Part 20 (1/2)

The _gopher_ is a singular little animal, about the size of a squirrel.

It burrows in the ground, is seldom seen, but its _works_ make it known.

It labors during the night, in digging subterranean pa.s.sages in the rich soil of the prairies, and throws up hillocks of fresh earth, within a few feet distance from each other, and from twelve to eighteen inches in height.

The gray and fox squirrels often do mischief in the cornfields, and the hunting of them makes fine sport for the boys.

_Common rabbits_ exist in every thicket, and annoy nurseries and young orchards exceedingly. The fence around a nursery must always be so close as to shut out rabbits; and young apple trees must be secured, at the approach of winter, by tying straw or corn stalks around their bodies, for two or three feet in height, or the bark will be stripped off by these mischievous animals.

_Wild horses_ are found ranging the prairies and forests in some parts of the State. They are small in size, of the Indian or Canadian breed, and very hardy. They are found chiefly in the lower end of the American Bottom, near the junction of the Kaskaskia and Mississippi rivers, called _the Point_. They are the offspring of the horses brought there by the first settlers, and which were suffered to run at large. The Indians of the West have many such horses, which are commonly called Indian ponies.

_Domestic Animals._ These are the same as are found in other portions of the United States. But little has been done to improve the breed of horses amongst us. Our common riding or working horses average about fifteen hands in height. Horses are much more used here than in the Eastern States, and many a farmer keeps half a dozen or more. Much of the travelling throughout the Western country, both by men and women, is performed on horseback; and a large proportion of the land carriage is by means of large wagons, with from four to six stout horses for a team.

A great proportion of the ploughing is performed by horse labor. Horses are more subject to diseases in this country than in the old States, which is thought to be occasioned by bad management, rather than by the climate. A good farm horse can be purchased for fifty dollars. Riding or carriage horses, of a superior quality, cost about seventy-five or eighty dollars. Breeding mares are profitable stock for every farmer to keep, as their annual expense in keeping is but trifling: their labor is always needed, and their colts, when grown, find a ready market. Some farmers keep a stallion, and eight or ten brood mares.

_Mules_ are brought into Missouri, and find their way to Illinois, from the Mexican dominions. They are a hardy animal, grow to a good size, and are used by some, both for labor and riding.

Our _neat cattle_ are usually inferior in size to those of the old States. This is owing entirely to bad management. Our cows are not penned up in pasture fields, but suffered to run at large over the commons. Hence _all_ the calves are preserved, without respect to quality, to entice the cows homeward at evening.

In autumn their food is very scanty, and during the winter they are permitted to pick up a precarious subsistence amongst fifty or a hundred head of cattle. With such management, is it surprising that our cows and steers are much inferior to those of the old States?

And yet, our beef is the finest in the world. It bears the best inspection of any in the New Orleans market. By the first of June, and often by the middle of May, our young cattle on the prairies are fit for market. They do not yield large quant.i.ties of tallow, but the fat is well proportioned throughout the carca.s.s, and the meat tender and delicious. By inferiority, then, I mean the _size_ of our cattle in general, and the quant.i.ty and quality of the milk of cows.

Common cows, if suffered to lose their milk in August, become sufficiently fat for table use by October. Fallow heifers and steers, are good beef, and fit for the knife at any period after the middle of May. Nothing is more common than for an Illinois farmer to go among his stock, select, shoot down, and dress a fine beef, whenever fresh meat is needed. This is often divided out amongst the neighbors, who in turn, kill and share likewise. It is common at camp and other large meetings, to kill a beef and three or four hogs for the subsistence of friends from a distance.

Steers from three years old or more, have been purchased in great numbers in Illinois, by drovers from Ohio. Cattle are sometimes sent in flat boats down the Mississippi and Ohio, for the New Orleans market.

We can hardly place limits upon the amount of beef cattle that Illinois is capable of producing. A farmer calls himself poor, with a hundred head of horned cattle around him. A cow in the spring is worth from seven to ten or fifteen dollars. Some of the best quality will sell higher. And let it be distinctly understood, once for all, that a poor man can always purchase horses, cattle, hogs, and provisions, for labor, either by the day, month, or job.

Cows, in general, do not produce the same amount of milk, nor of as rich a quality as in older States. Something is to be attributed to the nature of our pastures, and the warmth of our climate, but more to causes already a.s.signed. If ever a land was characterized justly, as ”flowing with milk and honey,” it is Illinois and the adjacent States.

From the springing of the gra.s.s till September, b.u.t.ter is made in great profusion. It sells at that season in market for about ten cents. With proper care it can be preserved in tolerable sweetness for winter's use. Late in autumn and early in the winter, sometimes b.u.t.ter is not plenty. The feed becomes dry, the cows range further off, and do not come up readily for milking, and dry up. A very little trouble would enable a farmer to keep three or four good cows in fresh milk at the season most needed.

Cheese is made by many families, especially in the counties bordering on the Illinois river. Good cheese sells for eight and sometimes ten cents, and finds a ready market.

_Swine._ This species of stock may be called a staple in the provision of Illinois. Thousands of hogs are raised without any expense, except a few breeders to start with, and a little attention in hunting them on the range, and keeping them tame.

Pork that is made in a domestic way and fatted on corn, will sell from three to four and five dollars, according to size, quality, and the time when it is delivered. With a pasture of clover or blue gra.s.s, a well-filled corn crib, a dairy, and slop barrel, and the usual care that a New Englander bestows on his pigs, pork may be raised from the sow, fatted, and killed, and weigh from two hundred to two hundred and fifty, within twelve months; and this method of raising pork would be profitable.

Few families in the west and south put up their pork in salt pickle.

Their method is to salt it sufficiently to prepare it for smoking, and then make bacon of hams, shoulders, and middlings or broadsides. The price of bacon, taking the hog round, is about seven and eight cents.

Good hams command eight and ten cents in the St. Louis market. Stock hogs, weighing from sixty to one hundred pounds, alive, usually sell from one to two dollars per head. Families consume much more meat in the West in proportion to numbers, than in the old States.

_Sheep_ do very well in this country, especially in the older settlements, where the gra.s.s has become short, and they are less molested by wolves.

_Poultry_ is raised in great profusion,--and large numbers of fowls taken to market.

Ducks, geese, swans, and many other aquatic birds, visit our waters in the spring. The small lakes and sloughs are often literally covered with them. Ducks, and some of the rest, frequently stay through the summer and breed.

The prairie fowl is seen in great numbers on the prairies in the summer, and about the corn fields in the winter. This is the grouse of the New York market. They are easily taken in the winter.

Partridges, (the quail of New England,) are taken with nets, in the winter, by hundreds in a day, and furnish no trifling item in the luxuries of the city market.

_Bees._ These laborious and useful insects are found in the trees of every forest. Many of the frontier people make it a prominent business, after the frost has killed the vegetation, to hunt them for the honey and wax, both of which find a ready market. Bees are profitable stock for the farmer, and are kept to a considerable extent.

_Silk-worms_ are raised by a few persons. They are capable of being produced to any extent, and fed on the common black mulberry of the country.

_Manufactures._--In the infancy of a state, little can be expected in machinery and manufactures. And in a region so much deficient in water power as some parts of Illinois is, still less may be looked for. Yet Illinois is not entirely deficient in manufacturing enterprise.

_Salt._ The princ.i.p.al salines of this State have been mentioned under the head of minerals.

The princ.i.p.al works are at Gallatin, Big Muddy, and Vermillion salines.

_Steam Mills_ for flouring and sawing are becoming very common, and in general are profitable. Some are now in operation with four run of stones, and which manufacture one hundred barrels of flour in a day.

Mills propelled by steam, water, and animal power, are constantly increasing. Steam mills will become numerous, particularly in the southern and middle portions of the State, and it is deserving remark that, while these portions are not well supplied with durable water power, they contain, in the timber of the forest, and the inexhaustible bodies of bituminous coal, abundant supplies of fuel; while the northern portion, though deficient in fuel, has abundant water power.

A good steam saw-mill with two saws can be built for $1,500; and a steam flouring mill with two run of stones, elevators, and other apparatus complete, and of sufficient force to turn out forty or fifty barrels of flour per day, may be built for from $3,500 to $5,000.

Ox mills on an inclined plane, and horse mills by draught, are common through the country.

_Castor Oil._ Considerable quant.i.ties of this article have been manufactured in Illinois from the palma christi, or castor bean. One bushel of the beans will make nearly two gallons of the oil. There are five or six castor oil presses in the State, in Madison, Randolph, Edwards, and perhaps in other counties. Mr. Adams of Edwardsville, in 1825, made 500 gallons, which then sold at the rate of two dollars fifty cents per gallon. In 1826, he made 800 gallons; in 1827, 1000 gallons,--the price then, one dollar seventy-five cents: in 1828, 1800 gallons, price one dollar. In 1830, he started two presses and made upwards of 10,000 gallons, which sold for from seventy-five to eighty-seven cents per gallon: in 1831, about the same quant.i.ty. That and the following season being unfavorable for the production of the bean, there has been a falling off in the quant.i.ty. The amount manufactured in other parts of the State has probably exceeded that made by Mr. Adams.

_Lead._ In Jo Daviess county are eight or ten furnaces for smelting lead. The amount of this article made annually at the mines of the Upper Mississippi, has been given under the head of minerals.

_Boat Building_ will soon become a branch of business in this State.

Some steamboats have been constructed already within this State, along the Mississippi. It is thought that Alton and Chicago are convenient sites for this business.

There is in this State, as in all the Western States, a large amount of domestic manufactures made by families. All the trades, needful to a new country, are in existence. Carpenters, wagon makers, cabinet makers, blacksmiths, tanneries, &c., may be found in every county and town, and thousands more are wanted.

There has been a considerable falling off in the manufacture of whiskey within a few years, and it is sincerely hoped by thousands of citizens, that this branch of business, so decidedly injurious to the morals and happiness of communities and individuals, will entirely decline.

Several companies for manufacturing purposes, have been incorporated by the legislature.

_Civil Divisions._--There are 66 counties laid off in this State, 59 of which are organized for judicial purposes. The six last named in the following table were laid off at the recent session of the legislature, Jan. 1836. The county of _Will_ was formed from portions of Cook, Lasalle, and Iroquois, with the town of Juliet for its seat of justice, near the junction of the Kankakee and Des Plaines.

In this State, there are no _civil_ divisions into towns.h.i.+ps as in Ohio, Indiana, &c. The towns.h.i.+p tracts of six miles square, in the public surveys, relate exclusively to the land system. The State is divided into _three_ districts to elect representatives to Congress, and into _six_ circuits for judicial purposes.

TABULAR VIEW OF THE COUNTIES.

------------+----------+------+--------+----------+--------------+-----------------

Distance &

Date of

Square

Votes

Population

SEATS OF

bearing from COUNTIES.

formation.

miles.

in 1834.

1835.

JUSTICE.

Vandalia.

------------+----------+------+--------+----------+--------------+----------------- Adams,

1825

820

728

7042

Quincy,

175 _n. w._ Alexander,

1819

375

249

2050

Unity,

135 _s._ Bond,

1817

360

519

3580

Greenville,

19 _w. s. w._ Calhoun,

1825

260

151

1091

Gilhead,

134 _w. n. w._ Champaign,

1833

864

102

1045

Urbanna,

103 _n. n. e._ Clark,

1819

500

451

3413

Darwin,[A] or

82 _e. n. e._

Marshall,

Clay,

1824

620

172

1648

Maysville,

50 _s. e._ Clinton,

1824

500

414

2648

Carlyle,

28 _s. s. w._ Crawford,

1816

378

519

3540

Palestine,

100 _e._ Coles,

1830

1248

680

5125

Charleston,

75 _n. e._ Cook,

1830

[B]

528

9826

Chicago,

268 _n. n. e._ Edgar,

1823

648

788

6668

Paris,

100 _n. e._ Edwards,

1814

200

239

2006

Albion,

96 _s. e._ Effingham,

1831

486

129

1055

Ewington,

29 _e. n. e._ Fayette,

1821

684

665

3638

VANDALIA,

Franklin,

1818

850

759

5551

Frankfort,

83 _s._ Fulton,

1825

590

607

5917

Lewistown,

135 _n. n. w._ Gallatin,

1812

828

1312

8660

Equality,

100 _s. s. e._ Greene,

1821

912

1360

12274

Carrollton,

90 _w. n. w._ Hamilton,

1821

378

460

2877

McLeansboro',

76 _s. s. e._ Hanc.o.c.k,

1825

775

357

3249

Carthage,

180 _n. w._ Henry (not

1825

800

--

118

210 _n. n. w._ organized,)

Iroquois,

1833

[B]

67

1164

(Not

165 _n. n. e._

established,)

Jackson,

1816

576

354

2783

Brownsville,

96 _s. s. w._ Jasper,

1831

288

--

415

Newton,

60 _e._ Jefferson,

1819

576

455

3350

Mount Vernon,

48 _s. s. e._ Jo Daviess,

1827

[B]

492

4038

Galena, (nnw)

300 _n. n. w._ Johnson,

1812