200 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEE. 



JUXT 



stroyer had passed. Behind it the small grains 

 were cut as with a scythe and passed over with a 

 roller, the rows of corn and potatoes wiped out, 

 the fields were covered with mud and water ; the 

 hail, which was of small size but hard as ice, lay 

 two inches deep or drifted into heaps; the or- 

 chards that lay in the centre of its path were 

 stripped of fruit, leaves, and the bark from the 

 northwest sides of the trees, buildings torn down, 

 fences crushed as with a huge roller, and from 

 amid this wreck went up the wailing cry of 

 maimed women and children, whose homes had 

 crumbled to piects like pasteboard in the hands 

 of a giant. For the first half of its course the 

 main pathway was about three miles wide, but 

 after passing the farm of Mr. J. B. Phinney, it 

 spr"ad out to some five mile?, and to this may be 

 attributed the saving of any portion of our nur- 

 sery stock, which though severely injured, will 

 to a great extent recover. 



INJURY TO PEHSONS- 



We do not as yet hear of any fatal accident, 

 though a large number of persons were more or 

 less injured ; in one house a woman had several 

 ribs broken, and another two ribs broken and 

 otherwise severely bruised ; two large families 

 occupied this house, which was blown to pieces; 

 and, strange lo say, no one was killed, and but 

 three or four, out of some twenty, injured at all. 

 In another house a boy had both Irgs broken, one 

 of them in two places. The freight train on the 

 G. W. R. R. crossed the path of the storm, and 

 the caboose car was blown from the track and 

 two or three of its occupants somewhat bruised. 

 In all some thirty persons were more or less in- 

 jured by the falling buildings, and a large num- 

 ber badly bruised by the hail, being unable to 

 reach shelter. 



THE DAMAQE TO BUILDINGS AND FENCES. 



Nearly all the buildings in its pathway were 

 more or less injured, and all the glass in the 

 north and muc'a in the west side of the houses 

 was broken out. A large number of buildings 

 were thrown from their foundations; some blown 

 down and others unroofed, and as a perfect flood 

 of rain attended the hail, the unroofed buildings 

 were completely drenched, the plastering de- 

 stroyed, furniture and household goods injured. 

 Nothing was blown any distance, the storm ap- 

 pearing to roll over and crush everything it came 

 to. The roof on the north eide of our barn was 

 crushed in and left in that condition. We had 

 over two hundred oak fence posts broken of — 

 none of them set over three years, and in places 



where they were not well set they were thrown 

 down ; full half of the fences running east and 

 west were thrown down. Our green-house is a 

 lean-to against a two story building, and was 

 thus protected, losing only about fifty feet of 

 glass. 



DAMAGE TO THE CROPS AND ORCHARDS. 



For the first fifteen miles nearly every orchard 

 in its path is runined, the bark having been en- 

 tirely stripped ofiF on the northwest side of the 

 trees. On the farm of Mr. Phinney not a green 

 leaf was left on fruit or shade trees, out of sev- 

 eral thousand, and every tree will have to be 

 cut back to the ground. The place is three years 

 old, and a large sum has been expended in that 

 time in tree planting. The young orchards like 

 that of Mr. P. will recover by cutting back ; but 

 few trees in the old orchards along the Sanga- 

 mon will be saved. No bark of any account was 

 stripped from our trees ; they are bad'y scarred, 

 but as this is the season of rapid growth they 

 will in a great measure recover, and the same 

 may be s 'id of the nursery. Fruits of all kinds 

 are entirely ruined in our grounds ; fortunately, 

 nearly all the gooseberries, currants and straw- 

 berries had been gathered, not over half a dozen 

 bushels being lost. Our crop of plums, the larg- 

 est and best that we have seen in the State, are 

 lost. All the Srmall cereals, such as wheat, oats, 

 rye, etc., are a total loss. Early potatoes con- 

 siderably damaged ; beans that were up are ru- 

 ined, but again replanted. Contrary to expecta- 

 tion, corn, the great crop of this section, is but 

 little injured, not so much so as though cut down 

 by a severe frost, and within the last two days it 

 has made rapid progress to regain its lost stand- 

 ing. Many have plowed up their wheat fields 

 and have planted corn, potatoes, beans, broom 

 corn, and Hungarian grass. We have some fears 

 as to the broom corn, that the injury to the main 

 stalk will give it a tendency to sucker badly, 

 which will lessen its value. The meadows had 

 been badly damaged by the army worm, (of 

 which we shall give a full account in another ar- 

 ticle) and the prairie grass has in many places 

 been cut as close as the grain, but as the pros- 

 pect is good for an abundant crop of corn and a 

 late crop of clover, with other coarse feed, our 

 farmers will not suffer. The loss of the wheat 

 and rye crops is the most serious, as the one was 

 needed for the hogs and the other for bread and 

 ready money, nor can they be replaced ; and new 

 debts will have to be contracted for the repairs 

 ing .of buildings ani fences, as there are tut few 



