Down on the farm, 1800s-style

Antique Farm Show Saturday at Lincoln's New Salem

[April 30, 2012]  PETERSBURG -- Horse-drawn plows, historic farming equipment and agricultural techniques from the 19th century will be featured during the Antique Farm Show scheduled for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, near Petersburg.

The event is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by the New Salem Lincoln League.

Visitors are invited to come and watch horse-drawn plows work the fields in the reconstructed village of New Salem. Central Illinois farmers who still use horses for farming will be on hand with their horse teams and antique equipment to demonstrate early plowing, planting and other agricultural work. The fieldwork demonstrations will take place weather permitting.

A display of historic farming equipment will be set up in a field by the Blacksmith Shop, near the entrance to the village, allowing Antique Farm Show visitors to learn about the latest developments in agriculture from Abraham Lincoln's time to the early 1900s. The Vintage Ag Association of Menard County will have an antique tractor display in the parking lot by the Visitor Center.

Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, administered by the Illinois Preservation Agency, is a reconstruction of the 1830s log village where Abraham Lincoln spent six years of his life. It is located about 20 miles northwest of Springfield and two miles south of Petersburg on Route 97 and is open for free public tours.

[Text from file received from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency]