Impressions by the \Yuv. 



One lake on which I used to sail and fish has completely 

 disappeared. This lake was over two miles long, and one and 

 a half miles across. Nothing remains to make the location of 

 this once pretty sheet of water but a few patches of marsh. 

 Many fine flour mills that used to hum with busy life are now 

 silent and rotting down beside dried-up streams. 



The snows that used to go off slowly and soak into the 

 ground when protected by the forests, go off now with a rush, 

 washing away the hillsides and doing much other damage. 



The trip through the east did not strike me so forcibly 

 until last November, when I made a trip across southern Ne- 

 braska, northern Kansas, and noted the changes that had been 

 wrought there since my last visit. 



Twenty-five years had elapsed since I had visited this 

 country. Then, after leaving the settlements along the Mis- 

 souri and its tributaries in the eastern portion of these states, 

 our train glided out onto a great ocean of green. Nothing but 

 rolling prairie, as far as the eye could reach ; the crest-lines of 

 these motionless waves of green intersecting each other at 

 every conceivable angle. 



What little timber there was was restricted to the narrow 

 fringes along the streams, the courses of which could thus be 

 defined until lost in the distance. 



Scarcely a sign of civilization could be seen only prairie, 

 bare prairie. Most of the pioneers had settled in the timber 

 along the banks of the streams, as there was not a bush nor a 

 tree to be found anywhere else. 



There were a few straggling settlers scattered over the 

 prairie, but they lived in sod houses and dugouts, which, at 

 the time of year, were indistinguishable from the mass of green 

 surrounding them. The small towns along the railroads were 

 merely little clusters of houses, standing out on the prairie, 

 unsheltered and unprotected by tree or shrub. These hardy 

 pioneers felt the need of timber and, one by one, they made an 

 effort to secure groves. 



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