378 AMEKICAN FOEEST PLANTATIONS. 



to supply, at a future day, timber for ties and fuel for the loco- 

 motives. The settlers on the open plains, too, are not less actively 

 engaged in the propagation of the woods, and if we can put faith 

 in the official statistics on the subject, not thousands but millions 

 of trees are annually planted on the prairies. 



These experiments are of much scientific as well as economical 

 interest. The prairies have never been wooded, so far as we know 

 their history, and it has been contended that successful sylvicul- 

 ture would be impracticable in those regions from the want of 

 rain But we are acquainted with no soil and chmate which 

 favor the production of herbage and forbid the rearing of trees, 

 and, as Bryant well observes, " it seems certain that where grass 

 will grow trees may be made to grow also." * It is true that 



* The origin of our Western treeless prairies and plains, as of the Russian 

 steppes, which much resemble them, is obscure, but the want of forests upon 

 them seems to be due to climatic conditions and especially to a want of spring 

 and summer rains, which prevents the spontaneous formation of forests upon 

 them, though not necessarily the growth of trees artificially planted and cared 

 for. Climatic conditions more or less resembling those of our Western terri- 

 tories produce analogous effects in India. Much valuable information on the 

 relations between climate and forest vegetation' will be found in an article 

 by Dr. Brandis, On the Distribution of Forests in India, in Ocean Highways 

 for October, 1872. 



In the more eastwardly prairie region, fires have done much to prevent the 

 spread of the native groves, and throughout the whole woodless plains the 

 pasturage of the buffalo alone would sufiice to prevent a forest growth. The 

 prairies were the proper feeding-grounds of the bison, and the vast number of 

 those animals is connected, as cause or consequence, with the existence of 

 these vast pastures. The bison, indeed, could not convert the forest into a 

 pasture, but he would do much to prevent the pasture from becoming a forest. 



There is positive evidence that some of the American tribes possessed large 

 herds of domesticated bisons. See Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, i., pp. 

 71-73. What authorizes us to aifirm that this was simply the wild bison 

 reclaimed, and why may we not, with equal probability, believe that the 

 migratory prairie-buffalo is the progeny of the domestic animal run wild ? 



There are, both on the prairies, as in Wisconsin, and in deep forests, as in 

 Ohio, extensive remains of a primitive people, who must have been more 

 numerous and more advanced in art than the present Indian tribes. There 

 can be no doubt that the woods where such earthworks are found in Ohio 

 were cleared by them, and that the vicinity of these fortresses or temples was 

 inhabited by a large population. Nothing forbids the supposition that the 

 prairies were cleared by the same or a similar people, and that the growth of 

 trees upon them has been prevented by fires and grazing, while the restoration 

 of the woods in Ohio may be due to the abandonment of that region by its 



