The prairies are covered with a luxuriant growth of native grass, which, when it gets its full growth is generally about as high as a man's shoulders.—They are destitute of trees, shrubs, or stones; and although the surface may be undulating, yet it is so smooth, that they can be mown as well as the smoothest old field in New-England. In the spring of the year, a great variety of beautiful flowers shoot up among the grass; so that the face of nature exhibits the appearance of an extended flower garden. The prairie grass is unlike any kind I have seen at the north; but it affords excellent fodder for horses, neat cattle and sheep. A finer grazing country I had never seen. The grass appears to have more nourishment in it, than at the north. I saw beef cattle, fatted on the prairie grass alone, and I challenge Brighton to produce fatter beef, or finer flavored.
Towards the lake, the land is gently undulating; farther west, on Fox and Rock rivers, it is rolling; and as you approach Galena on the Mississippi, it becomes more hilly and broken. All this country seems to lack, is timber and water. There are rivers enough, but not many small streams and springs. But both of these defects can in a good measure be remedied. Good water can be obtained almost any where by digging wells from twenty to thirty feet in depth; and fuel must be supplied by the coal, which is found generally in abundance throughout the State. Bricks can be used for building; and hedge rows for fences.
The coal is excellent for the grate. It burns free, and emits such a brilliant light, that any other in a room is hardly necessary. It is now used in many places, in preference to wood, although that is now plenty. Blacksmiths use it for the forge; and at one shop, the man told me he could dig and haul enough in half a day to last him a month.
The government of the United States granted to the State of Illinois a tract of land ten miles in width and eighty miles in length, extending from Chicago to Ottawa, for the purpose of making a canal to connect the waters of the lake with the Illinois river, and within these limits, it is supposed the canal will pass. This tract has been surveyed, put into market and much of it sold; but most of the land in the northern part of the State had not even been surveyed when I was there. Not a survey had been made on Fox river. The settlers took as much land as they pleased, and where they pleased; and as there was an abundance for all, none found fault. Before this time, I presume, the land has been surveyed; and the peace and quietness of the Fox river settlement, may have been a little disturbed by the carelessness of the United States' surveyors, in running lines somewhat diverging from the stakes and fences which its early settlers had set up as the bounds of their farms.
But a large portion of the northern half of the State, is not in the market, and perhaps may not be for two years to come. This very land, however, is settling every day. All a man has to do, is to select his land and settle down upon it. By this act he gains a pre-emption right to one hundred and sixty acres; and before the auction sale, enters his land at the land office, pays a dollar and a quarter an acre, and receives his title. When land has once been through the auction and not sold, it can be taken at any time, by paying a dollar and a quarter an acre, and receive a title.
Upon the whole, I think the upper part of Illinois offers the greatest inducements to the emigrant, especially from the northern States. It is a high, healthy, beautiful country; and there are now plenty of good locations to be made. A young man, with nothing but his hands to work, may in a few years obtain a competency. The whole country produces great crops of wheat, corn and potatoes, and all the fruits and vegetables of the north. Apple and peach trees grow faster and more vigorous here than at the east; and there is a native plum tree, which bears excellent fruit.
I took much pains to ascertain whether it was subject to the fever and ague; and from the inquiries I made, and the healthy appearance of the people, I am persuaded it is not. I found only one person sick with that disease, in all the upper country, and she was an old woman from Indiana; and she told me she had it before she left that State.—There is plenty of game—the prairie hen, about the size of the northern hen, deer, ducks, wild turkies, and squirrels; also an abundance of wild honey.
There is another reason why the northern part of the State is preferable. Chicago of itself is, and will be, something of a market for produce; but it is the best spot in the whole State, to carry produce to be transported to a northern market. From this, it is carried all the way by water to New-York city; and the distance is no greater than from the middle and lower parts of the State to New-Orleans, and the expense of transportation the same.
But after all, there is no such place as a perfect elysium on earth; and to this bright picture of the new world, there must be added some slight shades. In the first place there are many prairie wolves all over the country, so that it is almost impossible to keep sheep. In travelling over the country, I have started half a dozen in a day; they did not appear to be very wild; but they seldom or never attack a man, unless retreat is cut off, or sorely pressed by hunger. They are of a brown color, and of the size of a large dog. The men have a good deal of sport in running them down, and killing them.—They take a stick, mount a fleet horse, soon come up with them, and knock them on the head.
A man on Fox river told me he made a wolf pen over a cow that got accidentally killed, and caught twelve wolves in one week! As the country becomes settled they will disappear. There are but few bears; the country is too open for them. I had one or two meals of bear meat, but it is not at all to my taste. Then, there are the prairie rattlesnakes, about a foot long. Their bite is not considered very dangerous. There is a weed, growing universally on the prairie, that is a certain cure for it. They are not, however, plenty. Men told me, that they had passed a whole year without seeing one.