The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-11-06
1T WAS ONCE A PRAIRIE.
Only in Recent Years Have North
Cardinals Forests Sprung Up.

Only in Recent Years Have North
Cardinals Forests Sprung Up.
The following extract from an address
of Gea. s. D. Adkins, of Freeport, ILL.,,
will be of interest to this State
Il often thought that if the prairie
fires had been kept down, eventually all
the vast prairies of Illinois would be Gov
cred with timber growth. When was
boy / saw in a geography picture of
a buffalo on North Carolina prairie.
There are no prairies in North Carolina
now; but in the spring of 1865 lay in
camp at Concord, Cabarrus county, in
that State, and one day was invited to
dinner some miles in the country by
General Means. After dinner we went
out on the porch to enjoy our cigars,
when General Means, pointing to a
pretty view down the valley, said 1
think you will not find 80 beautiful
view as that in Illinois. | replied
that standing on the highest point
of the quarter section constituting
my fathers farm could see gopher
running anywhere on the farm, when
the prairie grass was burned in the
spring, and in all directions a broad
prairie for miles and miles. The father
of General Means, very old man, sitting
in rocking chair, got up with difficulty
and walked to the railing of the porch,
and, putting one hand on it and point
ing with the other trembling hand down
the valley, said: when / settled here,
young man, and built that little log
house, as far as the eye could see was
smooth prairie | was in doubt about
his memory, but the next day | rode
with some members of my staff through
the timber for miles and could find no
very large trees, nor large stump, and
man who had seen it a smooth prairie.
'sIn timber counties, when the timber
is cut off and the land broken up and
then abandoned, it will be covered by an
entirely. different timber growth. When
Lord CORVALLIS, commanding an Eng
lish army, passed through Orange
county, North Carolina, during the rev.
dictionary war, be cut a military road
through the wilderness, and | have trac-
ed it for miles over high and rocky
ground that had never been cultivated,
by the growth of pine in the old military
road. 1t is surprising how soon Nature
will cover a piece Of abandoned land
with a luxuriant growth OF timber.
Camping with my brigade a few miles
south of Savannah, Ga, in a heavy pine
forest, and for the cleanliness of the
camps we cleared away the covering of
pine needles and cones and swept the
ground with brush brooms, when we
found that our camp was once Guilt
waited rice field and the rice rows were
as plainly marked as the burrows in one
of your fields on your prairie farms.
"Who knows but that one day, long be-
fore America was discovered, these
broad prairies were covered with tim
ber2 Some years ago, on prairie near
Freeport, in digging well, large log,
well preserved, looking like the redwood
of California, was found 40 feet below
the surface. Woo lived here when those
trees were growing where the prairies
are now2 Who was it who lived here
when the 80 called Indian mounds found
all along the valley of the Pecatonica
were builtg Not the Indian. Another
race of men, of which history preserves
no record, was here thousands of years
before any of the oldest of old settlers of
Winnebago county first saw this goodly
land.
T"Eot many years ago went to the
mouth of the Mississippi river, 80 miles
below New Orleans, aud it appears to me
that it is plain that at one time the
mouth of the Mississippi was hundreds
of miles north of where it is now. have
visited the Dells of the Wisconsin, one of
the most remarkable bits of natural
scenery to be found anywhere, and |
doubt not that the time was, before the
waters had cut that wonderful channel
through the rocks, when all of the great
pine forests of Wisconsin north of the
DelIs was an immense lake. The old
settlers Of Winnebago county have wit
messed many changes, but mightier
changes have gone before"