v FACE OF THt COUNTRY. 245 



cannot be recalled. The wide expanse appeared the gift of 

 God to man for the exercise of his industry ; and there being 

 no obstacle to immediate cultivation, nature seemed inviting the 

 husbandman to till the soil, and partake of her bounty. Mr 

 Malthus s doctrine, that population increases faster than the 

 means of subsistence, appeared more than doubtful, and in 

 volving the unhallowed thought of a Being of infinite good 

 ness and power leaving man, a favoured object of creation, 

 without the means of subsistence. If a considerable portion 

 of mankind ever are in want of food, the cause w r ill be found 

 to arise from human agency, and not from nature refusing to 

 do her part. I felt grateful at beholding a field so well fitted 

 to relieve the depressed and starving population of Great 

 Britain and Ireland, while the conduct of their land-owning 

 and tithe-eating legislators, in restricting the circulation of 

 nature s bounty, appeared sinful. 



It has already been observed, that fire passes annually 

 over the prairies, which may perhaps account for the absence 

 of clovers and fibrous-rooted grasses, the herbage consisting 

 chiefly of three or four tall growing species, the creeping 

 roots of which escape destruction, and continue to exist with 

 out renewal from seed. At this advanced period of the sea 

 son, the coarse withered grass seemed unpalatable to animals, 

 and the cattle were, generally, browsing on parts which had 

 been burned, with a view of affording a succession of nutritious 

 food. I collected the seeds of many plants without know 

 ing any thing of their usefulness or beauty. On the banks of 

 Meadowcrow creek, a small tributary of the river Illinois, 

 I first met the indigenous hop, apparently identical with that 

 of England, and from the Sangamon brought the legumi 

 nous and earth seeds of Glycine Monica, a species of hazel 

 exceeding four feet in height, and indigenous to the whole 

 extent of country through which I travelled on the American 

 continent, and which commonly fringed the prairie, and gra 

 duated the change from forest to open plain. They were 

 loaded with small- nuts, which sometimes satisfied my hunger. 



The most numerous of birds were the ruifed grouse, or 

 prairie-hen already described. They frequent roads, particu 

 larly in the morning, perhaps to escape from, the effects of 



