Why do I live on the prairie?
The Great Plains are prairies rather than forests because trees are not growing on these plains. But why are trees not growing here? The average rainfall is not significantly different from the forested parts, and supporting grasses 10-12 feet tall takes a lot of water. The typical answers go like that:
•Drought. Notwithstanding relatively plentiful average rainfall, the prairie peninsula suffers from severe drought 50-200% more often than the surrounding forests.
•Dry season. In contrast to forest regions, which have relatively uniform precipitation throughout the year, the prairie peninsula is noticeably drier in late fall and winter.
•High ratio of evaporation to precipitation. Despite abundant rain, plants dry out faster in the prairie peninsula due to wind, temperature, etc.
•Flat terrain. The prairie offered few natural barriers and particularly--you see where I'm going with this--few natural firebreaks.
•Lightning. After Florida and the Gulf Coast, the prairie peninsula has electrical storms more often than any other region in the U.S.
•Fire. There seems little question that recurring fire promoted by periodic dry spells was the central formative feature of the prairie. How the majority of fires got started remains a matter of debate. Native Americans evidently torched the prairie frequently to create more desirable grazing land for game. Other blazes were started by lightning, which often struck the highest thing around, namely the trees. Whatever their cause, the fires were certainly dramatic, racing across the prairie at speeds of up to 15 to 20 kilometers per hour and incinerating vast tracts. Forests were slow to recover from the destruction, but prairie grasses, whose seeds and buds remained cool a few inches below the scorched surface, were back the next year. Grasses, in short, thrived because they were better adapted to the stressful prairie environment than trees.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2604/why-dont-trees-grow-on-the-great-plains
Lightning notwithstanding, most of the fires were human caused, except for the extreme southeast. http://hol.sagepub.com/content/18/7/1123.abstract
The conditions on the great plains are such that drought and dry seasons are very common; if you torch the woods for a few hundred years, you'll get yourself a prairie. Once you have a prairie, reforestation becomes very difficult, as the soil changes its structure. Lately, as the evidence steadily mounted it has been becoming quite obvious what caused the transition from the forests to the prairie:
...the common impression about the American West is that, before the arrival of people of European descent, Native Americans had essentially no effect on the land, the wildlife, or the ecosystems, except that they harvested trivial amounts that did not affect the "natural" abundances of plants and animals. But Native Americans had three powerful technologies: fire, the ability to work wood into useful objects, and the bow and arrow. To claim that people with these technologies did not or could not create major changes in natural ecosystems can be taken as Western civilization's ignorance, chauvinism, and old prejudice against primitivism--the noble but dumb savage. There is ample evidence that Native Americans greatly changed the character of the landscape with fire. (Botkin 1990: 169).
...the modification of the American continent by fire at the hands of Asian immigrants was the result of repeated, controlled, surface burns on a cycle of one to three years, broken by occasional holocausts from escape fires and periodic conflagrations during times of drought. Even under ideal circumstances, accidents occurred. So extensive were the cumulative effects of these modifications that it may be said that the general consequence of the Indian occupation of the New World was to replace forested land with grassland or savannah, or, where the forest persisted, to open it up and free it from underbrush. Most of the impenetrable woods encountered by explorers were in bogs or swamps from which fire was excluded; naturally drained landscape was nearly everywhere burned. Conversely, almost wherever the European went, forests followed. The Great American Forest may be more a product of settlement than a victim of it (Pyne 1982: 79-80).
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/biblio_indianfire.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire
While the evidence of migrant-caused deforestation of America is right before our eyes, the story of the Indians is invariably of a noble savage variety. Apparently, it was not them but the Martians who destroyed the forests. In Chicago's Field Museum, there is a huge installation on the early history of native people. Their most lasting achievement is not even mentioned there.
Yesterday, I tuned on the radio: someone was telling how G-d gave us the prairie, and how we-the-pale-faced-devils should do everything possible to save its primordial beauty. I had strong temptation to send them a canister of gasoline and a lighter.
I've never understood this silly obsession with primitivism.
There is nothing noble about savagery.
•Drought. Notwithstanding relatively plentiful average rainfall, the prairie peninsula suffers from severe drought 50-200% more often than the surrounding forests.
•Dry season. In contrast to forest regions, which have relatively uniform precipitation throughout the year, the prairie peninsula is noticeably drier in late fall and winter.
•High ratio of evaporation to precipitation. Despite abundant rain, plants dry out faster in the prairie peninsula due to wind, temperature, etc.
•Flat terrain. The prairie offered few natural barriers and particularly--you see where I'm going with this--few natural firebreaks.
•Lightning. After Florida and the Gulf Coast, the prairie peninsula has electrical storms more often than any other region in the U.S.
•Fire. There seems little question that recurring fire promoted by periodic dry spells was the central formative feature of the prairie. How the majority of fires got started remains a matter of debate. Native Americans evidently torched the prairie frequently to create more desirable grazing land for game. Other blazes were started by lightning, which often struck the highest thing around, namely the trees. Whatever their cause, the fires were certainly dramatic, racing across the prairie at speeds of up to 15 to 20 kilometers per hour and incinerating vast tracts. Forests were slow to recover from the destruction, but prairie grasses, whose seeds and buds remained cool a few inches below the scorched surface, were back the next year. Grasses, in short, thrived because they were better adapted to the stressful prairie environment than trees.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2604/why-dont-trees-grow-on-the-great-plains
Lightning notwithstanding, most of the fires were human caused, except for the extreme southeast. http://hol.sagepub.com/content/18/7/1123.abstract
The conditions on the great plains are such that drought and dry seasons are very common; if you torch the woods for a few hundred years, you'll get yourself a prairie. Once you have a prairie, reforestation becomes very difficult, as the soil changes its structure. Lately, as the evidence steadily mounted it has been becoming quite obvious what caused the transition from the forests to the prairie:
...the common impression about the American West is that, before the arrival of people of European descent, Native Americans had essentially no effect on the land, the wildlife, or the ecosystems, except that they harvested trivial amounts that did not affect the "natural" abundances of plants and animals. But Native Americans had three powerful technologies: fire, the ability to work wood into useful objects, and the bow and arrow. To claim that people with these technologies did not or could not create major changes in natural ecosystems can be taken as Western civilization's ignorance, chauvinism, and old prejudice against primitivism--the noble but dumb savage. There is ample evidence that Native Americans greatly changed the character of the landscape with fire. (Botkin 1990: 169).
...the modification of the American continent by fire at the hands of Asian immigrants was the result of repeated, controlled, surface burns on a cycle of one to three years, broken by occasional holocausts from escape fires and periodic conflagrations during times of drought. Even under ideal circumstances, accidents occurred. So extensive were the cumulative effects of these modifications that it may be said that the general consequence of the Indian occupation of the New World was to replace forested land with grassland or savannah, or, where the forest persisted, to open it up and free it from underbrush. Most of the impenetrable woods encountered by explorers were in bogs or swamps from which fire was excluded; naturally drained landscape was nearly everywhere burned. Conversely, almost wherever the European went, forests followed. The Great American Forest may be more a product of settlement than a victim of it (Pyne 1982: 79-80).
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/biblio_indianfire.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire
While the evidence of migrant-caused deforestation of America is right before our eyes, the story of the Indians is invariably of a noble savage variety. Apparently, it was not them but the Martians who destroyed the forests. In Chicago's Field Museum, there is a huge installation on the early history of native people. Their most lasting achievement is not even mentioned there.
Yesterday, I tuned on the radio: someone was telling how G-d gave us the prairie, and how we-the-pale-faced-devils should do everything possible to save its primordial beauty. I had strong temptation to send them a canister of gasoline and a lighter.
I've never understood this silly obsession with primitivism.
There is nothing noble about savagery.