CHAPTER VI.

CINCINNATI TO CHICAGO.

Left Cincinnati, Ohio, on the afternoon of 24th October1854, for Springfield, eighty miles to the north-east, wherethe National Agricultural Society held its annual exhibition.The country in the neighbourhood is moderately fertile, andconsists for the most part of a sandy loam, dyed into adark hazel tinge, which is peculiar to all those soils uponwhich oak and hickory are the predominating trees in theforests. The subsoil is usually gravelly, though often contain-ing clay. Indian corn and wheat are the principal cropswhich are cultivated. The land is suitable to the growthof clovers, and produces good pastures when seeded with thosegrasses that are natural to the land.

Springfield contains a population of 7000 inhabitants, andis in a very flourishing condition. Agriculturists were attend-ing this meeting from all parts of the Union. The secretaryhad travelled from Boston, a distance of nine hundred miles,by railway; other officials had come almost as far from thesouth and from the west, and even some of the judges fromCanada. The greater number, however, were from the neigh-bouring states of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.

There was nothing shown hut cattle, and the greatmajority were Short-horns, for which the soil and climate ofSouthern Ohio and Kentucky seem admirably adapted. Iwas surprised at the general excellence of the stock; indeed,among the hundred and fifty Short-horns that were exhibited,there were few animals that could be considered second-rate.I am not sure if the Short-horned stock was so uniformlygood at Windsor in 1851, though there might be some betteranimals. One bull had been lately imported from England,