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206. 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEK. 



July 



A Trip from Home and What we Saw. deposited in the fresh water lake that spread 



over this goodly land, into which the Missouri 

 poured its turbei floods from the plateaus west 

 of the great Father. But few fields are up and 

 still fewer are large enough to work. 



CROPS AT nCME. 



June 16. — Our corn, p' anted May 1, is above 

 knee high, has been wo. ked twice. That of the 

 ■ 8th to 12th, is about one f ot, alao twice worked, 

 while the last planting is but just up. Most 

 farmers in Champaign county are busy working 

 their corn, though morf or less planting will be 

 done up the twentieth i?is:ant which is consid- 

 ered the close of the plaiiti;ig season. As a gen- 

 eral thing, we place little ( : nfidence in the last 

 ten days for planting. W.nter wheat is thin on 

 the ground, and ches-^y a?? tij-ual in such cases, 

 but with long heads. No nsects have as yet 

 disturbed it, and probably will not. Eye is very 

 fine. We have three-founi s of aa acreof cotton 

 which has a good stem and looks well; it has 

 been once worked. As we I'end to visit cotton- 

 dom before our return, we siiiU have more to say 

 on this point. As at pres-t ni advised, we see no 

 more labor in its cuUuro tliin corn beyond that 

 imposed on the thinnir.j; ou', he several scrap- 

 ings and hoeings in vogue vri.n the planters look 

 to us as useless. The hay < rop is of fine prom- 

 ise, in fact the crops ic this oouuty are as good 

 as usual, though corn is v; v backward, yet the 

 color and stand are both t j our taste. 



As we move south with i):e rapid motion of 

 the train, the corn g'OFP smaller, while the 

 wheat improves, bo h "n anility and ripeness, 

 our being scarcely out of tic om, while some fields 

 as we reach Mattooa are pu'ting on their gold 

 and yellow, looking lo the \jt far oflf harvest. 



AT FABINA 



The "May" wheat is nearly ready for the 

 sickle, some say within two or three days. The 

 crop is good, much better than usual, farmers re- 

 porting prospective yields of twenty, thirty, and 

 even thirty-five bushels per acre, with an aver- 

 age of twenty, but those along the road would 

 hardly warrant this latter conclusion. The Pot- 

 ticary Bros, have three hundred acres of wheat 

 nearly ripe, one hundred acres of rye and oats 

 and some three hundred acres of corn. They are 

 Scotch farmers from Canada, ard have been here 

 two years. They will show what can be done 

 with capital, energy and tact. 



PEACHES. 



KOLLIKl C >KN. 



Near Oakland we sxr, i t 

 He had a large field, now s 

 the land was consi^'erabl} 

 of rain during the tim:; of 

 to stop the train and cm^ 

 his good sense, but conui.ct 



ner rolling his corn. 

 ip about four inches 

 c I ddy from an excess 

 j. lowing. We wanted 

 .tulate this man on 

 CI Scott could not do 



so, having made arrangemunts to be at Centralia 

 at a particular hour ; .now. ver, we done the best 

 we could under the circumstances, and swung 

 our hat at him, to T»hich t.e responded by a long 

 gaze as the flying train carried us out of his 

 Bight. We will bet this r^ an takes the Illinois 

 Farmer, and further ;bar ho will have the best 

 yield of corn in bib nei^rhbirhood. 



From Mattoon, we rnri'liy descend into the 



Strange as it may seem, there is a good show 

 of peaches at Champaign, while at Mattoon and 

 along the road gome distance further south, the 

 crop is cut off by frost. This is not the first oc- 

 currence of the kind, and we shall have more to 

 say in regard to it at another time. 



Here the corn planting is continued up to the 

 time of the wheat harvest, but it is most certain- 

 ly a bad plan to delay it so late in the season. 

 April and May are by far the better months to 

 plant in. It is a shiftless practice to say the 

 least of it, and we hope to see it abandoned. 

 Early planted corn is always ihe best. 



Another drawbaek to late planting is that on 

 account of the dryness of the soil the corn will 

 not be up for one or two weeks. The use of an 

 iron roller will remedy this by pulverizing the 

 innumerable small lumps, and by pressing the 

 soil so close that enough moisture is retained to 

 insure germination. Farmers of the Great Ba- 

 sin, the iron roller will make your fortune if you 

 will use it diligently and prudently ; you cannot 

 afford to do without it — give it a fair trial and 

 you will not part with it. The subsoil plow to 

 drain your soil so that you can plow where the 

 land is comparatively wet, is another improve- 

 ment that you need. You don't want the Michi- 

 gan or trench plow, but the steel subsoil, that 

 will loosen up the bottom and drive off the sur- 

 plus water. 



AT TONTI 



Basin of Egypt, ana are s.-.n coursing over the The land is nearly level, yet the farmers who 

 beds of lime mud drift, i):.t centuries ago were | have plowed the grounds into narrow lands, thus 



