MACON COUNTY. 189 



fruit, and yields excellent crops of wheat, averaging 20 to 25 and some- 

 times as much as 35 bushels per acre. 



There is generally a belt a mile in width of poorer land with a yellowish 

 soil extending along the South Fork, often spreading out into white oak 

 flats, with a growth principally of white oak, black oak, post oak and 

 low willow. Indifferent corn and tolerably good wheat can be raised 

 on this soil. 



Good Osage orange hedges have been planted, and succeed very well 

 in this county, and there are also some willow hedges. 



Macon County is bounded on the north by DeWitt, on the east by 

 Piatt and Moultrie, on the south by Moultrie, Shelby and Christian, 

 and on the west by Christian, Sangamon and Logan counties. 



It embraces an area of about 555 square miles, the greater part of 

 which is prairie, the timber being restricted to a three mile belt along 

 Sangamon river, becoming narrower towards the eastern part of the 

 county, a similar belt near Big creek, and a two mile strip along 

 Friends' creek. There is a quantity of good timber both on the hills 

 and bottoms, including white oak, black oak, bur-oak, red oak, laurel 

 oak, pin-oak, swamp white oak, chestnut oak, hackberry, hickory, elm, 

 honey locust, sassafras and ash. White walnut and blue ash are found 

 on the bottoms of Big creek, but are not common. 



The general surface of the country is flat or gently undulating on the 

 prairies, becoming more hilly as we approach the streams. From the 

 northern part of the county the surface declines with gentle undula- 

 tions southwardly to the timber, and from the high prairie in the north 

 there is a fine southward view to the Sangamon timber ten miles dis- 

 tant. "West of Harristown the slopes are extremely gentle from the 

 high prairie to the Sangamon bottoms. Bastwardly the timbered land 

 is more hilly, becoming quite broken near Decatur, with lower hills 

 near the east county line. Near Decatur the hills rise by long slopes 

 to a hight of about 90 feet above the bottoms, and are higher than the 

 general surface of the country a little south. On Sangamon river near 

 the east county line, and on Big creek north of Mt. Zion, the hills are 

 not often over 30 or 40 feet high. 



Near the edge of the prairie south of Niantic there is a low sandy 

 ridge with a growth of bur oak, black walnut, red oak, hackberry and 

 hickory, changing to black oak, elm and hickory, then to black oak, 

 hickory, elm and laurel oak. Where clay predominates pin-oak and 

 elm constitute the principal growth ; the richest spots abound in cherry, 

 laurel oak, hazel, elm, mulberry, redbud and black walnut. A well 

 dug at this place gives the following section : 



