Plains of Illinois

1. Come all you good old farmers that on your plow depend.
Come listen to a story, come listen to a friend:
Oh, leave your fields of childhood, you enterprising boys;
Come travel west and settle on the plains of Illinois.

2. Illinois, it is as fine country as ever has been seen,
If old Adam had traveled over that, perhaps he would say the same,
“All in the Garden of Eden, when I was but a boy,
There was nothing I could compare with the plains of Illinois!”

3. Perhaps you have a few acres that near your friends’ adjoin,
Your family is growing large; for them you must provide,
Come, leave your fields of childhood, you enterprising boys,
Come travel west and settle on the plains of Illinois!