VAI-LP-Y IIOUTHUI/n RAL SOCIETY. 317 



On motion ol Dr. A. L. Small tin' order of business was fliaii<^ed 

 so that the essay of Dr. A. S. Cutler would he first on the programme. 

 Owing to a business engagement the Doctor was unal)le to attend 

 the meeting, but Mrs. Cutler was present and kindly read his essay, 

 which was entitle(l : 



SOMETHING ABOUT OUR PRAIRIES, 



Mr. I'r>s/i/i'iif. Ldilics dix/ (I'ciif/rnicii : 



While 1 am aware that the subject under roiisideratioii is in»l 

 strictly a horticultural one, T yet consider it near enough to launch 

 out u])on the theme, and as many years have past since T was a prac- 

 tical horticulturist. T trust you will l)ear with me in my present brief 

 departure from your established usage. I shall, in the j)resent essay, 

 have a little something to say of the origin ami ( haracterics of our 

 ])rairies. By the term ])rairie. T mean that ])eculiar nu)dification of 

 liighland or lowland ])lain so immediately characteristic of our 

 western states, and of wliii h those of our own great state seems to 

 afford so perfect a type. 



Plains, highland or lowland, are by no means confined to the 

 great central portion of our own country. They occupy at least 

 two-thirds of the laml surface of our glolx'. Ibit whether they are 

 the steppes of Siberia, the sandy })lains of Central Asia, the vast 

 Sahara of Northern Africa, the table laiuls of Sontlieru Africa, the 

 llamas anil |)ampas of South America, the frosty u})lands stretching 

 away from the northern border of our great lakes to the very margin 

 of the Arctic sea. or the vast, illimitable j)rairies of our own great 

 Alississippi ^^ll^'v. one leading feature of them all remains the same. 

 It is the comidete or comparative al)sence af all arboreal vegetation, 

 and their treeless character remains the same whether the plain be 

 level or rolling and covered with desert sand, or the ri(diest vegetable 

 mould. 



The grciit })rairie region of our own conntry lies in the vast 

 (•(uicavity of our continent drained liy the Mississi]>pi and tributa- 

 ries, and lying between the great mountain ranges u))on the east and 

 west. The territory it occujiies covcm's a j)ortion of Western Ohio, 

 a still larger portion of Indiana, takes the lion's share of our own 

 state, ami the entire whole of Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. The 

 most of this region is comparatively W(dl watered, and the soil is of 

 sur])rising fertility. It varies from a ri(di, black or chocolate colored 

 vegetable mould, east of the Mississippi, to a greyish silicious loam 

 west of the Missouri, until west of the KMlth meridian west longi- 

 tude it gradually becomes a seeming diy and |)ar( bed desert ))lain. 

 We use the word seeming advisedly, for what twenty-tive years ago 

 was considered a part of the great American desert, and so stated in 



