358 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Agriculture of Indiana. 

 By Solon Robinson, Lake Court House. 



[New York State Agricultural Society Transactions, 1842, vol. 



2:221-23] 



Whether I can make an article worthy of a place in 

 your next volume of the "Transactions," I am not cer- 

 tain. But "I'll try" to answer the third inquiry as ap- 

 plicable to my own vicinity, the north western part of 

 Indiana. I must first give you an idea of the "prominent 

 features" of the country. 



This is the prairie region. The word prairie is French. 

 The general impression, at least in the eastern States, 

 is, that it means meadow ; and that meadow means "level, 

 wet, grass land." This impression is wrong; prairie 

 means a country bare of trees; and in my opinion, it is 

 the natural state of the land as left when the "great 

 waters" receded from it. For instance, if the Falls of 

 Niagara were swept away, the bed of Lake Erie would 

 be a prairie. In time it would grass over — the timber 

 would encroach upon the edges — the seeds of some trees 

 would be wafted by the wind to the center, and others 

 carried by animals, and by and by groves would spring 

 up here and there, dotting the sea of grass like islands 

 in the sea of water. 



None will suppose the bottom of the lake level, neither 

 are the prairies; they are as commonly undulating as 

 any other land; neither are they generally wet. In this 

 particular the soil varies as much as it does in any part 

 of the State of New- York. That is, from the extreme 

 of deep morass, covered with a growth of coarse grass 

 and weeds, twelve or fifteen feet high, to the gravelly or 

 sandy barren knoll — and here the word "barren," sug- 

 gests an idea. 



Large tracts of land in the prairie region are covered 

 with a growth of scattering timber, void of undergrowth, 

 and frequently not unlike an orchard or artificial park, 

 the ground covered with grass; and these tracts are 



