The Kansas herald of freedom., 1858-07-31
The Pfairies.

Ge0loglStS tell US llat the YeSotaDle
growth some thousand years ago, was in
many respects greatly unlike that which
now covers the solid ground of our earth.
| Changes of temperature and constituents
of the soil, are going on from age to age
and correspondent changes take place in
the vegetable kingdom. Over large tracts
once green with ferns, stately trees have
succeeded, followed, in a course of ages,
by grasses and other herbaeeous plants
One class of trees has had its day, ex-
hausted the soil of appropriate pabu-
| lum, and filled it with an excrement which
it came to loathe. Another and different
class has sprung up in Its place, luxuriated
on the excrement and decay of its prede
cessor, and in turn. given way to sue
eessor, destined to the same ultimate fate
Thus, one after another, the stately tribes
of the forest have arisen, fourished and
fell, until the soil has become, in meas
ure, exhausted of the proper food of trees,
and become we'll fitted for the growth of
herbaceous plants. These in their turn
have taken possession of the fertile plains,
and had their round of succession, until
they, too, like the people of Sodom, have
wearied the earth with their impurities,
and have been swept away for race of
plants better adapted to the growing lights
Of the age.
The life of man is but a point in the
endless line Of time. 1t scarcely reaches
one fourth the duration of tree in the
forest. The range of his individual OBJ
servation is therefore extremely limited.
And vet he has seen clearly the operation
of the great law of change, exhibited in
the vegetable world. He has seen crop
of pines spring up and grow on a surface
denuded of oaks and hickories. And, on
the other hand, he has seen thrifty crop
of deciduous trees spring up, after the
growth had been cleared of evergreens.
Soft wood, deciduous trees, he has wit
messed taking the place of the hard, and
vice versa. Changes in herbaceous plants
are still more observable. In large dis
tricts of country, where wheat was once a
common crop, it has almost ceased to be
grown. Where it was formerly grown
with little care, year after year, it is now
cultivated with success only by new ma
nures, and as one crop of rotation. Ro-
tations which once answered the purpose
of the cultivator, have, in time, required
the introduction of new crops aid new
manures to ensure success. For a time,
more perfect culture kept the crop from
deterioration. Then more extended list
in the rotation, embracing root crops
Following this is deeper cultivation, by
means of subsoil plowing and under
ground drainage, enabling the roots to get
food from the soil before out of their
reach. Cotemporaheous with these i'm
provements have been discoveries in Sci
ence, by which the soil has been renovated
with new chemical agents. But with all
these saliatiyeS, ground long cultivated
with cereal grains is deteriorating for their
production and much of the grain-eat-
ing 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 prai-
ries, seems then, to deserve attention, as a
particular question. The grasses with
which these vast plains are covered, may
have had their round of changes, until
the best food of that class of plants has
become nearly supplanted by the excre-
ment which they loathe. The very rapid
growth of trees and shrubs planted on
prairie ground seems to favor the idea that
the time has arrived for the great change
to take place from gracs to trees. The in
feriority of the growth of cultivated grass
es on the prairies, favors the same conclu-
sion. Almost everywhere the timber land.
when cleared, is more productive in the
grasses than the prairies, and equally gene
raj Is the newly planted trees, over lands
| cleared of timber. The cereal grasses
maize, oats and wheat are new to the
prairie, and will for time succeed in a
good degree. With equal fertility and
adaptness, in other respects, it is pretty
certain that land cleared of heavy growth
of timber, produces, one year with another,
better crops of wheat than prairie. How
much the difference is, and how fast that
difference will increase, remains to be
tested by longer experience.
We conclude, then, that fixed law
governs the change from one class of vege-
tation to another, causing the earth t.
bring forth crops in rotation, occupying
untold centuries, giving, at different times
to different lands, natural meadows and
| forests, in such extent and beauty, as the
generations of men have scarcely, in i'm
agination, conceived themselves capable
| of initiating, much less of rivaling.