The Durham breed seems to be preferred by the best stock-farmers, and they pay great attention to the purity of the race.  A herd of one hundred head of cattle raised near Urbanna, and averaging 1965 pounds each, took the premium at the World’s Fair in New York.  Although the Durhams are remarkable for their large size and early maturity, yet other breeds are favorites with many farmers,—­such as the Devons, the Herefords, and the Holsteins, the first particularly,—­for working cattle, and for the quality of their beef.  There is a sweetness about the beef fattened upon these prairies which is not found elsewhere, and is noticed by all travellers who have eaten of that meat at the best Chicago hotels.

In fact, Illinois is the paradise of cattle, and there is no sight more beautiful, in its way, than one of those vast natural meadows in June, dotted with the red and white cattle, standing belly-deep in rich grass and gay-colored flowers, and almost too fat and lazy to whisk away 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..