4 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



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wholly destitute of tree or shrub, and covered only with a 

 luxuriant growth of wild grass, and beautifully interspersed 

 with flowers of every hue and variety, each successively 

 making the prairie to look gay with their presence from 

 April to October. This beautiful natural meadow is not 

 more pleasant to the eye, than it is genial to the culture and 

 grateful to the toil of man. It consists of a very dark brown 

 vegetable mould, in appearance like a mixture of the light 

 feathery part of ashes with a rich ooze. It is mellow beyond 

 the conception of those who are acquainted only with the 

 hard, stiff soils of the Atlantic slope, and as rich and pro- 

 ductive as it is mellow. It is turned over by a prairie plough 

 running on wheels and set to cut the turf in a regular and 

 uniform parallelogram, about three inches thick, and fifteen 

 or eighteen inches wide. This ploughing should be done 

 during the springing of vegetation, or one of the three sum- 

 mer months ; though May would usually be considered bet- 

 ter than August for the operation. If done in May or June, 

 it will, in some cases, be ready for a fall sowing, the same 

 year. This mould is from one and a half to two feet deep 

 usually, and sometimes more than that ; and for whole sec- 

 tions, for several townships of six miles square in extent, a 

 person could not find more gravel in the same quantity of 

 mould than in his flour barrel. Below this rich mould is a 

 subsoil, which seems not 'unsuitable to cultivation, being 

 similar in appearance to the soil of the timbered lands, a 

 yellow light clay, or clay loam. The country is a limestone 

 formation. The timber is only on the streams, and consists 

 of elm, ash, black walnut, butternut, maple, mulberry and 

 iron wood on the bottoms, and on the upland white, red, 

 black, and burr oak, shell bark and common hickoiy, with 

 occasionally linden, birch, \^ld plum and cherry, locust, and 

 some other. On the Wisconsin and St. Croix are heavy 



