The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1859-08-18

peclally the western naif OF tneW.
poverty of the soil will not suffice, fc
these lands. when sufficiently moistene
By rain or thawing snow drifts, pToduc
grass, and are not sterile as the rock
hills, the pebly knolls, of New Eng lane
which nevertheless produce wool rapid
and abundanly. On the Prairies Of Lii
nois, Missouri aud civilized Kansas, tn
absence of wood is readily accounted 70
by the annual fires which, in Autumn o
Spring, sweep over nearly every acre o
dead grass, killing every treo-sprout tha
may have started up from scattered seed
or roots running from the timber in th'
adjacent rasine beneath the matted grass
But here are thousands of acres too grass
cd to be swept by the annual fres-or
which the thinly.scattered rced-stalk'
and bunch grass of last year shake dryly
in the fierce nigh winds-yet not tree
nor shrub relieves the tameness. the bare
ness, the desolation, of thousands of acre.
not a twig, a scion. gives promise ol
trees that are to be. For time the mar
row ravine or lowest intervale Of the fire.
quert streams were fairly timbered with
Cottonw wood and low, sprawling Elm, with
a very little Oak or White Ash at long
intervals intermixed; hut these grew grad
uaily thinner and feetler until nothing
but few small Cottonwoods rem aimed,
and these skulking behind bluffs or in
sheltered hollows at intervals of twenty
to forty miles. Once in ten ,or twenty
miles, bunch of dwarf willows, perhaps
two feet high, would be found covering
in some petty basin washed out by a cur
rent of water many years ago; but these
like the Cottonwoods, are happy if able to
hold their own; indeed, | have seen much
evidence that wood was more abundant
on the plains hundred years ago than
it DOW is. Dead Cottonwoods of generous
proportions lie in the channels of dry
brooks on which no tree nor shrub now
grows; and at one more stations of the
Express Company near the sink of the
Republican they 6ud dead Pine eight
miles up creek, where no live Pine ha.
been seen for generations. judge that
the Desert is steadily enlarging it borders
and at the same time iutensifying its bar
reDness.
The fierce drouth that usually prevails
throughot the Summer, doubtless contrib
utes TO this, but think the violent and
all but constant winds evince still more
disastrous potency. High winds are of
frequent, all but daily, occurrence here
within a dozen miles OF the great protec-
ting bulwark of the Rocky Mountains.
while, from point fifty miles eastward
of this, they sweep over the Plains almost
constantly, aud at times with resistless
fury. A driver stated on our way up,
with every appearance Of sincerity, that
be bad known instances Of tires being
blown from wagon wheels by the lorna
does of the Plains; and hard to swallow
as that may seem, have other aud re-
liable assurance that, when the Missouri
ans camp on the Express Road was swept
BY hurricane, FIVE or six weeks ago, so
hat, after the wreck, but three decent
Ma agons could be patched up out of their
six, as | have already narrated, one of
The wheel-tires was found not only blown
of but nearly Strengthened out There
is almost always good breeze at mid
day and after, on the Plains, but, should
none be felt through the day, one is al
most certain to spring up at sunset and
blow fercely through the night. Thus,
housh bot days. or parts of days are
frequent on the Plains, | have expert
Dot even a moderately warm night And
.hus trees are not; mainly because the
winds uproot or dismem Der them, or so
-ock and wrench them while young that
heir roots cannot suck up even the little
that this soil of baking clay
'esting on porous sand would fain afford
lfford them. Thus the few shoots that
,leave the surface of the earth soon with
IT and die and the broad landscape re-
mains treeless. cherries, and forbidding.
But the eearth of Water and Wood on
be Plains is paralleled by the poverty of
brubbery and berbage. | have not seen
! Strawberry-leaf-far from me be the
presumption of looking for berry-since
icll tuC nieSO1IA luttc SeekS ago, duU
he last Blackberry bramble observed
rev on Cbapman's Creek--at all events,
be other side Of the Buffalo range. A
Z raspberry cane bas not blessed my sight
bese three weary weeks, nor aught else
hat might be hoped to bear an old fash
oned fruit, save the far-of Black berries
foresaid and two or three doubtful grape /
ines on some creek great way back -
he Priekley Pear, very rare and very
reeo, is the only semblance of fruit [
iscovered on the Plains; dwarfsh Cac-
US, with its leaves close to the ground,
he Spanish Nettle-a sort of vegetable
'orcupine-a profusion of Wild Sage,
Wild Wormwood, and other such plants,
'orthless alike to man and beast, reliev
d BY some well -gnawed grass in the rich.
r valleys of Winter water courses (,he
ora usually very scaDty and always
oarse and poor)-such are my recollec-
OBS of the 900 miles or so that separate
le present Buffalo range from the creeks
bat carry sDow-water to the Platte and
ie Pines that herald our approach to the