Prairial (praʻrial)

[F., 1794 it began May 20th and ended June 18th. prairie (prā'ri), n. = Sp. pradera, pradería = Pg. praderia = It. [ prater i a, a meadow, south. The prairies are never by the inhabitants of the prairie regions called plains, as are the treele regions further west. They are characterized by a highly fertile soil, often of great thickne , and they often occur where the rainfall is even considerably larger than on parts of the adjacent forest-covered regions. The cause of the ab sence of trees upon them cannot, therefore, be deficiency of moisture; in all probability it is the physical character of the soil, and especially its extreme finene , which renders it more suitable for the growth of the gra es than for that of arboreal vegetation. In the extreme northwestern region of the United States, especially in Montana, certain level treele areas surrounded by the mountains are now by some called prairies: some of these had been previously denominated holes. Further south in the Rocky Mountains they are known as parks, or sometimes as basins. See holel, 6, and plain1. The prairie alluded to was one of those small natural meadows, or pastures, that are to be found in Michigan, and may have contained four or five you sand acres of open land. Cooper , Oak Openings, i. These are the gardens of the Desert, these The unshorn fields, boundle and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no name, The Prairies . Bryant , The Prairies, In general, however, the term prairie is used to designate tracts of land nearly or quite destitute of forests, or over which the trees are, as a general rule, limited to the "bluffs"-the more or le precipitous slopes which separate the upland, or prairie proper, from the river bottom. J. D. Whitney, Encyc. Brit., XXIII. 811. Prairie State, the State of Illinois. -Trembling or shaking prairie. See under tremble.