Reflections after reading the extract from the Independent in the January number of Gardeners' Monthly.

If the companions and successors of the doughty Cortez, who penetrated to the interior of Mexico in search of the precious metals, had taken a course to the northeast instead of the northwest, many things would have turned out very unlike their present conditions.

One very probable result would have been that, in working their way along the great table-land of Mexico, and over the dry plains to the northwest, they would have adopted the style of building practiced by the aborigines of that region, and thus become accustomed to use earth and clay, burnt or unburnt, instead of the combustible materials the present North Americans use. And so, if they had in course of a hundred years or more (which they would have had before the French arrival), reached this locality, the city they would have built would have had no " Chicago fire."

They would also have had to cross thousands of miles of prairie, first arid enough and then of luxuriant verdure, with grass above the saddle-bow of the gallant "cabelleros," so that it would be quite natural for them to think that grassy plains constituted the greater part of the continent, and that it was made especially for horses and their riders. And then, when they found at last a limit to this state of things, they might have complained sadly that dense forests obstructed their way, and that provender for their steeds had failed, and all on account of that unnatural and unfortunate growth of trees and shrubs, which seemed to be reaching out long arms over the beautiful savannas, and threatening to cover them. They would probably have been disputing to this day about the "origin of the forests."

The emigrants from Northern and Western Europe (itself largely a region of woodlands), made their first settlements in a thickly wooded country, and wherever they traveled they found a boundless forest, through which the watercourses were the only means of travel. But by the way, according to the accounts of the earliest settlers, these forests were in many places entirely cleared of undergrowth by the intentional and persistent efforts of the Indians, who burnt them over every autumn, but did not destroy the forest. These same early settlers asserted, and geographers repeated for several generations, that North America may be considered in general as one vast forest. True, nowhere could vaster forests be found, but the geographer of the present day, remembering the vast plains of Northern Mexico, of Texas, and our Western Territories, as well as our "Prairie States," from Kansas to the British line, and the almost boundless plains of grass from thence to the Arctic Ocean, would hesitate before saying that the forest is the chief feature of North America.

Why then assume that the forest is the natural covering of our mother earth. Think of the vast regions of Siberia; of the great grassy plains from the Black Sea to farthest Tartary; of the pampas of South America. It would seem that grass is the material of the robe, and the forest trees are the trimmings of the same.

As you very well know, Mr. Editor, in certain soils, and with certain conditions of moisture, the tough and fibrous roots of the grasses will weaken, yea, exterminate both grove and orchard. The conclusion seems to be that man may break up the prairie grass, and may plant groves of forest trees, and with care and attention they will generally succeed. Or he may cut down the forest, and grub up the tree stumps, and with hard labor he will make good arable fields, and good pastures. Thousands of smiling farms testify to his industry and persistent care; but let him abandon his work, and in comparatively few years the soil will revert to its original condition in the main. What was prairie of old will be groves once more, and the cleared farm will be forest again, as many, yes too many, of the New England farms have already done.

[The question of the origin of the prairies, and the origin of treeless prairies, must not be confounded. - Ed. G. M.]