Q52 
AMEKICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
A P 101 ITIIF. OF FARMING IN 
CENTRAL ILLINOIS’ 
[We piesent below the first of a series of letters from an 
Intelligent farmei, or ‘ Farmer Physician,* recently settled 
m Christian County, which lies but a little south of the geo¬ 
graphical center of the Prairie State. During the past sea¬ 
son we journeyed very nearly 2,500 miles in different 
parts of Illinois, and wo came to the conclusion, that 
taking into account ttie very small proportion of waste 
land, the native richness of the soil, its ease of opening, 
tire position of the State as respects markets, &c., Illinois 
is to be the empire Agricultural State. She has a strong 
rival “over the river" in Iowa, but has, to say the least, 
the advantage of being nearer to the Eastern seaboard— 
the great outlet for surplus agricultuial products. Mis¬ 
souri will ultimately come up to lively competition with 
noth Iowa and Illinois, but Illinois is bound to take the 
lead. While tire sphere of the Agriculturist is essentially 
American , embracing the agriculture of our whole coun¬ 
try, we shall deem it advantageous to all our readers, 
East as well as West, to devote special chapters to the 
agricultural features of those interesting regions known 
as the prairie lands.— Ed.] 
To the Editor of American Agriculturist. 
As doubtless some of your numerous subscri¬ 
bers and readers may like to know the manner in 
which a prairie farm is opened and cultivated, I 
propose to give them herein an inkling of the 
same. The vast prairie region of Illinois was, 
before the era of railroads, as little cultivated and 
almost as sparsely tenanted as a desert, though 
not as unproductive. The building of the Iiiinois 
Central Railroad and its branch, and of the va¬ 
rious other railroads now traversing the State in 
every direction, brought into market all the pie- 
viously untilled or “ wild” prairie lands hither¬ 
to uncultivated, except near to large towns or 
rivers, because of the difficulty of getting the 
crops to market. Now settlers boldly locate 
themselves in the middle of large prairies, be¬ 
cause they have, at almost any point chosen, con¬ 
venient access to railroads whereon to ship their 
produce. 
Much diversity exists in the soil, situation and 
condition of the prairies—some being more pro¬ 
ductive than others, some wetter, some Hat, and 
some rolling. The soil is generally a black, vege¬ 
table loam, rich in humus, sometimes lacking in 
some of the conditions necessary for particular 
crop' : but usually sufficiently strong to produce 
successive gram crops tor several years without 
much manifest deterioration. 
The depth of the surface soil varies from six 
inches to three feet, underlaid by various sub¬ 
soils—here, in Christian County, by yellowish 
brown clay, yellow clay, with sandy and rocky 
strata as you descend. During the month of 
April the grass begins to shoot, and in early 
Springs the -‘rnerrie month of May” displays a 
beautiful carpet of green, richly interspersed with 
flowers of every hue. As the season advances 
and the verdme increases, the flowers change, the 
early ones being superseded by others, taller than 
the first born, to correspond with the growth of 
grass, and the present month, (September), wit¬ 
nesses flowers taller than a man on horseback, 
and rich in color. Soon will come the wane 
when flowers and grass will brown and yield their 
life to the unmerciful hand of Jack Frost. 
From April, if an early Spring, to the middle of 
July, is the season considered best for breaking 
up the native sod. because the growing grass 
soonest dies when turned under at this time. If 
plowed helm e this, the grass, unless plowed very 
deep, grows upwards through the inverted sod ; 
if plowed later than this season it does not prop¬ 
erly rot, and will be hard to cultivate the ensuing 
year. This is Sucker philosophy, partly right, 
and, I think, partly wrong. My own views I will 
give at a future period. The shallower the sod is 
turned the sooner does it rot. This sod is a 
matted mass of grass and flower roots, with oc¬ 
casional patches of red root —a tough customer— 
and willow roots, the plowman’s hate. 
Freshly broken prairie is usually planted with 
corn, either dropped in every third furrow as 
plowed, or afterward by a hand-planter, an ax, or 
a pointed stick. It is also broken to lay until 
Fall seeding with wheat, by which time it is 
usually tolerably well rotted. 
This prairie breaking is something of a job, and 
requires a good steel plow. Formerly, it was not 
deemed possible to break prairie with horses and 
small plows, hut large plows and from four to 
eight yoke of oxen were thought requisite. It 
has since been found that 12-ineh plows of pecu¬ 
liar construction, and two or three good horses, 
can do the same work as a 24-inch plow and five 
yoke of oxen. Breaking-plows for cattle, and 
sometimes the smaller ones for horses, are rigged 
with a long beam, an axle and two wheels, one to 
run in the furrow, of somewhat larger diameter 
than the other, which runs on the land. The 
beam works between two uprights, set in the axle, 
and is raised or lowered by a lever, one end of 
which is fastened to the beam near the clevis, the 
other rests on a support near the plow handles. 
I believe two or three good horses with a properly 
constructed plow will do more work than the ox 
teams, and better. 
When the inverted sod is planted in corn, noth¬ 
ing more is done to the crop until it is harvested. 
If intended for wheat, the grain is sown on it in 
September, and harrowed in—very few harrowing 
the ground before sowing. I belong to the pro¬ 
gressive scTiool of agriculture, and have deviated 
from the old fogy, sucker mode of sowing wheat. 
My ground was well broken, and turned perfectly 
fiat, each furrow slice fitting down next its neigh¬ 
bor like floor planks. I made myself a heavy 
double harrow, four bars in each half, and twenty- 
teeth in each half, or forty teeth in the whole har¬ 
row. It was run twice the same way the land 
was broken. “ Why, doctor! what are you going 
to the trouble of harrowing your land before seed¬ 
ing fori” ask the old Suckers. “I am going to 
drill in my wheat, gentlemen.” “ Oh ! nonsense, 
it is impossible.” After the harrowing I drilled in 
one bushel oi wheat to the acre, a rain immedi¬ 
ately after brought it up at once, and, September 
1st, shone on as beautiful a field of green as I ever 
saw. “ Well I declare !” says old Sucker, “ w ho 
ever saw such a crop on sod; why, doctor, it is 
good for forty bushels an acre if for one; but you 
sowed too much seed.” “ Not so, old friend, only 
one bushel to the acre, but every grain grows, 
and all is put at a uniform depth. It is not from 
half an inch to six deep in the ground, or lying 
uncovered on top, but every grain well covered 
about an inch-and-a-half deep.” 
So much for this deviation from old fogy farm¬ 
ing here. My next innovation w-ill be, plowing 
in October for Spring wheat and corn. 
Houses on the prairies are generally built of 
wood, and cost from two hundred up to a thous¬ 
and dollars; for the latter sum an excellent house 
can be built. Water is found at from ten to thir¬ 
ty feet, very good, usually hard. Fencing is of 
various kinds, as may suit the owner’s fancy or 
location, hedge and ditch, post and board, wire, or 
worm fence of rails. 
Lumber costs at the mills from $17 to $20 per 
thousand feet. Posts, split, seven cents a piece. 
Oxen are worth $75, and superior yokes $125. 
Horses from $100 to $150 each. The second 
year a prairie farm can be plow-ed with two 
horses very easily, the sod having well rotted, 
and the soil being loose and light. Corn is plant¬ 
ed in various ways, to suit the owner’s fancy, 
some in drills, some in hills, generally too thick in 
the hill. Few, if any of the farmers thin out 
their corn after planting—they say for want ot 
time. Corn yields from forty to. eighty bushels 
per acre. It is gathered in the Fall, Winter, and 
sometimes not till the ensuing Spring, and put 
into rail pens to be shucked, (husked), and sold or 
fed to hogs as the case may be. Wheat is sown 
at the rate of a bushel and a half per acre, care¬ 
lessly put in by most farmers here, and about as 
much cheat sown as wheat. The yield is from 
fifteen to forty bushels an acre. Most of the farm¬ 
ers hereabouts, within a range of fifty miles, with 
whose opinions I have become acquainted, believe 
that wheat will turn to chess. They cite numer¬ 
ous examples, and certain modes of testing, to 
prove their conclusions just. One of these ex¬ 
periments is to lay a board on the growing wheat 
when several inches high, and after it has lain 
sufficiently long for the wheat to turn yellow un¬ 
derneath, remove the latter, and let the wheat 
grow, marking the spot where the board was 
placed. The spot in harvest will be found all cheat 
and no wheat. The wheat must be perfectly 
clean before sowing, and the spot chosen free from 
cheat. This is asserted to be a certain recipe for 
the transmutation of wheat to cheat. 
It may be mentioned in connection with this 
current opinion here, that I have not ysi found a 
farmer who takes an agricultural paper. 
Wheat is generally cut by machines, stacked, 
and thrashed in the field, the grain sold at the 
nearest market, and the straw burned. Oats do 
not do well until a few years after the land has 
been in cultivation, as they grow too much to 
straw. Barley does well, but hitherto has not 
been much cultivated. Potatoes are a good crop. 
Trees grow well in the prairie, and settlers 
plant out different varieties around their dwell¬ 
ings, mostly fruit trees, which do not do well on 
the bleak prairies. Small fruits flourish very well, 
but should have some sand about their roots or 
stems, as they otherwise make more leaves than 
fruit. Vegetables of all kinds are prolific here, 
the melon tribe wonderfully so. 
Plowing by contract costs $2 50 to $3 per acre, 
and many thousand acres are thus broken up. 
Any man who wants to commence farming on 
the prairies must be possessed of means and en¬ 
ergy, and not expect to make a fortune too easy. 
A section of land requires about $5,000 cash 
to commence profitably, while it will require all 
of the half of that sum to farm a quarter section 
as it should be done. I include cost of land, 
house, fencing, animals, implements, &c. I need 
not make the estimates, each one can figure for 
himself. 
But little grass is as yet raised for hay. The 
ease with which the land is cultivated tends to 
make slovenly farmers. There is a want of care 
and neatness perceptible on most prairie farms. 
There is also a want of education among the 
children of farmers here. The little they do re¬ 
ceive is but superficial, and they lack all necessary 
tuition having any bearing upon their occupation. 
County Agricultural Societies exist, and these 
may, properly managed, do much good, but there 
is a great need of agricultural newspapers, the 
monitors and assistants to all good farmers^ 
There is plenty of fine land here yet open to 
settlers, at various prices—and improved farms 
also to be purchased. A new class of farmers 
are coming in, and things will begin to change I 
hope for the better. I shall endeavor to set an 
example for old fogyism to profit by. I hope to 
stir up the “ natives” to the value of agricultural 
periodicals, and try to make them “take the 
