260 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



in the same work, and the proofs exhibited at length, that in Virginia and 

 the Atlantic states generally there are few soils containing naturally any 

 portion whatever of carbonate of lime— and all the vast region which is so 

 peculiarly constituted in being destitute of this ingredient, is precisely that 

 which so strongly favors the growth of trees. 



Over all this great extent of country, we may suppose that the aboriginal 

 inhabitants sent fires every year to aid their hunting. Indeed it would have 

 been scarcely possible to avoid it, when almost the whole country was un- 

 der one great forest, and the entire surface covered with dry leaves. For 

 more than a century after the settlement of the present race of civilized in- 

 habitants, fires passed over the wood-land almost every spring — caused 

 either by the carelessness or design of hunters, or by the farmers to forward 

 the growth of grass for their cattle. It required legal prohibitions, added to 

 the general extension of tillage, and the great damage of burning fences, 

 &c., to put a stop to this practice of burning the woods. Even in these 

 latter times we hear of fires of tremendous fury sweeping hundreds of 

 square miles in Maine, destroying timber, and every combustible matter on 

 the few small farms in this yet wild region. Yet no where below the moun- 

 tains, nor in any poor region, has the wood growth been destroyed— nor 

 has an acre of prairie been thus formed, whether on land rich or poor. 

 This is enough to prove that no violence or frequency of fires can destroy 

 and keep down the growth of trees, unless aided by some other and more 

 efficient agent. 



The most general cause of the absence of trees. 



The nex^osition that will be assumed is, that most of the prairies, pam- 

 pas, steppes and downs, which are bare of wood, though never tilled, are 

 highly calcareous, and therefore unfriendly to the growth of trees. 



The proofs necessary to maintain such wide ground, directly and abso- 

 lutely, would require more of time, and labor of investigation, than the la- 

 bors and life of any one individual would suffice for; therefore the facts that 

 will be offered are considered only as specimens of the thousands which the 

 world could furnish, and to be taken as fair samples of all, only while they 

 remain uncontradicted by other opposing facts. No traveller having (to my 

 knowledge) sought to learn or to report any particular information as to the 

 constitution of such soils, or having attached any importance to the pre- 

 sence or absence of calcareous ingredients, I have only been able to gather 

 indirectly from their observations the scattered testimony which will be ad- 

 duced. Unfortunately no traveller has been a scientific agriculturist ; and 

 though many have been mineralogists, geologists, or chemists, they have 

 given no attention to the constitution of the soils over which they passed, 

 nor did any seem to consider that the composition of the soil had any bear- 

 ing on its strange external features, which were the theme of their admira- 

 tion. Dr. Clarke, distinguished as he deservedly was as a man of science, 

 has told as little of the nature of the soil of the Russian steppes, as most of 

 the least uninformed of the observers of our prairies. 



Proofs — derived from the general description of prairies, pampas, sleppes, ifc. 



Before entering more upon particulars, in addressing readers who are ge- 

 nerally (like the writer) accustomed only to soils favorable to trees, it is pro- 

 per to describe generally the features of the great regions which are bare of 

 such growth, and which, under the different names of prairies, barrens, and 

 savannas in North America, pampas in South America, and steppes in 



