AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
226 
ties, are not either good, or profitable for 
wheat. 
The corn of this three thousand acre farm 
is estimated at sixty bushels the acre. We 
saw a good many thousand acres of corn in 
Illinois last fall—the best corn year about 
ever known there—and on just such prairie 
farms. We are safe in saying that the av¬ 
erage was not more than forty bushels to the 
acre. There are lands in the State which 
will produce sixty, even eighty bushels to 
the acre; but they are not the lands in ques¬ 
tion. Along the lower vallies of the Sanga¬ 
mon, Kaskaskia, Wabash, and some other 
streams, the average may come up to sixty; 
but forty bushels on the open prairies is a 
full yield, as they run. The price of corn 
as we now see quoted in the Buffalo papers, 
is thirty-six to thirty-eight cents a bushel at 
that place, the largest grain market in the 
country. It costs full twenty cents a bushel 
to transport it from the Central Illinois prair¬ 
ies to Buffalo, therefore it is readily seen 
how much is left for the producers. 
On the fruit achievements of this vaunted 
farm, the Rev. Mr. Bush dwindles into “beau¬ 
tifully less” dimensions. “ Twelve hundred 
apple trees, five thousand peach trees, sixty 
quince trees, and fifty plum trees, and so 
on,” are numbers which any quantity of Jer¬ 
sey farmers of fifty acres calibre can beat 
him at. Apples do very well on the prairies, 
but peaches, quinces, and plums are just as 
uncertain—more so indeed—than wheat, and 
Mr. Curtis does wisely in confining himself 
to few of the last two. Peaches, in some 
localities, flourish, but the open prairies are 
too bleak and the soil too heavy for them. 
They will not pay, except as fuel, for 
which many farmers grow them exten¬ 
sively. 
We have not expended all this ink and pa¬ 
per to disparage either Mr. Curtis or his 
farm. We admire the liberality and enter¬ 
prise of this or any other gentleman, who 
seeks to bring so wide a tract of land under 
cultivation, and expend his capital for so 
praiseworthy an object; nor do we wish to 
undervalue his farm, which is no doubt a 
good one ; but we simply wish to rebuke 
this folly of men, knowing little or nothing 
of what they are writing about, setting afloat 
such mis-statements as they do in such 
descriptions. They would, if people were 
soft enough to believe these stories, make 
them utterly discontented with a condition 
truly enviable, in thei^ own homes, and set 
them at once to pulling up stakes and remo¬ 
ving, knowing not why or wherefore, after 
an ignus fatuus in this supposed El Dorado 
of the West. 
Illinois is a noble state, full of good land 
and enterprise, where large crops, in many 
things, can be grown with comparatively 
little labor, and must be sold at much less 
prices than the products of our Eastern 
lands. The enormous prices of agricultural 
products for the two past years have given a 
great impulse to western agriculture and em¬ 
igration ; but these prices are coming down, 
and the prices of western land must come 
down with them. There has been more 
new lands purchased in the States west of 
Ohio and Michigan within the last two years, 
than will be settled and occupied in the next 
twenty; and our word for it, farms west of 
Chicago can be bought for less money per 
acre five years hence than now. We well 
recollect the land fever of 1835-6 and 7, and 
“ took a small chance in,” at “ Congress 
prices” too, “ well located,” a long way this 
side of Chicago ; and now, twenty years 
after, cannot get our money back at simple 
interest, with taxes added. The great stock, 
and beef, pork, and corn country of the Uni¬ 
ted States, is west of the Alleghany Moun¬ 
tains and Lake Erie. The dairy and fruit 
country is East of them. W’heat and Wool 
can be profitably produced at the West in 
many localities, and to decided profit; but no 
one country that we have yet seen is good 
for everything. Let the farmer first know 
what he wants to grow, and then select his 
locality. 
A word as to Mr. Bush’s correctness in 
cattle raising: 
“ As a specimen of what farms in this 
part of Illinois are capable of producing, it 
may be mentioned that Mr. Harris, another 
farmer in the same neighborhood, recently 
sent to market 106 fat cattle, the average 
weight of which was 2,373 pounds each. 
The heaviest ox, called the “ baby,” weighed 
5,876 pounds. If any of our Eastern friends 
wish to try their hand at raising fat cattle, 
there is still room in the prairie for more of 
the same sort.” 
Any one not versed in matters of the sort 
would suppose the above to be a common 
transaction of an ordinary farmer, when not 
a single farmer in Illinois has ever produced 
such a head of cattle of his own breeding or 
rearing. This Mr. Harris is a cattle-dealer, 
drover, and feeder. He had got up a drove 
of finished “ blood” bullocks, at a great 
price, fed them extravagantly for the pur¬ 
pose of a great show, and probably lost 
money on them. If their “ average” weight 
(the 100 cattle) came up to 2,373 pounds 
each, they were such a drove as never, we 
venture to say, were got together by any 
other grazier in any country whatever; and 
as to the “ baby” weighing 5,876 pounds, 
none but a thorough novice in such matters 
would repeat such an absurdity. If he 
weighed as much as that into 2,000 pounds, 
he would be the heaviest ox ever yet pro¬ 
duced in the United States! We have seen 
an ox exhibited for show, which his keeper 
asserted would weigh 4,000 pounds, and al¬ 
though a wager of ten dollars was offered 
that he would not weigh that by 400 pounds, 
he would not put him on the scales. 
In great sincerity, and with a wish to add 
to the value of his labors, in his proper voca¬ 
tion, we commend the Rev. Bush, of the 
New York Evangelist, to confine his edito¬ 
rials to appropriate Church subjects, rather 
than to expose his ignorance by descriptions 
of “ Illinois Farming.” 
He, and others, by pursuing this course, 
will avoid leading eastern farmers astray. 
Doubtless we should receive similar advice, 
should we attempt to encroach upon their 
peculiar sphere. 
“ Tis false,” replied the girl when her beau 
told her she had beautiful hair. 
FARM LANDS IN EAST TENNESSEE. 
[The inquiries in our last number have 
called forth a number of responses, some of 
which indicate “ an ax to grind.” We make 
the following extract from a letter written by 
an intelligent subscriber at Knoxville, who-* 
speaks without bias, we believe, so far as; 
any one can thus speak, respecting his own . 
country. We have the writer’s address, with' 
permission to hand it to any one wishing tea 
make farther inquiries.— Ed.] 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
I notice in your June number some inqui¬ 
ries for information “respecting the lands; 
and localities around Chattanooga, and other- 
parts of East Tennessee.” 
Premising in the first place that I have 
“ no ax to grind,” being engaged in no land 
speculations in this region 3 seat myself to 
give your correspondent the benefit of my 
experience, and will proceed: to' answer his 
queries in the order proposed. 
The climate of East Tennessee Is remark¬ 
able for its salubrity, and physicians find it 
“ distressingly healthy.” In a very exten¬ 
sive acquaintance I can call to mind but one 
single individual, born and raised in this sec¬ 
tion, who is afflicted with consumption ;— 
affections of the lungs and. throat are of 
very rare occurrence. I have known many 
persons subject to pulmonary complaints 
when they removed to this region from the 
north, and never heard of one returning 
without an entire recovery ;—all attest the 
benefit of a change of climate. 
The writer spent eight years of his life in 
the State of Connecticut, and the result of 
his experience is, that the winters in East 
Tennessee are about half as cold as in the 
land of “ steady habits ;” last winter being 
the only season in thirty years that ice of 
the thickness of six inches could be obtained 
from a still pond in this region ; and whilst 
this is so, our summers are but slightly 
warmer than at New Haven. The difference 
is in the length of the season, not in the in¬ 
tensity of the heat. I have suffered more 
from heat in the city of New York than ever 
in East Tennessee. 
The next inquiry of your correspondent— 
as to the most preferable locality in this re¬ 
gion for a residence—is most difficult to an¬ 
swer, without knowing something of the 
tastes, habits, inclinations and means of the- 
enquirer. Whatever these may be, however, 
he can find a suitable home in some portion 
of East Tennessee. If he be a man of capi¬ 
tal, seeking investment for his means, he 
can here find improved lands, with good 
buildings, &c., that can be bought only at 
$30 to $50 per acre. If he desires to own 
an extensive domain of fifty or a hundred 
thousand acres, he can find several gentle¬ 
men willing to divide their estates with him 
at from twenty cents to two dollars per acre. 
I know one gentleman, a Frenchman, who 
is burdened with 500,000 acres, and consid¬ 
ers himself a poor man at that. These, of 
coutse, are mountain lands, remote from 
settlements, and such that they can never, in 
this day and generation, be brought intocul 
tivation. Yet now gnd then these wilds are 
