permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>

The consensus on the black soils of the U.S. midwest is that they were
formed by the massive root systems of (especially tallgrass) prairie and
savanna grasses and other plants, and the residue of thousands of years
of the seasonal growth and decay of the roots of these plant
communities, which are maintained by fire.

The fire is encouraged by seasonal dryness, and by cyclical droughts
every few decades, which also kill trees.

Such grasses are adept at drawing stored nutrients into the roots for
the dormant season leaving mostly cellulose above ground, to minimize
the loss from burning.

These plant communities are also encouraged by shallow soils over
bedrock which are prone to drying out. Some of our local remnant
populations of big bluestem and little bluestem grasses are on such soil
a few feet from the lip of the Niagara Gorge. Other such populations
(and of prairie and savanna wildflowers such as wild bergamot and
butterfly weed) are found on the sandy and sandy loam soils of the
Niagara Peninsula.

See various books:

Prairie Plants and Their Environment: A Fifty Year Study in the Midwest
J. E. Weaver
University of Nebraska Press, 1968

The Vegetation of Wisconsin
John T. Curtis
University of Wisconsin Press, 1959

Tallgrass Prairie
John Madson with photographs by Frank Oberle
Falcon Press, 1993

Miracle Under the Oaks: the Revival of Nature in America [mostly about
the identification and restoration of savanna in the Chicago area]
William K. Stevens
Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster, 1992, 1995

There are informative Proceedings of the North American Prairie
Conferences, held every two or three years, in some university
libraries, and a few for savannas.

Fires were set not only by natural causes such as lightning, but by the
Indians who appear to have pushed the plant communities towards prairie
and savanna over large areas. They also set fires to clear cover from,
for exaple, portages and the approaches to their villages.

As well they set fires in Eastern forests to clear undergrowth and to
favour forage for whitetail deer. See

Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England
Willam Cronon
Farrar, Straus & Giroux (2nd revised edition), 2003

Fire is and was used for specific purposes in skilled ways under
specific conditions and at specific times.

Some prairie Indians did practice agriculture, or more exactly
horticulture, typically in river bottom lands. See for example

Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians
Gilbert L. Wilson
Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987

Horticulture was practiced in conjunction with hunting, especially of
buffalo. After the introduction of the horse, some Indians emphasized
hunting almost or entirely exclusively, but the Hidatsa among others
continued in their old ways. Gathering plant foods continued to be
important on the prairie, e.g. the roots of Indian turnip Psoralea
esculenta, and the seeds of the grass Sporobolus heterolepis.
Horticulture and gathering were intertwined as when mouse stores of wild
beans were raided and replaced with corn (when stocks of corn permitted).

In my eastern mostly woodland area, the "Neutral" Indians combined
horticulture with the hunting of whitetail deer and to some extent with
the management of whitetail populations.

It is interesting that the chernozem soils of Russia are found in areas
of low rainfall subject to periodic droughts, where grasslands were
found in old times.

<>

Richard Wagner

The natives would not have been burning the prairies, especially large
areas, as they were not agriculturists.

Actually, there seems to be considerable evidence that deliberate
burning was used in much of North America, both by agricultural and
non-agricultural societies, for multiple reasons including to encourage
the growth of desired plants, whether to feed humans or to feed game.
Prairies may have been burned to improve grazing for buffalo.

A few examples discussing this:

http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/biblio_indianfire.htm

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/rareplants/conservation/success/camas_prairie_restoration.shtml

http://courses.washington.edu/tande/hw/hwbibs/pickard.htm

http://westinstenv.org/histwl/2008/01/04/native-american-influences-on-the-development-of-forest-ecosystems/