r'T^^^ Y- 



The Illinois Farmer 



VOL. IX. 



SPRINGFIELD, ILL., MAT, 1864. 



NO. 5. 



il 



DEVOTED TO THE 



FARM, THE ORCHARD AND THE GARDEN, 



PUBLISHED BT 



BAKER & PHILLIPS, 



SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. 



M:. L. JDJJNli.AF, Editor. 



All business letters should be addressed to the 

 publishers. 



^^©^BxcHANGES and all matters pertaining to the 

 editorial department, must be directed to Illiuois 

 Farmee, Champaign, III., as the editor resides at 

 that point, and is seldom at the office of publication, 

 from which he is distant over eighty miles. 



*x* ^o"" terms see prospectus and special notices in 

 advertising department. 



May. 



May crowned with vernal Flora is 

 always welcome. It is the last month 

 of spring, that sends out tree and plant 

 fall'robed, for summer. Now the orch- 

 ards are sheeted with bloom and the 

 pastures carpeted with the richest 

 grass ; the gardens give their first of- 

 ferings of radishes, of peas, of lettuce, 

 of onions and other vernal vegetables, 

 and will have the strawberry and May 

 cherry ready to greet the incoming of 

 June. May has no idle hands, for she 

 keeps them all busy ; she must make 

 amends for the tardiness and fickleness 

 of March and April ; she must bring 

 forward and finish up what they have 



neglected ; but bright, smiling May is 

 competent to the task, and she will turn 

 over to the keeping of summer whatev- 

 er the husbandman placed in the hands 

 of March and April, to perform or to 

 turn the unfinished task over to her 

 willing hands. 



Proudly the farmer boy drives his 

 new sulkv cultivator astride the rows 

 of corn, or marks out the rows and cov- 

 ers the potato, that crop which to him 

 had always been a dread, now assumes 

 a new aspect. Father has cut the seed 

 potatoes and Brother John drops them 

 along the tiny furrow made by the 

 Stafford — one bout opens the furrow 

 and another has covered the seed far 

 better than it can be done bv the use of 

 the hoe. Let us see : this is at the rate 

 of four acres a day — just what John 

 can drop. When the plants first make 

 their appearance above ground, harrow 

 lengthwise the rows and roll them ; 

 when, a few days later, the sulky takes 

 them in hand, and once a week thereaf- 

 ter until the blossoms are ready to open; 

 they will then be nicely ridged up, 

 clean and thrifty — thanks to the new 

 sulky. The rows of beans, melons and 

 other garden truck, have been dressed 

 out in the highest style of the art, and 

 our farmer boy looks over the -work in 

 triumph. When the team is turned out 

 at night he is not tired out, his legs do 

 not drag heavily, and he enters the fam- 

 ily sitting room cheerful and elastic; an 



