BUNLEITH TO MENDOTA. 49 



ception of tliat portion between London and Brighton, to be an 

 undulating plain, uniderlaid in various places with extensive 

 deposits of coal and iron ; — ^between London and Brighton let 

 the country appear to him to be covered with timber, with a 

 climate and soil peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of fruit 

 and grapes, and to the production of the very finest quality of 

 white wheat ; — ^let the entire area from London northwards to 

 Newcastle on the one side, and Glasgow on the other, represent 

 "the prairies" of Illinois, — open steppe-like lands, covered 

 with coarse natural grasses, with scattered copses of timber on 

 the ridges and along the watercourses, and abounding in every 

 element of fertility. He will thus be better able to realise the 

 appearance of this vast open undulating plain, than which there 

 is no other in the temperate zone so uninterruptedly extensive 

 and fertile. 



I spent most of the month of October in making a more 

 minute and detailed examination of farming on the prairie, and 

 will now ask the reader to accompany me in my ride, before 

 troubling him with the figures and conclusions at which I finally 

 arrived. The railway shall transport us from point to point on 

 the route, and a very light waggon or carriage invariably drawn 

 by a " span " (as they are called here) or pair of light active 

 horses, of great spirit and endurance, shall convey us hither and 

 thither over the country in our inspection of the prairie farms* 



Starting from the north-western point at Dunleith, the first 

 halt we make is at Mendota, about seventy or eighty miles 

 from the northern boundary of the state. It is the point of 

 junction wM a railway running westward from Chicago to the 

 Mississippi, opposite Burlington in Iowa. The road traverses 

 a rich district of prairie, extremely favourable to cultivation- I 

 travelled nearly 100 miles through this part of the country, and 

 found the soil generally rich and deep, and the white clover and 

 sown grasses very healthy and luxuriant. Some com fields axe 

 3 



