The fire annually sweeps over the prairies, destroying the grass and herbage, blackening the surface, and leaving a deposit of ashes to enrich the soil.
4. _Barrens._ This term, in the western dialect, does not indicate _poor land_, but a species of surface of a mixed character, uniting forest and prairie.
The timber is generally scattering, of a rough and stunted appearance, interspersed with patches of hazle and brushwood, and where the contest between the fire and timber is kept up, each striving for the mastery.
In the early settlements of Kentucky, much of the country below and south of Green river presented a dwarfish and stunted growth of timber, scattered over the surface, or collected in clumps, with hazle and shrubbery intermixed. This appearance led the first explorers to the inference that the soil itself must necessarily be poor, to produce so scanty a growth of timber, and they gave the name of _barrens_ to the whole tract of country. 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.