Better soil
than that of the Buffalo region west of Kansas is rarely found, though
the scarcity of wood, and the unfitness of the little that skirts the
longer and more abiding streams for any use but that of fuel, must be a
great drawback to settlement and cultivation. The coarse, short, hearty
grass that carpets most of this region, and which is allowed to attain
its full growth only in the valleys of the Chugwater and a few other
streams which have their course mainly within or very near the Rocky
Mountains, and which the Buffalo no longer visit, seems worthy at least
of trial by the farmers and shepherds of our older States. Its ability
to resist drouth and overcropping and hard usage generally must be
great, and I judge that many lawns and pastures would be improved by it.
That it has merely held its ground for ages, in defiance of the crushing
tread and close feeding of the enormous herds of the Plains, proves it a
plant of signal hardihood and tenacity of life; while the favor with
which it is regarded by passing teams and herds combines with its
evident abundance of nutriment to render its intrinsic value
unquestionable.
The green traveler or emigrant in early summer has traversed, since he
crossed the Missouri, five hundred miles of almost uniformly arable
soil, most of it richly grassed, with belts of timber skirting its
moderately copious and not unfrequent water-courses, and he very
naturally concludes 'the American Desert' a misnomer, or at best a
gross exaggeration.
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