See quotation 1817. Fr.

1

1773.  The Prairie, or meadow ground on the eastern side, is at least twenty miles wide; it is fine land for tillage, or for grazing cattle, and is well watered with a number of springs.—P. Kennedy, ‘Journal,’ p. 54. (N.E.D.). (Italics in the original.)

2

1797.  These prairies are large tracts of land which are covered entirely with grass, and are supposed by many persons to have formerly been lakes of water, which, from some unknown cause, have drained off, and left the whole spot without any other covering than a large tall grass, which reaches sometimes six feet high.—Fra. Baily, F.R.S., ‘Journal of a Tour,’ pp. 263–4 (Lond., 1856).

3

1803.  That part of Louisiana which borders on New Mexico, is one immense prairie; it produces nothing but grass.—Thomas Jefferson, communication to Congress: Mass. Spy, Dec. 7.

4

1804.  They came into fine open prairies, in which nothing grew but long luxuriant grass.—Letter to the Kentucky Palladium, Dec. 12: by Harry Toulmin.

5

1804.  

        See him commence Landspeculator,
And buy up half the realm of nature,
Towns, cities, Indians, Spaniards, “prairies,”
Saltpetre vats, and buffaloe-dairies.
Mass. Spy, Jan. 25: from the Connecticut Courant. [The allusion is to the Louisiana purchase.]    

6

1805.  In several parts [of Ohio] are large level plains, called Prariés (sic), or natural meadows, covered with wild grass and cane, but destitute of shrubbery. These are pastures for large herds of buffalos, who fatten on the herbage.—Thaddeus M. Harris, ‘Description of Ohio,’ p. 97 (Boston). (Italics in the original.)

7

1806.  Vast praires, huge rivers, &c. [See HORNED TOAD.]

8

1816.  The praire land is of three qualities.—Mass. Spy, Jan. 10.

9

1817.  We are so taken with the prairies we have seen, and with the accounts we have heard of those before us in the Illinois, that no “timbered” land can satisfy our present views.—M. Birkbeck, ‘Journey in America,’ p. 132 (Phila.).

10

1817.  Prairie is the term given to such tracts of land as are divested of timber. In travelling west from the Alleghanies they occur more frequently, and are of greater extent as we approach the Mississippi.—John Bradbury, ‘Travels,’ p. 31 n.

11

1822.  We passed also a prairy of several miles extent, which is skirted with woodland.—Mass. Spy, Feb. 6: from the Detroit Gazette.

12

1825.  The Road to St. Louis, with the exception of an occasional tract of forest, passes through nothing but Prairie.—Id., Feb. 9.

13