322 



F A R M E R S ' R E G I S T E R 



[No. G. 



The children of the early settlers grew up among 

 forests, and they and their children, judging from 

 all they saw, learned to consider that almost all 

 soils, rich or poor, naturally would be covered by 

 trees — and while falling into this error, at least got. 

 rid of that of their forefathers, in connecting the 

 idea of a luxuriant forest growth with great fertil- 

 ity. When the spread of population finally 

 brought the latter descendants to the borders of 

 the Mississippi, and the great prairies of the west 

 first opened to their astonished view, this change 

 was as great as unaccountable, and jet the cause 

 as little sought, as that of the universal forest state 

 had been by the first emigrants from Europe. But 

 ignorant wonder'soon ceases, and leads to no pro- 

 fitable search for causes, or for truth. The children 

 of the first settlers of the West have grown up 

 among prairies; and when another century shall 

 have passed, find our frontier settlements shall 

 have reached the base of the Rocky Mountains, il 

 may begin to be believed there, that the forest 

 state is rarely known to nature, and is only pro- 

 duced by the labors and care of man. So the Be- 

 douin Arab thinks the world is made of naked 

 sand — and the ShelJander's world is of wet peal. 



Of course these general remarks apply Jo those 

 who are acquainted only with some one re 

 the world, and who have not been informed of 

 others by books, any more than by travel. 

 Among the more learned, there has been no lack 

 of causes assigned for these opposite appearances 

 — but they are such as to show a strange disre- 

 gard of all the requisites of sound reason!!! ■-. and 

 of accurate investigation. Any reason that was 

 first advanced, however insufficient, however ab- 

 surd, seems to have been readily admitted, and to 

 have passed current from one traveller, or writer, 

 to another. Thus, 1o the annua! fires alone has 

 been attributed the destruction of trees, and the 

 formation of the great prairies of the west; and 

 this cause has been deemed sufficient by both the 

 learned and tire ignorant. The objection to it is, 

 that all the Atlantic slope was burned over as of- 

 ten as the west, before the settlement of the coun- 

 try, and in the former (at least east of the moun- 



nia doth afford many excellent vegetables, and living 

 creatures, yet grasse there is little .or none, but what 

 grovveth in low marishes: for ah the countrey is ovcr- 

 growne with trees, whose droppings continually turn- 

 eth their grasse to weeds, by reason of the ranckness of 

 the ground, which would soone be amended by good 

 husbandry. The wood that is most common is oke 

 and walnut, many of their okes are so tall and straight 

 that they will beare two foote and a halfe square of 



good timber for 20 yards long." ( Second Booke 



of the Trve Travels, Jldvenlvres, and Observations of 

 Captaine Iohn Smith, fyc. London, 1629.) Captain 

 Smith was altogether unskilled in agriculture, and it 

 may be presumed that when' he spoke of the need oJ 

 such rich land being "fully manured,"' as well as in- 

 habited, he meant nothing more than that it should be 

 properly cultivated — of which, manuring was deemed 

 a general and necessary part. But this accidental 

 (and according to his views, erroneous) expression, 

 was much nearer the truth than the opinion of fertility 

 being proved by the "greatnesse of trees;" for much 

 the greater part of the land bearing the largest and 

 most magnificent growth of oaks, pines, and other 

 common trees, was in truth poor then, and will ever re- 

 main so, without the application of calcareous matter. 



tains) not one acre of prairie had been produced. 



Philosophical writers have maintained supposed 

 causes of the destruction of the forests which for- 

 merly covered England, which are very plausible 

 when considered alone: but precisely similar caus- 

 es have been operating long and generally in this 

 country, and our ibrests not only do not decay and 

 die, but continue to defy every agent of injury, ex- 

 cept the thorough use of the axe and plough. 

 Even where long continued tillage has the most 

 eflectualiy eradicated the natural and original fo- 

 rest growth, if the impoverished land is merely 

 let alone for thirty years, it will (in most cases,) 

 be better covered with a new growth of trees, than 

 the utmost care could raise in England. Ex- 

 am pies of the facts and reasoning referred to are pre- 

 sented in the following passage from Davy. — 

 "In instances where sum. live generations of 

 vegetables have grown upon a soil, unless part of 

 their produce has been carried oil' by man, or con- 

 sumed by animals, the vegetable matter increases 

 in such a proportion, that the soil approaches 1o a 

 peat in its nature; and if in a situation where it 

 can receive water from a higher district, it becomes 

 spongy, and permeated with thatfluid, and is grad- 

 ually rendered incapable of supporting the nobler 

 classes of vegetables. 



"Many peat-mosses seem to have; been formed 

 by the destruction of forests, in consequence of 

 the imprudent use of the hatchet by the early cul- 

 tivators of the country in which they exist: when 

 the trees are felled in the out-skirts of the wood, 

 those in the interior are exposed to the influence of 

 the wind?; and having been accustomed to shelter, 

 become unhealthy, and die in their new situation, 

 and their leaves and branches gradually decom- 

 posing, produce a stratum of vegetable matter. 

 f n many of the great bogs in Ireland and Scotland, 

 the larger trees that are" found in the out-skirts of 

 them, bear the marks of having been felled. In 

 the interior,' few entire trees are found; and the 

 cause is, probably, that they fell by gradual de- 

 cay; and that the fermentation and decomposition of 

 the vegetable matter was most rapid where it was 

 in the greatest quantity .." — [Lee. 4.] In Virginia no 

 one forest tree has been known to die, or even to de- 

 cline, from being exposed in the manner above de- 

 scribed as so fatal: and such effects being produced 

 in England would only prove that the soil was un- 

 favorable' to trees, and their life therefore feeble 

 and sickly, and ready to yield to any new 

 and considerable cause of injury. 



The entire absence of trees lor 900 miles across 

 the Pampas between Buenos Ayres and the An- 

 des, has been still more absurdly attributed to the 

 winds (called pamperos) which often sweep 

 across those wide plains with such violence, that 

 no trees could withstand their power. I have seen 

 in our forests where a hurricane had uprooted or 

 broken off every tree of size in its course. But no 

 wind could destroy the young and flexible under- 

 wood — and if such winds swept the same track 

 every year, or every month, they would not pre- 

 vent it being thickly covered with young sapling 

 trees. 



The downs in England, which have not been 

 tilled for hundreds of years, and are only valuable 

 for sheep pasture, show no rising growth of trees. 

 This is not held strange there, but would be sup- 

 posed sufficiently accounted for by the poverty of 

 the soil, and the (supposed) impossibility of young 



