TRACES OF ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 281 



place, the largest trees are probably not more than five hundred 

 years old; and large tracts are now covered with "young trees, 

 where there are no traces of antecedent growth." Every year 

 many trees are blown down, and frequent storms pass through 

 the forest, throwing down nearly everything before them. 

 Mr. Lapham gives a map of these windfalls in one district ; 

 they are very conspicuous, firstly, because the trees, having a 

 certain quantity of earth entangled among their roots, continue 

 to vegetate for several years ; and secondly, because even when 

 the trees themselves have died and rotted away, the earth so 

 torn up forms little mounds, which are often mistaken by the 

 inexperienced for Indian graves. " From the paucity of these 

 little 'tree-mounds,' we infer that no very great antiquity can 

 be assigned to the dense forests of Wisconsin, for during a 

 long period of time, with no material change of climate, we 

 would expect to find great numbers of these little monuments 

 of ancient storms scattered everywhere over the ground." 



But there is other more direct evidence of ancient agricul- 

 ture. In many places the ground is covered with small 

 mammillary elevations, which are known as Indian corn-hills. 

 " They are without order of arrangement, being scattered over 

 the ground with the greatest irregularity. That these hillocks 

 were formed in the manner indicated by their name, is inferred 

 from the present custom of the Indians. The corn is planted 

 in the same spot each successive year, and the soil is gradually 

 brought up to the size of a little hill by the annual additions."* 

 But Mr. Lapham has also found traces of an earlier and more 

 systematic cultivation. These consist " of low parallel ridges, 

 as if corn had been planted in drills. They average four feet 

 in width, twenty -five of them having been counted in the 

 space of a hundred feet ; and the depth of the walk between 



* Lapham, 1. c. p. 19. See also Eeport of the Regents of the Uni- 

 Cheney, " On Ancient Monuments versity of the State of New York, 

 in Western New York," in the 1 3th 1860, p. 40. 



