1865.] GEOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CANADA. 363 



are said to have been pasture grounds of the Indians, brought to 

 this condition and kept in it by partial clearing, and by the annual 

 burning of the grass. The object of this was to attract the deer 

 who came to feed upon the herbage* The soil of these plains is a light 

 sandy loam, very uniform in character, and generally underlaid by 

 coarse gravel. Though fertile, and of easy tillage, this and 

 similar soils will not support the long continued cropping without 

 manure, which is often practiced on the clay lands of both Upper 

 and Lower Canada. 



The valley of the Thames, together with the rich alluvial fiats 

 which extend from it northward to the North Branch of Bear 

 Creek, and southward nearly to the shore of Lake Erie, is remark- 

 able for its great fertility, and its luxuriant forest growth. The 

 soil is generally clay, with a covering of rich vegetable mould, and 

 is covered in the natural state with oak, elm, black-walnut and 

 tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera) of large size, together 

 with fine groves of sugar-maple. Towards the mouth of the Thames, 

 and on the borders of Lake St. Clair, is an area of natural prairie 

 of about 30,000 acres. It lies but little above the level of the 

 lake, and is in large part overflowed in the time of the spring- 

 floods. The soil of this prairie is a deep unctuous mould, covered 

 chiefly with grass, with here and there copses of maple, walnut and 

 elm, and with willows dotting the surface of the plain. Numbers 

 of half-wild horses are pastured here, and doubtless help to keep 

 down the forest growth. The characters of the surface are such 

 as to suggest that it had been at no distant period reclaimed from 

 the waters of the adjacent lake. 



In no part of the province have skilled labour and capital been 

 so extensively applied to agriculture as in western Canada, and the 

 result is seen in a general high degree of cultivation, and in the 

 great quantities of wheat and other grains which the region annu- 

 ally furnishes for exportation ; as well as in the excellent grazing 

 farms, and the quantity and quality of the dairy produce which 

 the region affords. This western portion of the province, from its 

 more southern latitude, and from the proximity of the great lakes, 

 enjoys a much milder climate than the other parts of Canada. The 

 winters are comparatively short, and in the more southern sections 

 the peach is successfully cultivated, and the chestnut grows spon- 

 taneously. 



* See on this point, Marsh's Man and Nature, page 137. 



