1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



323 



trees growing, even if planted, on open pasture 

 land, without any care, and where they were al- 

 ways exposed to the attacks of Jive stock. But in 

 Virginia, no degree of poverty, no exposure to 

 grazing, will prevent untiiled land growing up in 

 wood. Annual fires, grazing animals, and pover- 

 ty, wetness or sandiness of soil, all may prevent 

 the growth of trees, as alledged in different coun- 

 tries: but all these are bat secondary causes which 

 would have little or no effect, without the more 

 powerful operation of some other, a; id primary 

 cause. This cause will be found in the r 

 constitution of the soil — and I will proceed to 

 state my reasons for believing that the cause of the 

 different conditions of land as to being naturally 

 covered with trees, or not, in general is merely the 

 deficiency of lime in the soil, or its abundance — the 

 firmer state being friendly to forest growth, and 

 the latter being as unfriendly. Or, in terms so 

 general as to cover all the exceptions which will 

 hereafter be admitted to the foregoing position — 

 it may be stated, that the formation of prairies, 

 &c. is caused by the existence of such circum- 

 stances as favor the growth of grass in a far great- 

 er degree than the growth of trees — and of all such 

 circumstances, the abundance of calcareous matter 

 in the soil is the most efficient. 



In addressing readers residing in, or otherwise 

 well acquainted with the Atlantic states, it is un- 

 necessary to adduce facts to prove the general and 

 strong disposition of the soil to produce trees, in 

 vigor and luxuriance — to resist the labors of man 

 for their destruction— and to return to the state of 

 forest whenever tillage is intermitted. No untiiled 

 land will long remain naked, or in grass; and even 

 under a regular rotation of crops, the labor oi' 

 grubbing to destroy young trees is continually re- 

 quired on most lands, and particularly on those 

 originally of inferior quality. Our poorest lands 

 in lower Virginia, are generally covered with 

 young pines in tour or five years after being left 

 without tillage, and their after growth is as rapid 

 and heavy as European timber growers would ex- 

 pect on the best lands, and with every care be- 

 stowed for that end. But it is not only to pines, 

 (though that is the most striking case,) that this 

 applies. In the higher and stirrer lands, where 

 pines are rare, the springing of other young trees 

 shows the same general tendency of the soil. If 

 this tendency can be said to be i'eeble any where 

 in lower Virginia (and it may be presumed that 

 the same state of things exists in all the Atlantic 

 states,) it is on the few naturally rich soils on the 

 rivers, some of which are the only lands naturally 

 calcareous in the country — and all of which de- 

 rived their natural fertility and permanent value, 

 from possessing lime in some form as an ingre- 

 dient. In the Essay on Calcareous Manures 

 proofs have been exhibited of this supposed qual- 

 ity of such lands* — and therefore they will not be 

 repeated here. It has also been maintained 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 



*Paire 17.2nd Edition. — On neutral soils. 



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 al- 

 most the whole country was under one great fo- 

 rest, and the entire surface covered with dry leaves. 

 For more than a century alter the settlement of 

 the j .sent race of civilized inhabitants, fires pass- 

 ed over the woodland almost every spring — caused 

 either by the carelessness or design of hunters, or 

 by the farmers to forward the growth of grass lor 

 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 

 I his prat lice of burning the woods. Even in these 

 latter times we hear of fires of tremendous fury 

 sweeping hundreds of square miles in Maine, de- 

 stroying timber, and every combustible matter on 

 the few small farms in this yet wild region. Yet 

 no where below the mountains, 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 next position that will be assumed is, that 

 most of the prairies, pampas, 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 absolutely, would require 

 more of time, and labor of investigation, than the 

 labors and life of any one individual would suffice 

 for: therefore the facts that will be offered are only 

 considered as specimens of the thousands which 

 the world could furnish, and to be taken as fair 

 samples of all, only while they remain uncontra- 

 dicted by other opposing tacts. No traveller hav- 

 ing (to my knowledge) sought to learn or to re- 

 port any particular information as to the constitu- 

 tion of stieh soils, or having attached any import- 

 ance to the presence or absence of calcareous in- 

 gredients, I have only been able to gather indirect- 

 ly from their observations, the scattered testimony 

 which will be adduced. Unfortunately no travel- 

 ler has been a scientific agriculturist: and though 

 many have been mineralogists, geologists, or che- 

 mists, they have given no attention to the consti- 

 tution of the soils over which they passed, nor did 

 any seem to consider that the composition of the 

 soil had any bearing on its strange external fea- 

 tures, which were the theme of their admiration. 

 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, steppes, fyc. 



Before entering more upon particulars, in ad- 

 dressing readers who are generally (like the wri- 

 ter) accustomed only to soils favorable to trees, it 

 is proper to describe generally the features of the 

 great regions which are bare of such growth, and 

 which, under the different names of prairies, bar- 



