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During the
1820s settlement along Mississippi and Illinois Rivers expanded
(McManis, 1968) and the population crept northward. By about 1830,
the fertility of the prairie soil was recognized and this,
according to Poggi (1934), initiated a wave of immigration into the
state. During the 1830s another center of settlement developed in
the Chicago region and spread south and west toward the advancing
front of settlers from the south (McManis, 1968). According to
Smith (1990), the interior prairie of northeastern Illinois was the
last of the areas to be settled. A major reason for the delay was a
lack of transportation. Farmers could not easily move their crops
to market, nor could they easily obtain necessities for farming,
such as steel for plows from the cities where they were produced.
Roads were of poor quality and often impassable during the wet
seasons. Boggess (1908) wrote regarding the lack of good roads:
Really good roads were entirely lacking. Most of the settlements
were connected by roads that were practicable at most seasons for
packers and travelers on horseback, but in times of flood the
suspension of travel by land was practically complete (Boggess,
1908).
Two factors played a major role in the rapid settlement of the
prairie in the early to mid 1800s. The first was the development of
the self-scouring plow by John Deere in Grand Detour, Illinois in
1837. The prairie sod was difficult to break with the cast-iron
plows that the settlers brought with them from the south and the
east. The soil clung to the plow rendering it useless. The soil had
to be scraped off periodically, slowing the laborious task of
breaking the sod. The self-scouring plow eliminated the need to
clean the plow after every few steps, and was more effective at
breaking the prairie sod. Not only was the plow a success, but John
Deere was a master marketer. Unlike the other craftsmen of the
time, he produced plows before he had orders for them, and took
them to farmers out on the prairie to demonstrate their
effectiveness, thereby ‘selling’ the product. Ten years
after he produced his first plow, he was producing a thousand plows
a year. The second important factor in the rapid settlement of the
region was the building of railroads across the prairie from 1850
to 1860. The railroads allowed the exchange of goods between the
farmers and the urban markets to the east.
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Self-scouring plow
John Deere and Co. |
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John Deere demonstrating self-scouring
plow
John Deere and Co. |
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