Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1873 [PAGE 220]

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ties and lying adjacent to those already named. Thus, barley is clustered in its greatest production, like oats, into a few neighboring counties. No county south of Sangamon produces as much as 10,000 bushels except St. Clair, which, lying next to the St. Louis breweries, and producing some fine crops of winter barley, at leas*ran up its products to 48,192 bushels. But barley, more than oats and rye, seems to be a northern crop. Of buckwheat, a still less important crop, unless in respect to fertilization, Illinois produced only 168,862 bushels, whilst New York reached nearly 4,000,000, and Pennsylvania 2,500,000. This was not much more than half its product in 1860. Only one county—McHenry—produced 20,412 bushels of this, and the counties producing more than 5,000 bushels are all in the upper north, except Wayne, which returns 6,399 bushels. Many counties return none or a few bushels. To what extent this growing neglect of the hot-cake crop is owing to an increasing distaste for flap-jacks and golden syrup, or a conviction that the crop is unprofitable, I am unable to decide. Eice, though grown as far north as Tennessee, and a possible.product, does not appear in the census of Illinois. It is given in 10 States, but South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana have almost a monopoly of its production. Of tobacco, Illinois produced 5,249,274 pounds, less by more than a million than in 1862, being surpassed often greatly by 10 other States. Kentucky produced 105,305,869 pounds. In the production of Illinois tobacco, two new counties come to the front, Saline with 1,155,941 pounds, and Williamson with 1,152,589. Thus, two counties far down in the southeast produce more than 40 per cent, of our crop ) and the only counties north of Coles producing more than 10,000 pounds are the adjoining counties of Stephenson, with 87,803 pounds, and JoDaviess, with 12,935. But the counties on the Wabash and Ohio slopes grow nearly all the filthy weed which tobacco haters assign to a satanic origin, and loving smokers consign to a satanic fate. Of cotton, the product of 20 States, Illinois grew only 465 bales against 1,482 bales in 1860. This w^as produced in 14 of our southern counties— a majority of them growing none. More than half of the amount was produced in the adjoining counties of Jackson and Williamson. In the more important product of wool Illinois has done better. It stood eleventh in 1860. It stands sixth in 1870, with 5,739,249 pounds. Lake county leads with 318,042 pounds. The adjoining county of McHenry comes next with 290,022 pounds. 12 counties produced more than 100,000 pounds, and several of these, like those named, lie in the north-east corner of the State. Comparing the wool with the sheep statistics, we observe the satisfactory fact that whilst the sheep have