206 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Mr. Flagg fell into in his report last year, viz., in taking the exception 

 for the rule; and I agree with them both that "it is easy to understand 

 why trees will not grow on such a kind of ground." 



The prairies, from the Rocky rnountains to the Missouri river, are, 

 as a whole, deficient in humus, while the prairies, from the Missouri river 

 to the lakes, are well supplied, and, in some cases, as in some of the low, 

 flat prairies, are in excess, and to such alone will Mr. Lesquereaux' theory 

 apply. 



The deficiency of humus is so marked in most part of the land, from 

 the Missouri river to the base of the Rocky mountains, that many writers 

 have attributed the absence of timber to the lack of vegetable matter in 

 the soil. 



The author of " What I Know About Farming " gave as his opinion, 

 that before it would produce timber and farm crops, it must for a great 

 length of time be made to produce some annual or perennial plant, that, 

 by the yearly decay of its leaves and stems, would in time form such 

 vegetable mould, or humus; but it did not seem to occur to him that the 

 same conditions that would be required to produce this rank vegetable 

 growth, could be made to produce timber. 



Another writer of note, who wrote many exhaustive articles on this 

 same locality, gave as his opinion that it would be impossible to grow 

 timber in the buffalo region, giving as his reason that the evaporation in 

 that climate is greater than the rain-fall ; but it seems not to have occurred 

 to him, that this objection would apply equally as much to the buffalo 

 grass and other vegetation growing there now. 



Mr. Flagg's quotation from Henry Englemann, p. 38, says: "But 

 as our prairie soils do not appear to have any very peculiar composition, 

 chemistry may account for the absence of certain species of trees, but cer- 

 tainly not for the absence of all trees." Now this will apply to our 

 northern prairies, as well as any other, and will apply equally to Indiana 

 timber lands, and to lands generally. 



To Mr. Flagg's question regarding the persimmon, on p. 40, we 

 reply, almost any tree that will grow in a wet soil will grow on a dry soil. 

 Most of our troubles come from trying to reverse this rule ; probably the 

 seeds of the persimmon have the power to germinate in a dry soil. I have 

 already endeavored to show that the only reason for the willows and many 

 other trees not being found in dry soils as well as wet, is their inability 

 to germinate their seeds on dry land. We have willows growing in our 

 streets for shade trees, planted many years after I came here, that are now 

 thirty inches in diameter, and this on dry, gravelly soil. He asks, " Why 

 does the willow of the wild species affect the streams rather than the 

 ponds?" We answer, that the seeds have a much better opportunity of 

 distributing themselves along a river's brink, than over a long stretch of 

 dry ground, to a solitary pond, and if they should reach a pond they 

 would of necessity have to take root on the outside of the water, if at all ; 

 and as I have already stated, their seeds must germinate in early summer. 

 Now as the ponds are high early in the season, and low in the fall, when 

 the fires run, we can easily account for the willows being found less on 



