Reading Your Legal Description
Township, Range, Section — the grid the whole Midwest is built on, in plain English.
The grid
Most of Illinois is surveyed under the Public Land Survey System. The land is cut into 6-mile-square townships, located by Township (north–south) and Range (east–west) off a principal meridian. 'T11N R4E' means the 11th township north, 4th range east.
Sections and forties
Each township is divided into 36 sections of one square mile (640 acres). A section splits into quarters (160 ac), and a quarter into quarter-quarters — the classic 'forty.' 'The SE¼ of the NE¼ of Section 22' is a specific 40 acres you can stand on. The back forty is simply the far one from the house.
Why it matters
Your deed, your tax bill, your FSA farm, and every plat map speak this language. Learn to read it and you can find any parcel, follow a boundary, and talk to a surveyor or assessor without getting turned around.