FOREST CULTIVATION ON THE PLAINS. 319 



This last point is so important to the subject of this inquiry that it 

 should be further elucidated. It was an early and common error at the 

 first occupancy of the prairies of Indiana and Illinois to infer that some 

 inherent difficulty in the soil or climate prevented the gnowth of forests 

 on them. Yet experience very soon proved that no more prolific soil, or 

 more favorable conditions of climate, existed in the world to favor forest- 

 growth. Special adverse influences, which we cannot yet fully under- 

 stand, alone prevented the growth of forests on these prairies originally. 

 Local peculiarities had, indeed, crept in which could be controlled only 

 by the intervention of energetic efforts of men associated either as 

 individuals or through legislative action. The stiff prairie-soil was 

 itself the growth of centuries, and the annual fires had become as inev- 

 itable, almost, as any feature of the climate. While these continued no 

 forests could spring up on the prairies and retain their hold unaided, 

 however perfect the adaptation of soil to forest-growth. 



Passing westward from the iirairie districts, as they are generally 

 known, we enter by insensible gradations on the surface of the plains. 

 The long-standing belief that great absolute change of soil, or change 

 from soil to desert sands and rocks ensued, has been dissipated, as before 

 stated. Anywhere on the road to Denver and the foot of the mountains 

 the most recent and ample testimony is that water alone is needed to 

 make the surface productive under cultivation. And perhaps the most 

 remarkable of the favorable facts developed is that which shows that 

 sage-brush and alkaline soils mean little or nothing more than that the 

 requisite spring and summer rains are deficient. With a restoration of 

 these rains, or with irrigation enough to compensate for them, the wsur- 

 face, previously covered with saline efflorescence, and having a forbid- 

 ding aspect under a sparse &,nd stubborn growth of sage or gTease-weed, 

 at once yields ample and constant crops of wheat and every other grain. 

 It is a gratifying relief to find these, and valleys and plains, a few only 

 of which are to be seen east of the summit ranges of theKocky Mount- 

 ain plateau, but which are abundant and general in the basin districts 

 of Utah and Idaho, are all within easy control of energetic settlers, and 

 all can be turned into almostgardensof fertility, when irrigatingstreams 

 are within reach. 



But the specially adverse feature of the plains is the absence of for- 

 ests and timber. All the surface east of the mountains is and has 

 been especially exposed to the destructive local and general influences 

 which have kept forest-trees from the jirairies of Illinois and the adja- 

 cent States. And with this wholesale denudation has come an un- 

 doubted exaggeration of all the extremes of climate natural to the lati- 

 tude. The winds of the spring and summer sweep over vast stretches 

 of siuiace which afford little or no evaporation to mitigate their dry- 

 ness, and they therefore become excessively dry. The rains which fail, 

 even profusely, at certain seasons, chiefly in the spring, are thrown rap- 

 idly off" from the dry turf of the surface; and a sudden flood of the upper 

 rivers of the plains may be followed in twelve hours by winds entirely 

 dry, and which, in sweeping over the surface, get little or no accession 

 of moisture from the rain which fell profusely but a day before. The 

 natural moisture of the climate is therefore wasted, and in consequence 

 of this waste is insufficient to sustain the first efforts at cultivation. 



Under these general views it is clear that the practical problem of im- 

 proving the plains and even the basin districts of the interior of the 

 continent opens very favorably. In one mode or another it is certain 

 that the greater ijart of the surface can be brought under cultivation, 

 and its value can be vastly enhanced over the previous general belief 



