These plains are covered with long coarse grass, which, at a future day, will probably afford feeding to numerous herds of cattle; at present they are totally unfrequented. Throughout the north-western territory of the States, and even beyond the head waters of the Mississippi, the country is interspersed with similar plains; and the farther you proceed to the westward, the more extensive in general are they. Amidst those to the westward are found numerous herds of buffaloes, elks, and other wild graminivorous animals; and formerly animals of the same description were found on these plains in the state of New York, but they have all disappeared long since, owing to their having been so constantly pursued both by the Indians and white people. Very different opinions have been entertained respecting the deficiency of trees on these extended tracts of land, in the midst of a country that abounds so generally with wood. Some have attributed it to the poverty of the soil; whilst others have maintained, that the plains were formerly covered with trees, as well as other parts of the country, but that the trees have either been destroyed by fire, or by buffaloes, beavers, and other animals. [Sidenote: JOURNEY THROUGH THE WOODS.] It is well known that buffaloes, in all those parts of the country where they are found wild, commit great depredations amongst the trees, by gnawing off the bark; they are also very fond of feeding upon the young trees that spring up from seed, as well as upon the suckers of the old ones; it may readily be imagined, therefore, that the entire of the trees, on very extended tracts of land, might be thus killed by them; and as the American timber, when left exposed to the weather, soon decays, at the end of a few years no vestige of the woods would be found on these tracts, any more than if they had been consumed by fire. It appears to me, however, that there is more weight in the opinion of those, who ascribe the deficiency of trees on the plains to the unfriendliness of the soil; for the earth towards the surface is universally very light, and of a deep black colour, and on digging but a few inches downwards you come to a cold stiff clay. On Long Island, in the state of New York, plains are met with nearly similar to these in the back country, and the Dutch farmers, who have made repeated trials of the soil, find that it will not produce wheat or any other grain, and, in short, nothing that is at all profitable except coarse grass. I make no doubt but that whenever a similar trial comes to be made of the soil of the plains to the westward, it will be found equally incapable of producing any thing but what it does at present. [Sidenote: JOURNEY THROUGH THE WOODS.]