Next autumn these new shoots were burned
off, but the root and calloused head, about level with the surface of
the ground, continued to grow and send up more new shoots; and so on,
almost every year until very old, probably far more than a century,
while the tops, which would naturally have become tall broad-headed
trees, were only mere sprouts seldom more than two years old. Thus the
ground was kept open like a prairie, with only five or six trees to
the acre, which had escaped the fire by having the good fortune to
grow on a bare spot at the door of a fox or badger den, or between
straggling grass-tufts wide apart on the poorest sandy soil.
The uniformly rich soil of the Illinois and Wisconsin prairies
produced so close and tall a growth of grasses for fires that no tree
could live on it. Had there been no fires, these fine prairies, so
marked a feature of the country, would have been covered by the
heaviest forests. As soon as the oak openings in our neighborhood were
settled, and the farmers had prevented running grass-fires, the grubs
grew up into trees and formed tall thickets so dense that it was
difficult to walk through them and every trace of the sunny "openings"
vanished.
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