y
the flies. Even in winter they look comfortable, in their sheltered
barn-yard, surrounded by huge stacks of hay or long ranges of
corn-cribs, chewing the cud of contentment, and untroubled with any
thought of the inevitable journey to Brighton.

Where corn is so plenty as it is in Illinois, of course hogs will be
plenty also. During the year 1860, two hundred and seventy-five thousand
porkers rode into Chicago by railroad, eighty-five thousand of which
pursued their journey, still living, to Eastern cities,--the balance
remaining behind to be converted into lard, bacon, and salt pork.

The wholesale way of making beef and pork is this. All summer the cattle
are allowed to run on the prairie, and the hogs in the timber on the
river bottoms. In the autumn, when the corn is ripe, the cattle are
turned into one of those great fields, several hundred acres in extent,
to gather the crop; and after they have done, the hogs come in to pick
up what the cattle have left.

Sheep do well on the prairies, particularly in the southern part of the
State, where the flocks require little or no shelter in winter. The
prairie wolves formerly destroyed many sheep; but since the introduction
of strychnine for poisoning those voracious animals, the sheep have been
very little troubled.

Horses and mules are raised extensively, and in the northern counties,
where the Morgans and other good breeds have been introduced, the horses
are as good as in any State of the Union. Theory would predict this
result, since the horse is found always to come to his greatest
perfection in level countries,--as, for instance, the deserts of Arabia,
and the _llanos_ of South America.

There are two articles in daily and indispensable use, for which the
Northern States have hitherto been dependent on the Southern: Sugar
and Cotton. With regard to the first, the introduction of the Chinese
Sugar-Cane has demonstrated that every farmer in the State can raise
his own sweetening. The experience of several years has proved that the
_Sorghum_ is a hardier plant than corn, and that it will be a sure crop
as far North as latitude 42 deg. or 43 deg..

An acre of good prairie will produce 18 tons of the cane, and each ton
gives 60 gallons of juice, which is reduced, by boiling, to 10 gallons
of syrup. This gives 180 gallons of syrup to the acre, worth from 40 to
50 cents a gallon,--say 40 cents, which will give 72 dollars for the
product of an acre of land; from w