Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/724

704 704 ILLINOIS mown thousands of tons of the wild grass for hay, which is as nutritious and brings as high a price in market as &quot;tame hay.&quot; All the cereals, roots, fruits, grasses, and vegetables of the temperate zone are grown in Illinois, and some of the semi-tropical productions, as cotton and amber cane. Because of the richness of the soil, cultivators still plough very shallow, and neglect manuring, or even rotation of crops, in the larger portion of the State. It is usual to plant maize for ten or twenty years in succession, only changing the crop to wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, or rye when the market prices of these cereals promise larger profits than maize. Upon any sign of exhaustion, the pro ductiveness may be restored by deeper ploughing, grass ing, fallowing, and applying barnyard manure. In half a century there has never been a bad failure of crops ; twice or thrice there has been insufficient rain, and as often too much, and once a frost in summer ; but the injury in no one year was so great or so widespread as to produce gene ral distress among farmers. Minerals. Coal is found in nearly all parts of the State; it is bituminous, a small proportion being cannel. The beds vary from 3^ to 8 feet in thickness. The Coal- measures are part of the general formation extending from beyond the Mississippi river in Missouri, across Illinois and parts of Indiana and Ohio, and into Kentucky. It is esti mated that three-fourths of the surface area of the State are underlain by beds of coal. There are twelve separate and well-defined beds of from 4 to 8 feet in thickness. The State is supplied with coal for consumption, not only from the mines of Illinois, but also from those of Indiana and Ohio by rail, and with anthracite from Pennsylvania by lake. The coal mined in the State is between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000 tons annually. Near Galena, in the north west part of the State, are lead mines which have been worked for half a century, and which at one time made Galena the most prosperous city in the State. Salt springs are found in the south-east counties. Stone suitable for building is found in various parts of the State. An inexhaustible field of limestone, called &quot; Lemont marble,&quot; is found near Chicago, and has been largely used in rebuilding that city. State Lands. The lands in the State were thus classi fied in the years 1878 and 1880: in the former year there were 25,639,304 acres of improved and 8,635,953 of unimproved lands (total, 34,275,257), while in the latter year the numbers were 26,174,566 and 8,204,505 (total, 34,379,071 acres). The city and town lots num bered 365,344 improved and 486,731 unimproved in 1878, and 374,664 improved and 484,932 unimproved in 1880. The railroads hold 13,253 acres of land and 3028 city and town lots. The improved lands were under cultivation in 1878 and 1880, as follows : 1878. 1880. Wheat Acres. 2 118 000 Acres. 2 702 380 M aixe 7 062 502 7 592 152 Oats 1,582 387 1 703 843 Meadows 2 102 990 2 267 945 Other field products 698,116 667 890 Enclosed pasture 4,034,551 4,242,713 Orchards 271,565 293 593 Woodland 3,982,807 3,708 567 Agricultural Products. The great crops of Illinois are maize or Indian corn, wheat, and hay ; and much atten tion is also given to the raising of live stock. The Stale produces more wheat than any other State in the Union. The farms number about 247,000. We give full agricul tural returns for 1879, and those for 1880 so far as com pleted to December of that year: Acres. Arerage per Acre. Bushels. Bushels Produced. Total Value. Wheat. 1879 2,440,800 18| 45,417,661 $39,930,639 1880 3,256,350 17* 56,508,309 46,497,160 Maize. 1879 7,918,881 38 305,913,377 97,483,052 1880 Returns not complete d. Oats. 1879 1,631,139 33^ 54,664,569 12,059,162 1880 1,749,391 35 62,709,062 12,858,247 Hay. Tons. 1879 2,332,278 2,578,736 16,428,012 1880 2,259,857 3,486,584 22,589,691 The following table gives returns for 1879 :- Acres. Quantity. Value. Rye... 235,073 4, 238, 824 bush $1 991 401 Barley 578,911 ,, 265 951 Pasture 4,193,884 12 319 620 Orchards Potatoes 290,646 90,351 7 125 932 2,497,687 3 506 758 Sorghum 14,949 1,524, 705 galls. 579 257 Flax seed 990 447 bush 1 9 96 758 Hogs sold 1 984 194 16 640 061 Fat cattle sold... Fat sheep sold ... 16,751,450 513,884 Railways. In 1850 Congress granted to the State, to aid in the construction of a railway from Cairo to Galena and Chicago, alternate sections of land along the route ; the State transferred the grant of land to the Illinois Central Railroad Company, a corporation composed mainly of English capitalists, conspicuous among whom was Richard Cobden. These capitalists furnished the money and con structed the road, and they and their successors still own the property. The railway lies wholly within the State, though it works other lines extending south to New Orleans and west to the Missouri river. Its completion gave that impetus to the construction of railways to Chicago and across the State which has contributed so largely to the rapid development of the resources of Illinois. The State is now admirably supplied with railways, their extent reach ing 6849 miles. They cross every county in the State ; indeed, they are so numerous and so interlaced that there are few if any localities more than 10 miles from a railway, while a large proportion of the shipping points have the benefit of more than one route by which to ship and receive merchandise. The great trunk lines leading west from the Atlantic and from Canada have their termini at Chicago, or at some other point in Illinois, while those leading from the States west of the Mississippi also ter minate in Illinois, or crossing the State run further east. The system of railway government somewhat resembles that of England. A railway commission, appointed by the State, exercises a general supervision, and enforces the penalties for violations of law. The receipts of the forty-six rail ways doing business in Illinois amounted in 1879-80 to $138,659,155: the working expenses to $73,089,185; and the net income to $61,093,612. Inland Navigation. In addition to the railway traffic, there is much business done by steamboats at Cairo, East St Louis, Alton, Quincy, Rock Island, and other points on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, though transportation by river has declined much of late years. The Illinois and Michigan canal is 93 miles long, and connects Lake Michigan at Chicago with the Illinois river, at the head of the navigation of that river. This canal has cost $17,000,000, but is now too small for the service needed. The Illinois river is formed by the union of the Kankakee and Des Plaines rivers, which junction occurs 45 miles south-west of Chicago. It receives, besides the rivers named,