try. Long since, it has been ascertained that this
description of land is amongst the most productive soil in the State.
The term _barren_ has since received a very extensive application
throughout the West. Like all other tracts of country, the barrens
present a considerable diversity of soil. In general, however, the
surface is more uneven or rolling than the prairies, and sooner
degenerates into ravines and sink-holes. Wherever timber barely
sufficient for present purposes can be found, a person need not hesitate
to settle in the barrens. These tracts are almost invariably healthy;
they possess a greater abundance of pure springs of water, and the soil
is better adapted for all kinds of produce, and all descriptions of
seasons, wet and dry, than the deeper and richer mould of the bottoms
and prairies.

When the fires are stopped, these barrens produce timber, at a rate of
which no northern emigrant can have any just conception. Dwarfish shrubs
and small trees of oak and hickory are scattered over the surface, where
for years they have contended with the fires for a precarious existence,
while a mass of roots, sufficient for the support of large trees, have
accumulated in the earth. As soon as they are protected from the ravages
of the annual fires, the more thrifty sprouts shoot forth, and in ten
years are large enough for corn cribs and stables.

As the fires on the prairies become stopped by the surrounding
settlements, and the wild grass is eaten out and trodden down by the
stock, they begin to assume the character of barrens; first, hazle and
other shrubs, and finally, a thicket of young timber, covers the
surface.

5. _Forest, or timbered Land._ In general, Illinois is abundantly
supplied with timber, and were it equally distributed through the State,
there would be no part in want. The apparent scarcity of timber where
the prairie predominates, is not so great an obstacle to the settlement
of the country as has been supposed. For many of the purposes to which
timber is applied, substitutes are found. The rapidity with which the
young growth pushes itself forward, without a single effort on the part
of man to accelerate it, and the readiness with which the prairie
becomes converted into thickets, and then into a forest of young timber,
shows that, in another generation, timber will not be wanting in any
part of Illinois.

The kinds of timber most abundant are oaks of various species, black and
white walnut,