Peoria County, Illinois - Chapter 17: Physical Features of Illinois - Agricultural and Other, 1880

Chapter 17: Physical Features of Illinois - Agricultural and Other

Area of Square Miles - Climate - Soil - Adaptation to Aericullural Purposes - Fanii Implementi in 1876 - Railroad and Shippinj; Interests - Permanent School Fund - Manufaclurini; Indu>lries.

In ;irea the State has .5.5,410 square miles of territory. It is about l.'iO miles wide and 400 miles long, stretching in latitude from Maine to North Carolina. The climate varies from Portland to Richmond. It favors every product of the continent, including the tropics, with less th;m half a do/.en exceptions. It produces every great food of the world except banatiiis and rice. It is hardly too much to say tiiat it is the most productive spot known to civilization. With the soil full of br<»adand the earth ftill of minerals: with an upper surfftce of food and an under layer of fuel ; with perfect natural drainage, and abundant springs, and streams, and navdgable rivers ; half way between the forests of the North and the fruits of the South ; within a day's ride of the great deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead and zinc ; and containing and controlling the great grain, cattle, pork and lumber markets of the world, it is not strange that Illinois has the advantage of position.

There are no mountains in Illinois ; in the southern as well as in the northern part of the State there are a few hills ; near the banks of the Illinois, Mississippi, and several other rivers, the ground is elevated, forming the so-called bluffs, on which at the present day may be found, uneffaced by the hand of Time, the marks and traces left by the water which was formerly much higher ; whence it may be safe to conclude that, where now the fertile prairies of Illinois extend, and the rich soil of the country yields its golden harvests, must have been a vast sheet of water, the mud deposited by which formed the soil, thus accounting for the present great fertility of the country.

Illinois is a garden 400 miles long and 150 miles wide. Its soil is chiefly a black, sandy loam, from six inches to sixtj' feet thick. About the old French towns it has yielded corn for a century and a half without rest or help. She leads all other States in the number of acres actually under plow. Her mineral wealth is scarcely second to her agricultural power. She has coal, iron, lead, zinc, copper, many varieties of building stone, marble, fire clay, cuma clay, common brick clay, sand of all kinds, gravel, mineral paint, in fact, every thing needed for a high civilization.

Agkicultukai, Akd Other Kesoueces

If any State of the Union is adapted for agriculture, and the other branches of rural economy relating thereto, such as the raising of cattle and the culture of fruit trees, it is pre-eminently Illinois. Her extremely fertile praries recompense the farmer at less trouble and expense than he would be obliged to incur elsewhere, in order to obtain the same results. Her rich soil, adapted by nature for immediate culture, only awaits the plow and the seed in order to mature, within a few months, a most bountiful harvest. A review of statistics will be quite interesting to the reader, as well as valuable, as showing the enormous quantities of the various cereals produced in our Prairie State :

In 1876 there was raised in the State 130,000,000 bushels of corn - twice as much as any other State, and one-sixth of all the corn raised in the United States. It would take 375,000 cars to transport this vast amount of corn to market, which would make 15,000 trains of 25 cars each. She harvested 2,747,000 tons of hay, nearly one-tenth of all the hay in the Republic. It is not generally appreciated, but it is true, that the hay crop of the country is worth more than the cotton crop. The hay of Illinois equals the cotton of Louisiana. Go to Charleston, S. C, and see them peddling handfuls of hay or grass, almost as a curiosity, as we regard Chinese gods or the cryolite of Greenland ; drink your coffee and condensed milk ; and walk back from the coast for many a league through the sand and burs till you get up into the better atmosphere of the mountains, without seeing a waving meadow or a grazing herd ; then you will begin to appreciate the meadows of the Prairie State.

The value of her farm implements was, in 1876, $211,000,000, and the value of live stock was only second to New York. The same year she had 25,000,000 hogs, and packed 2,113,845, about one-half of all that were packed in the United States. She marketed $57,000,000 worth of slaughtered animals - more than any other State, and a seventh of all the States.

Illinois excels all other States in miles of railroads and in miles of postal service, and in money orders sold per annum, and in the amount of lumber sold.

Illinois was only second in many important matters, taking the reports of 1876. This sample list comprises a few of the more important: Permanent school fund ; total income for educational purposes ; number of publishers of books, maps, papers, etc. ; value of farm products and implements, and of live stock ; in tons of coal mined.

The shipping of Illinois was only second to New York. Out of one port during the business hours of the season of navigation she sent forth a vessel every nine minutes. This did not include canal boats, which went one every five minutes.

She was fifth in value of real and personal property, in theological seminaries, and colleges exclusively for women, in milk sold, and in boots and shoes manufactured, and in book-binding.

She was only seventh in the production of wood, while she was the twelfth in area. Surely that was well done for the Prairie State. She then had, in 1876, much more wood and growing timber tlian she had thirty years before.

A few leading industries will justify emphasis. She manufactured 8'20.5,000,000 worth of goods, which placed her well up toward New York and Pennsylvania. The number of her manufacturing establishments increased from 1860 to 1S70, :',00 per cent.; capital employed increased 350 per cent. ; and the amount of product increased 400 per cent. She issued 5,500,000 coi)ies of commercial and financial newspapers, being only second to New York. Slie had 6,759 iniles of railroad, then leading all other States, wortli 8636,4.58,000, using 3,245 engines, and 67,712 cars, making a train long enough to cover one-tenth uf tiie entire roads of the State. Her stations were only five miles apart. She carried in, 1876, 15,795,000 passengers an average of o6i miles, or equal to taking her entire population twice across the State. More than two-thirds of her land was within five miles of a railroad, and less than two per cent, was more than fifteen miles away.

The State has a large financial interest in the Illinois Central Railroad. The road was incorporated in 1850, and the State gave each alternate section for six miles on each side, and doubled the price of the remaining land, so keeping herself good. Tiie road received 2,595,000 acres of land, and paid to the State one-seventh of the gross receipts. The State received in 1877, 8.'550,000, and liad received up to that year in all about 87,- 000,000. It was practically the people's road, and it iiad a most able and gentlemanly management. Add to the above amount tlie annual receipts from the canal, $111,000, and a large per cent, of the State tax was provided for.