426 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



defective condition of the timber produced here. Many of the trees are 

 hollow-hearted. Another explanation is offered in the fires that the In- 

 dians were accustomed to kindle annually throughout this part of the 

 State. The sparsenessof the timber can no doubt be attributed to the last 

 named caused. 



While some of these varieties of soil are much warmer and kinder 

 than others, all of them form blue grass land. As soon as the surface 

 water is withdrawn, this most valuable of all our forage plants — Foa pra- 

 tens"., or Kentucky Blue Grass, comes in to displace the wild grasses that 

 have occupied the ground hitherto, and it comes to stay. This is not the 

 place to take up in detail this great source of agricultural wealth. It is 

 enough to say that all of its charact ristic excellences are here shown. 

 The best rewards of agriculture in Madison county, have hitherto been 

 drawn from this spontaneous product of its soil. The lands of the county 

 have been turned into pasture-glrounds since their first occupation. 

 Under judicious management, cattle do well upon them throughout our 

 ordinary winters, without hay or grain. 



It is to be remarked that Madison county is a blue grass region not so 

 much because of the composition of its drift-beds as from the fact that 

 these drift-beds are extended, owing to th^/ accidents of their recent 

 geological history, in wide plains which allow the abundant accumula- 

 tion of vegetable matter in the forming soil. These same drift-deposits 

 when they lie on well drained slopes form a stubborn, yellow clay that 

 can hardly be kept covered with sod of any description. It must not, 

 however, be inferred that all level drift tracts will become blue grass 

 land, irrespective of their composition. Clays derived in large part from 

 the waste of limestone, as are those of Madison county, are especially 

 adapted to the growth of blue grass. Madison county has no monopoly of 

 this important product, but all the flat-lying tracts of the counties 

 around it, as they have shared in its geological history, share also in its 

 agricultural capabilities. 



These districts were shunned in the early settlements of this general 

 region on account of their swampy character^ — but discerning men soon 

 came to see their great possibilities, and as the price per acre was scarcely 

 more than nominal, they were bought in large tracts and have been so 

 held until the present time. Farms of 2,000 acres are not unusual in the 

 county, and fields of five hundred acres are common. The recently divided 

 estate of William Wilson, in the Darby Plains of Canaan township, em- 

 braced 9,000 acres. 



The county is famous not only for the number of cattle that it pro- 

 duces, but also for the quality. It holds some of the finest herds of im- 

 proved cattle to be found in the State or country. 



