Chapter 14, Illinois and Iowa Summary and Analysis

The narrator starts this chapter by taking a bus ride through Illinois. He stares out the window and sees a grandfather and grandson sawing down an ancient cottonwood. The State College has told all the farmers that they should plant Chinese elms instead of cottonwoods, because they don't shed cotton which accumulates on window screens. The State College is more concerned with beauty and ease instead of what is natural and wild in the area. The bus passes through more farmland, He knows that the farmers there wouldn't know certain things about their farm like why they make more corn, or what a white spike flower is. They pass by a cemetery, and he sees puccoons. They're flowers that only converse with the dead. They are just like the silphium and are not spectacular, or...