42 Origin, Extension and Continuance of Prairies. 



freely admitted, the carpet of grass will be from six to eight feet in 

 height. Should this grass be burnt during the fall season, or at any 

 dry time through the winter or spring, and the practice annually con- 

 tinued, the ground would become more and more prepared for the 

 production of a still more luxuriant crop of grass, when not only the 

 dead timber would be consumed, but those trees that are alive would 

 suffer by the fire and in a few years be killed, unless they stand on 

 the borders of ponds of water, or on some very unproductive spots; 

 in either case the grass is found to be short and puny, and insufficient 

 to support a flame that would affect a tree. In extensive prairies, we 

 often observe little clusters of trees, which, by occupying peculiar 

 situations, are enabled to avoid the consuming flames of a burning 

 prairie. 



In a few years, all the trees which come within the reach of the 

 fires will be killed, and thus the forest is annually dilapidated, until 

 no signs of it remain, except those which appear in the holes in the 

 land left by the standing trees, and in the httle hillocks made by the 

 roots throwing up the ground when they are laid prostrate by the 

 wind. The hillock will be, in time, brought down by the action of 

 rain; but on a^very level piece of land the holes left by the burnt 

 stumps will remain, and perhaps would never be entirely obliterated. 



The prairie, which is now in its infancy, continues to make annual 

 encroachments upon the surrounding forests. The grass of this prai- 

 rie becomes closely set, and may be from ten to twelve feet in height. 

 It pushes close up under the trees of the surrounding forest, and eve- 

 ry fire acts injuriously upon the nearest trees; and as they are killed, 

 the grass not only surrounds them, but passes on and croivds hard 

 upon other trees, so that the prairie is constantly increasing, and would 

 always exist and extend its borders while fire was applied. 



FIRES IN THE PRAIRIES. 



It is difficult to conceive of the horror excited at the sight of a 

 burning prairie. It is an ocean of fire, whose billows roll and heave, 

 and run together, when the mountain of pyramidal flames ascends 

 and drives detached bodies of fire seemingly into the very clouds. 

 The whole horizon appears to be on fire ; the earth and the sky are 

 hidden by the flames, and the eye can reach no point beyond their 

 boundary. When the wind is brisk, the burning grass ascends and 

 gives the appearance, as though the heavens were filled with fire- 

 brands; and such is the rapidity with which the flame moves over 



