Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1850-05-31
From Hunts Merchants Magazine.
Changes of Prairie Veoata1;ou

over large tracts, once green with ferns, state
y trees have succeeded, in followed. in cou7st
OF ages, by grasses and other hebaceous plants
Oiie c'ass OIL trees has its day, exhausted tbs
SUI Oh appropriate pabulum, and filled it with a.
eAcrement which in time it came to loathe. An
otner ana different class has sprung up in it.
place, luXurated on the eXcrement and decay O
Its predecessor, and in turn given way to a sue
cessor, destil.ed to the same ultimate fate. Thus
one after another, the stately tribes of the fores
have arisen 1ourished, and fell until the soil ha.
become In measure exhausted of the prope,
food for trees, and become well fitted for the
GROWN OF herbaceous plants These in theil
turn have taken possession OF the fertile plants
and had their round of SUGGESTIONS, until they
too, like the people of Sodom, have weared the
earth with their impurities, and have been SWEEP
away for the race of plants better adapted to the
growing lights Of the age.
The life OF man is but point in the endless
line OF time. 1t scarcely reaches one-fouth Of
the duration of many tree of the forest The
range of his individual observation is therefore
extremely limited And yet he has seen clearly
the operation of the great law of change exhibit.
ed in the vegetable world. He has seen crop
of pines spring up and grow on a surface denud
ed of oaks and hickorics. And, on the Other
hand, he has seen thrifty growth of deciduou>
trees spring up after the ground has been cleared
OF evergreens. Soft wood, deciduous trees, he
mas witnessed taking the place of the hard: and
rice refSG. Changes in herbaceous plants are
still more observable. In large districts of our
country, where wheat was once q common crop
it has almost ceased to be grown
Where 1t was formerly grown with little care
year after year, tits now cultivated with success
only with lnanures, and as one crop of rota-
ton. Rotation which once answered the pur.
pose OF the cultivator, have in time required the
Introduction of new crops and new manures to
ensure success. For time, more perfect culture
kept the crop from deterioration. Then a more
extended list in the rotation, embracing root
crops. Following this is IA deeper cultivation,
by means OF subsoH plowing and underground
drainage. enabling the root to get food from a
soil before out OF their reach. Contemporaneous
with these Improvements, have been discoveries
in science by which the soil has been renovated
with new chemical agents But with all these
palIIailves, ground long cultivated in cereal
grains is d'terorating for their production; and
much OF the graln-eating population OF the world
Is now fed from fields lately opened in the Wilds
OF North America and Russia
The inquiry, What has caused our prair 5?
seems, then to deserve attention as a practical
question. The grasses with which these vast
plains are covered may have had their round of
changes, until the best food for that class OF
plants has become nearly suppIanted by the ex-
crement which they loatho. The very rapid
growth of trees and shrubs planted on prairie
ground seems u favor the idea that the time has
arrived for the grea change to take place from
grass to trees. The inl1riority of the growth OF
cultivated grasses on the prarios fayors the sams
conclusion. Almost every where the timber land,
when cleared, is more productive in the grasses
team the lraidcs; and equally general is tie SUI
periorty OF the prari5 i'll the growth of newly
planted trees, over lands cleared ofHmbar The
ccrea grass SIN IL oats, an wlcat-ars new
to the prairie, AMI vii for .n., c ,ceeed in
20 desroe With cl a fertility and !apt, d.
e., n o-5er resp c-s, i, is pretty CERTAIN that
cleared Of Ii heavy growth OF timber it produces
one year with another better crops.