FOREST CULTIVATION OX THE PLAINS. 317 



Tlie greater part of the surface of the United States was originally cov- 

 ered with a forest growth remarkable for its uniformity, for the magnifi- 

 cent size of the trees themselves, and for its decisive influence on the local 

 climate, as well as on the condition of the surface soil. Lands which, 

 after clearing and cropping for thirty years or more, appear hard, re- 

 fractory, and liable to destructive droughts, were originally entirely 

 free from either of these conditions, and, within the personal knowledge 

 of many of their present occupants, were amply supplied with moisture, 

 as well as loose and fertile in character of surface for cultivation. Xo 

 observant person can fiiil to be impressed with the importance of arrest- 

 ing the j)rogress of these changes, and most persons have no hesitation 

 in tracing these results to the removal of forests. Careless cultivation 

 has much to do with it, undoubtedly, but worse than that is the loss of 

 the protection forests give, and the steady supply of moisture to the soil 

 wliich their iiresence secures. 



It is, in fact, only recently that settlements have extended beyond 

 the limits of the vast primeval forest extending from the Atlantic 

 nearly to the Mississippi Eiver. Within a comparatively few years we 

 have come to occupy a surface quite novel to the first experience of our 

 l)eople, in the prairies and the i^lains. They have been a problem to 

 us from the beginning, one not easy of solution from the point of our 

 previous knowledge. As a contrast with the forests which were the 

 natural covering of the surface, the difference was so great as to im- 

 ply essential differences of both soil and climate, since it could only be 

 explained by supposing that neither soil nor climate permitted trees to 

 grow. 



But a very brief period of actual occupancy has put a very different 

 construction on the case as a whole, and the partial incredulity at first 

 existing as to the possibility of growing forest-trees has almost wholly 

 disappeared. It has been found that neither of these conditions pre- 

 sents any obstacles that cannot be promptly overcome on the prairies 

 proper, or the plains nearer the Mississippi which are called by this 

 name. These prairies are, apparently, no more than natural fields or 

 clearings, preserved from growing up to timber chiefly by the annual 

 fires and the existing turf which covers them. If once the surface is 

 broken, and the fires are restrained, they are immediately covered with 

 natural growths of some form of forest-trees, possibly not the best or 

 most valuable, but such as at least serve to vindicate their capacity to 

 grow any ordinary forest-trees. 



The absolute origin of the jirairies is obscure 5 it may be simply the 

 constant invasion of the forest by fires starting on the distant and dry 

 interior, and carried eastward by the i^revalent westerly winds. Cer- 

 tainly the great tertiary formations of the country west of the Missouri 

 were brought to their ijresent condition as plains, and were undoubtedly 

 exposed to the same general conditions of exposure they now present. 

 On these the forests could scarcely get a footing so strong as to main- 

 tain themselves with severely trying winds sweeping over them from 

 the west. They therefore continued to be the plains they were in the 

 beginning, and the districts bordering them at the east were always in- 

 vaded by the destructive agencies originating at those western limits. 

 The agency of savages is well known to be as destructive in the matter 

 of kindling fires as the jiresence of civilization, and for ages, therefore, 

 the greater body of fertile and well-watered lauds, now described as 

 prairies, have been swept of their covering of vegetation annually, as 

 far as fires could effect its destruction. 



The plains and prairies are in an unnatural condition of denudation 



