The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1858-11-17
Western Correspondence of the Register.
Letter from Illinois.
customers.

MEssRs. ED1ToRs.-How many of your
readers seize at once on an article thus
headed who indeed has not here broth
er, sister, child or friend I wish for the
readers sake it were more inviting pic
ture that l am to show. But it is all in
the weather.
1t was one dark morning in May that
we found ourselves in Illinois moving rap.
idly over uninhabited plains almost SUBJ
mergedby recent rains. A continuous sand
hill on the north hid from us every
indication of the close proximity of Lake
Michigan.
A muddy Chicago soon rescued us--a
Chicago none the cleaner for the almost
daily washings it had received from the
sky, for a month before. We found that
the grade of the streets had been recently
and wholly changed, regarding the filling
in of from two TO eight feet over the whole
city, some lots had the sideways raised
and other not so that it was impossible
to walk any distance without running up
and down stairs.
The night before we left Chicago it
rained deluge. The roads around the
city lay under water; the fields seemed
converted into swamps. We took the
Rock Island Railroad, which unlike some,
keeps down by the banks of streams all
it can. 1t was after more than half a
days ride that we caught the first view of
real prairie.
By an awkward hackage Of half
mile, and with delay of some hours we
transferred ourselves to the Chicago, Bur-
lington and Quincy Railroad, which passes
over the other on high bridge. This is
straighter road, running out of Chicago
over the backs of the prairies, and we
would gladly have arranged to take it in
the first instance. One popularity is
worthy of notice. 1t passes under very
few bridges, of course, but all these are
so high that they can behead no brake
man as he stands erect on a car.
Some days after leaving Chicago we
entered Galesburg at dark in bitter rain.
1t was not their first storm, for most of
the eighteen bridges in that city were al
ready ruined, and the town was Mortified
at the utter destruction of Ellison, a
neighboring village, where not a house
was left, and a large portion of the in
habitants were killed. We passed Edw
Beechers church, which looked as if the
conflict of ages had exploded in it. All
night it poured down; and the frequent
crash of thunder in close sequence to the
fash suggested peril to those who applied
the love Of acoustics to these phenomena.
Next morning but four OF all their bridges
were passable, and the inhabitants had to
inquire their way from one part Of the
city to another.
But why continue the story. Through
all June storm after storm rises dark DER
the way. Prairie soil when moistened
becomes as slippery as wet soap when
combined with due proportion Of water
it forms the blacklist, muddiest, stickiest
mud ever known. A hard rain puts the
fields in such condition that the use of
the pillow or hoe converts the soil into
mortar, which, when it dries, bakes into
one vast adobe, of eighty acres perhaps,
as unfit for agriculture as bare rock. Ear
ly in June we were in McDonough Coun-
ty, and fifty miles south of Galesburg,
2ls from Chicago. Farmers were nearly
in despair. Some had planted their corn
three times, some had not yet been able
to pillow. The last corn crop had been an
exceedingly poor one, and many had not
enough old corn to keep their teams in
working order. Some bought Northern
seed corn at extravagant prices, and l saw
one judicious man blowing to plant 1t In
wheat harvest.
Acres and acres of corn never reached
the height OF three feet much more new
er was harvested. The killing frost was
on the morning of October 8, taking far
less corn in the milk than was expected.
Cattle have. there, more to hope: many
were sold at a cent to a cent and-a-half
per pound, live weight.
Spring Wheat was drowned. Last
years crop may furnish them seed. We
know of no field harvested. Oats were
ruined, but not utterly. Some were reaped,
more moved, aud perhaps more still aban-
doned. This region must look abroad for