Litchfield enquirer., 1876-06-29

saw, With the DrOWneSt eyes, the SunnloSt hair, most tempting hands, daintiest fig ure and dearest smile that God ever put together, sat demurely reading by the table | ''lt was your mother"
 LYONS, IOWA, June IT, 1876.
 EDITOR ENoU1RER:-Since my last, some weeks ago. we have been taking a drive through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois by private conveyance, our ob- iective point being Geneva Lake, the ''Long Branch" of Chicago. Here her millionaires are erecting elegant summer residences, one of which, costing over $6O, 900, was recently burned. We passed through some of the finest towns 1n the | West. Freeport was one of the first that we stopped at. It rained SO, that we did not have good opportunity to see. but it seemed to be thriving town or city Gall towns of any size in the West are cities), having good business houses and fine res- idences. The same may be said of Rock | ford, Beloit and Jamesville-Rockfor should judge, taking the lead. Both, in point of business and fine residences, Jamesville leads her a fine race. Both are splendidly located on Rock River, which furnishes fine water power for mannfac- turing. These are utilizing in both places, and the grounds sloping to the river fur nish fine locations for residences.
 In Jamesville a recently built cotton factory was running to it's full capacity, and extensive additions for enlarging their business are being made, which speaks we'll for that branch of industry in the West, considering the times. They have also large boot and shoe factory in suc- cessful operation. These towns are locat- ed in the midst of some of the finest farm ing lands ever saw. The farmers houses and surroundings showed them to be in a thriving state; in many places the new | houses stand near the old and less pre- tentions ones, showing that their propri- etors had commenced in the days of small things; probably pre-empting the land and finding it doubling in value on their hands every five or ten years till they have reached forty or fifty dollars an acre. At nearly every farmhouse was a wind mill for raising the water for domestic and farm purposes, and the number of differ ent patents told a story of it's own, rival ing. if possible, the lightning rod pedlars. | From one elevation we counted over thirty wind-mills In sight.
 Geneva Lake is beautiful sheet of wa l ter, about ten miles long. and one to three miles wide, nestling among hills with many small streams from springs running into 1t, and, l believe, with no outlet The water is very clear, and to sit on a pier and drop your line down into eight or ten feet of water and select your fish, which are in plain sight, and haul them in at the rate of one minute IS fine sport | for poor fisherman. It should not be understood that the rate could be kept up all day. Our party caught over a hun | dred fine rock bass in what seemed a short space of time. .. There are some fine mineral springs about the lake, and land that few years ago could have been bought for ten dollars an acre, now commands three hundred. We were week too early for the 'cisco" fishing. These are small blue fish, ''al- | most transparent" that remain in deep water through the year excepting very few days, from the 10th to 18th of June, schools and are caught with fly call ed the ''cisco fly" that developes about that time and are caught in great num- bers. Parties come from hundred miles or more away to fish for them. The meat is very choice, rivaling the brook trout. Our next stopping place was Elgin, a live ly, growing city that pleased me as much as any I saw.
 The extensive watch factory has made it household word in all this Western country, and is truly a marvel in extent and completeness in all It's appointments. It requires good deal of red tape cutting to effect an entrance. and parties whom we visited there had never been through it but by virtue of belonging to the ''craft." I gained admission for myself and parry, and we spent some hours going through it with gentlemanly and intelli- gent assistant to explain the intricate parts and manipulations. would like to go into particulars little, but this letter is already getting too long. Suffice it to say, that as your Centennial poet Pierre pont said of the Yankee, ''he makes the machine, and the machine to make it" and the man who "made the machine to make it" Is the better man by half. Noth- ing surprised me more than the number of hands it took to do simple operations: for instance, it takes from eight to twelve persons, each having distinct part to perform, to put the figures and lines on the dial. One man sits all day penciling the hair lines only, at the ends of the fig ures, and the one next sits and erases where he gets them too long-and so on. It is claimed there are over 1,600 distinct operations. There are about 600 hands at work there now. the force having been re. duced. and yet they are turn1ng out about 240 watches day.
 On our homeward route we passed through Geneva. Illinois; Batavia, Aurora, Dixon. Sterling. and Morrison, of which 1 would like to write more at length, but musE deSist Crons and frnit nrosnecta are every where fattering. A. B.