that place. During a blustering snow 

 storm of last week who should turn vp but our 

 quondam friend, Drake. He had been to Mis- 

 souri and other points West, had been given 

 twenty minutes by the tender mercies of a vigi- 

 lance committee at Palmyra, to quit the place, 

 but he bid them defiance and left at his leisure, 

 his insanity doubtless protecting him from these 

 savages in human form. He is waiting for a 

 freeze to take the Steam Plow to Baltimore. 



According to his account he was born in 1821, 

 and is thirty-nine years old. At five he inven- 

 ted the Daguerreotype; at nine friction matches ; 

 at eleven the Threshing Machine ; at seventeen 

 the art of freezing, which he estimates at fifteen 

 millions of dollars, a liberal slice of which h© 

 proposss to devote to our especial use ; at twen- 

 ty-seven he invented the McCormick Reaper, the 

 proceeds of which, to the amount of several huQ- 

 dred thousand dollars, he has been done ovi of. 

 He also claims to be the inventor of the Light"* 

 ning Rod as now used, and of the Steam Plows, 

 one of which he calls Waters' and tie other 

 Fawkes'. He has had numerous balls shot 

 through him, and one of which striking his rib 



