He told that at the time the rolling prairies around here were treeless except for a bit of brush along the cricks and Oak timber along the Osage river and that the cricks were clear and deep. Now we have a lot of trees and many of the cricks are not much and certainly aren't very clear.
That is pretty common. If you read the histories, it is apparent that there were large praries everywhere 200 years ago. In my area, which is nothing but trees unless it is pasture, there are plenty of accounts of praries so big that one couldn't see trees anywhere from the middle of them. My dad is in his 70s and even when he was young, they still referred to a couple places around as Big Prairie or Little Prairie. Now, I doubt anyone would even recognize the names, much less know where they were.
We have more trees now in the U.S. than we probably ever did. Heck, even in the east there are way more trees. Look at the old photographs in the settled areas the trees were gone in a hurry, cut down for building materials and/or firewood.
