A prejudice at one time prevailed against the prairies as not being fit for cultivation; but this was found to be erroneous, and they are more in request as it is a most important object to save the labor of clearing the wood.
The first improvements are usually made on that part of the prairie which adjoins the timber; and thus we may see at the commencement. a range of farms circumscribing the entire prairie as with a belt. The burning of the prairies is then stopped the whole distance of the circuit in the neighborhood of these farms to prevent injury to the fences and other im provements. This is done by plowing two or three furrows all round the settlement. In a short time the timber springs up spontaneously on all the parts not burned, and the groves and forests commence a gradual encroach ment on the adjacent prairies. By and by you will see another tier of farms springing up on the outside of the first, and farther out in the prairie. Thus farm succeeds farm until the entire prairie is occupied.
In breaking up prairie land three or four yoke of oxen are required. The shear plow turns up about 18 to 24 inches of turf at a furrow to a depth of 3 to 4 inches. The sod turns entirely over so as to lay the grass down, and it fits furrow to furrow smoothly enough to harrow and sow wheat. It is usual to break it up in May, and drop corn along the edge of every fourth row. This is called sod corn. No working or plowing is necessary the first season. The sod is left lying for the grass to decay; and after the next winter's frost it crumbles and becomes light and friable.
The sod corn does not make more than half a crop. It is cut up for fodder for stock. The next year the crop of corn is most abundant, averag ing 50 bushels per acre. Well cultivated wheat averages 25 to 30 bushels; rye 25 to 35; and oats 40 to GO bushels per acre. Irish potatoes, timothy hay, and all the different garden vegetables yet tried yield most abundantly. A man here can tend double the quantity of corn that he can in newly settled timbered countries as there are no stumps to obstruct the plow or hoe.
The prairies are generally from one to six miles in width; of course, about three miles is the farthest distance from timber, and the prairie constitutes the finest natural road possible to haul on. The settlements are at present
chiefly confined to the margins of the timber and prairie.
The prairie lands are undoubtedly worth from $10 to $15 per acre more for farming than those that are timbered, not only because they are richer, but because it would take at least that sum per acre to put the timbered lands of Ohio and Indiana in the same advanced state of cultivation.
The prairies are the highest as well as the most level land, and the roads generally pass through the middle of them, from whence there is an easy slope on each side, at first barely sufficient to drain the waters towards the sides of the prairies or to the nearest point of timber.
Few have, as yet, settled out in the middle of the prairie on account of the distance from timber to build fence, etc. Those who have done so have invariably found it to their interest; and the practice will no doubt in a short time become general, until the whole of the extensive prairies of Illinois will be covered with valuable and productive farms. The middle of the prairie is not only the highest and most level, but it is the most fertile land. As the surface descends towards the timber, it has an increased unevenness and ruggedness, and the greater the descent in perpendicular depth, the less fertile is the soil.
The grass which covers the prairies in great abundance is tall and coarse in appearance. In the early stages of its growth it resembles young wheat, and in this state furnishes a succulent and rich food for cattle. They have been seen, when running in the wheat fields where the young wheat covered the ground, to choose the prairie grass on the margins of the fields in preference to the wheat. It is impossible to imagine better butter than is made while the grass is in this stage. Cattle and horses that have lived unsheltered and without fodder through the winter and in the spring, scarcely able to mount a hillock through leanness and weakness, are transformed, when feeding on this grass, to a healthy and sleek appearance as if by a charm. When the prairie grass is two or three feet high it is suitable for hay and is mowed by the farmers for winter use.