. The changing Illinois environment : critical trends : technical report of the Critical Trends Assessment Project. Man; Pollution; Environmental protection; Ecology; Environmental impact analysis. PRAIRIES Changes in Land Use of Prairie In an astonishingly short period, roughly between 1840 and 1900, a vast amount of tallgrass prairie was destroyed. At present, only Vim of 1 % of the original prairie remains (Figure 4). The early European settlers, being originally from forested regions in Europe and subsequently eastern North America, found the prairies to be rather frightening due to the ho
. The changing Illinois environment : critical trends : technical report of the Critical Trends Assessment Project. Man; Pollution; Environmental protection; Ecology; Environmental impact analysis. PRAIRIES Changes in Land Use of Prairie In an astonishingly short period, roughly between 1840 and 1900, a vast amount of tallgrass prairie was destroyed. At present, only Vim of 1 % of the original prairie remains (Figure 4). The early European settlers, being originally from forested regions in Europe and subsequently eastern North America, found the prairies to be rather frightening due to the hordes of insects, intense summer heat and high humidity, bleak windy winters, and periodic raging prairie fires. Because no trees grew on the prairies, the settlers at first considered the prairies to be unsuitable for crop plants. This, plus the need for construction timber and firewood, prompted the settlers to build their homes at the edges of the prairie, in prairie groves (islands of woods surrounded by prairie), and along wooded streams. It was not long, however, before the settlers discovered that the prairie soil was more fertile than forest soil— actually among the most productive soils in the world. >90% 80-89% 70-79% 60-69% E3 50-59% [J3 40-49% E3 30-39% (3 20-29% ? 10-19% ? <10% Figure 3. Percentage of each Illinois county that was prairie in 1820 (Source: Iverson 1989). (Bogue 1968). A difficulty was that the prairie sod was so dense with tangled roots and deep that available plows were not able to break it easily. Prairie sod could not be broken easily until 1837, when John Deere, living in Grand Detour, Illinois, invented the self- scouring, steel-bladed plow. It can be said that the economic development of Illinois depended on the conversion of prairie soil to agricultural and eventually urban uses. In terms of overall land use, Illinois ranks 49th among the 50 states in the percentage of natural vegetation remaining (Klopatek et al. 1979). It is impossib
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