118 C. Atwater, Esq. on the 
on the north, to the Mexican Gulf on the south; from the 
western foot of the Alleghany mountains, to the eastern one of 
the Rocky mountains, up the Missouri. In summer, the grass 
which spontaneously covers them, feeds immense herds of 
cattle ; in winter, the hay that is cut on them, with a little — 
Indian corn or maize, feeds and fattens the same herds. Some — 
of these prairies extend as far as the eye can reach 3 others 
contain only a few perches of ground. 
Description of the Barrens. 
~ But beside these prairies, there are also extensive tracts of 
country in this part of the Union which deserve and shall 
receive our notice; they are called « Barrens.” From their 
appellation, “barrens,” the person unacquainted with them 
is not to suppose them thus called from their sterility, because 
most of them are quite the reverse. ‘These barrens are found 
ina level country, with here and there a gentle rise, only # 
few feet higher than the land around it. On these little rise’, 
for they are not hills, trees grow, and grass also; but grass 
and weeds are the only occupants of the soil where there is 
no rise of ground. The soil is alluvial to greater or less depth 
in these barrens, though on some of the highest rises there is 
little or none; the lower the ground the deeper the alluvion. 
On these gentle rises, where there is no alluvion, we find i 
blue clay, and no pebbles. Under the alluvial black soil, 
the lower grounds, we find pebbles similar to those in th 
prairies, owing to similar causes. On the little ridges, where- 
ever the land is not too moist, the oak or the hickory 6 
taken possession, and there grows to a moderate height, 
clusters. It would seem, that whenever the land had becom? 
sufficiently dry for an acorn or a hickory nut to sprout, take 
root, and grow, it did so; and from one or more of these tree 
in time, others have grown around them in such clusters a8 ¥° 
now behold. Where the land is lower, the soil deeper, mor? 
moist, and more fertile, the grass was too thick, and the soil 10° 
wet, for such kind of trees to grow in as were found 16 
immediate vicinity. Imagine, then, ‘natutal meadows) © vl 
