Game Survey of the North Central States 



its light-colored soil and by the presence of old oaks on uplands. Most of its 

 topography is broken, but some parts are flat. The streams are muddy. This was 

 the original turkey and deer country. The outstanding present game is quail. 

 Pheasants do not thrive in it. 



The Upper Mississippi type is like the riverbreaks in its original intersper- 

 sion of numerous prairies. In that part called the "driftless area" the prairies 

 were usually confined to long narrow ridges, the whole topography being that of 

 a dissected plateau, undisturbed by glaciation. The original roads (and hence 

 many of the present towns) in the driftless area were established on these prairie 

 ridges. The timber is hardwood, and is confined to the hollows or ravines. The 

 streams of the driftless area are clear and spring- fed, and many now contain trout. 

 Erosion is bad. 



In addition to the driftless area, some glaciated parts of northeastern Iowa and 

 southeastern Minnesota are included in the Upper Mississippi type. The prairie 

 ridges of the Upper Mississippi type were fine chicken country. The hollows 

 still contain quail. 



The till plain contained few original prairies. It has the irregular rounded 

 topography characteristic of recent glacial deposits. For the same reason there 

 are many lakes, ponds, and swamps, few but clear streams, few outcrops of native 

 rock, but many gravelly or rocky moraines, to which the remaining hardwood tim- 

 ber is largely confined. All of these characters fade out southward except the 

 presence of gravel in the soil. The till plain lacks the brushy gullies characteristic 

 of the riverbreak type. Nearly all of the game species of the region originally 

 abounded in the till plain. At present the principal species are pheasants in the 

 north and quail in the south. 



The lakebed type is the flat bottom of an old glacial lake. It contained some 

 original prairie, but was mostly covered by large hardwood timber, now cleared. 

 There are no moraines, but some coastal swamps. The soils are heavy and light- 

 colored, interspersed with sandy strips representing old beaches. The game is 

 like that of the till plain, but Hungarian partridges seem to thrive better than 

 pheasants. 



Forest Belt. The rich farmlands of the Agricultural Belt are bordered on 

 the north by a transition type, characterized by the beginnings of coniferous timber 

 and much poorer soils, often sandy. Less than half of this type is in farms, and 

 the percentage is decreasing. The transition from the Agricultural Belt is often 

 sudden. Jack pine or scrub-oak barrens, large defunct drainage districts, and 

 unpainted barns are frequently to be seen. Forest, grass, and peat fires have seri- 

 ously deteriorated large areas. The streams are clear and contain trout. This was 

 originally deer and ruffed grouse country, but fire, clearings, and cultivation have 

 now added the prairie hen and sharptail grouse. 



To the north the transition type borders on the north woods, differing from 

 it only in the lesser percentage of agriculture and the larger timber, less completely 

 destroyed. It consists of cutover pine, hardwood, and swamp types variously in- 



