Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Palouse

1953; University of Hawaii Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/pcg.1953.0005

1551-3211

W. A. Rockie,

Rangeland and Wildlife Management

THE PALOUSE* W. A. Rockie Soil Conservation Service The Palouse is one of the unique land areas of ihe world. It has no counterpart anywhere, and so far as I have been able to learn, no other area of land even closely resembles it. Its peculiar combination of physiographic , topographic, edaphic, and climatic conditions have produced a land that is truly different. Every early explorer who crosaed the Palouse Region wrote in the most glowing terms about the wonders of the grasslands through which he was passing. I consider the description left by Governor Isaac W. Stevens' party, in their diary for June 19, 1855 as one of the most effective and the most accurate. They summarized it well in the following words: "I will again say, we have been astonished today at the luxuriance of the grass and the richness of the soil. The whole view presents to the eye a vast bed of flowers in all their varied beauty. The country is a rolling tableland, and the soil is like that of the prairies of Illinois." Then, several days later, after they were in the dense forests of what is now northern Idaho, they still harked back to the Palouse area they had already left when their diary shows the following entry: "The narrative of these last four days' travel shows how extraordinarily well watered the country is west of the spurs of the Bitter Root Mountains. I will state again, having crossed this great plain of the Columbia from the Chemakane Mission north of the Spokane to the mouth of the Peluse, that the difference in the character of the country on these two lines is extraordinary. A large portion of the country is arable, and is generally well grassed. There is no deficiency of wood for camps, yet occasionally the basaltic formations crop out of the ground, at which points the country is sterile and uncultivable. But under the spurs of the Bitter Root Mountains the whole country is arable, the soil as rich as the best prairies of Minnesota, wood for fires and timber for building. " Even after they had left the prairies far behind, they must still reminisce about the grasslands they had seen. One is forced to conclude, from these and many other diary entries by each of the several main exploring parties which crossed the Palouse that, under its virgin cover, the Palouse really thrilled everyone who saw it. Similarly, the area makes me marvel today, even though that virgin cover and those natural conditions, have been in large measure destroyed. Twenty years ago, I thought of the Palouse as including all of the more humid wheatlands in the Columbia Basin of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The justification for my previously calling that much more extensive area as Palouse appears obscure to me today. I may have simply taken the say-so of others at that time. Or it might have been that I egotistically desired that the name include as many square miles as posaible. The most logical reason, however, that I can now see for that larger broader boundary is that the Palouse soil, theoretically at least, is common, and I may have considered it prevalent, throughout the entire larger area. However, it appears to me today, that the Palouse soil no more typifies this larger area than any one of several other soil series. I now feel that the name ?Presidential address of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, Santa Barbara, California, June 18, 1953. • Spokane valley Foro •Freeman * Ford • CoNKLiN Park , Plummer¦ Te ??? • Desmet·G?*?.?ß???·3LWAN • POTLATC WlNONA * VlOLA • TROV • La Crosse • Pampa • Hooper • Penowawa •Kendrick *JuL(AE TTA • WaWA WAi Kahlotus • Riparia Clarkston *· Lewiston H}» o· O D*¦ o o < o LAND FORMS OF THE PALOUSE NO ? o O ? o OQ P ? 6 Yearbook ol tie Assoc .a. .onVol. 15 Palouse should be limited to a minor fraction of that area. Boundaries The boundary delineated by Meinig (1950), in my opinion, provides better boundaries than any other yet described. 2 The bounds of the Palouse Prairie by Clements and Shelford (1939) and those of the Palusian Biotic Province by Dice (1943) are not too different, but they are not the same. My suggested boundary was arrived at, in my mind, at least ten years ago, and it so happens that it coincides exactly with that proposed by Meinig. We arrived at the same conclusion wholly independently of each other. This area lies mainly within a 90-mile equilateral triangle pointed by Spokane, Washington on the north, Kendrick, Idaho on the southeast, and Kahlotus, Washington, on the southwest. More specifically, its perimeter is not far from each of the following towns and stations (named clockwise): Spangle, Valley Ford, and Freeman, Washington; Ford, Conklin Park, Plummer, Sorento, Sanders, and DeSmet, Idaho; Tekoa, and Farmington, Washington; Potlatch, Viola, Troy, Kendrick, Juliaette, Spalding, and Lewiston, Idaho; Clarkston, Wawawai, Almota, Penawawa, Riparia, Ayer Junction, Hooper, Pampa, La Crosse, Winona, and Ewan, Washington. Nature has made natural boundaries which separate this area from adjoining lands almost all of the way around its perimeter. The old front line of the continental ice sheet marks its narrow northern tip, the forested mountains make most of its eastern boundary, the precipitous north rim of the Clearwater and Snake River Canyons marks the southern boundary, while the southeastern edge of the Channelled Scablands makes a sharp western border. These natural boundaries exclude all of the islands of Palouselike land which lie within the Channelled Scablands. Within this area, all of the people who reside therein consider that they live in the Palouse, whereas very few who live outside these boundaries consider their lands as Palouse. Some of the folk who live in the eastern portion of the scablands may consider themselves as residing within the Palouse, but they are really in the Channelled Scablands. The only places where the word Palouse shows outside these boundaries on any maps I know is the Palouse River in'the mountainous headwaters to the east and in the scablands to the west. As bounded here, the Palouse has a gross area of about 1,750,000 acres, of which approximately 1,500,000 are cropland. Climatic Notes The area has a modified maritime climate in the cooler months and a hybridized maritime -continental climate in the warmer months. The winters are typically cloudy and usually relatively mild with considerable rain or snow. Severe cold waves may occur, however, and in occasional years may last for weeks. Strong southwesterly winds, high humidity, and temperatures generally in the thirties further characterize the usual winter. The summer days are generally clear and warm, with maximum temperatures in the 80's. The summer nights are usually cool with minimum temperatures around 50 degrees. Little or no rain occurs during the summer months. The precipitation ranges from about 12 inches, along the western margins, to around 22 to 25 inches along the eastern border next to the mountains. The seasonal characteristics are quite similar, however, whether the annual precipitation is 12 inches, 18 inches or 24 inches. 1953of Pacific Coast Geographers7 Geologic Notes In the long-distant past, the land area that is now within the Palouse which I have delineated was more or less a peneplane or coastal plain extending westward from the mountains on the east. Then came the period when lava flowed over the greater part of the inter-mountainous portions of the Pacific Northwest. These flows covered all of that peneplane to considerable depths (still largely unknown), except for an occasional monadnock which projected above the level of the basaltic flows. Steptoe Butte is one of these. This Columbia basalt, as it is known, provides a firm and unusually uniform base beneath the present Palouse region. The frequence of faults and folds in these basaltic flows and the amount of post-flow erosion on its surface are relatively unknown quantities, because of the currently almost wholly buried position of that basalt. However, enough is known to be reasonably certain that the basaltic flows do not have an unbent simple horizontal structure. Following the coverage by basalt there occurred the deposition of a mantle of silt' or silty clay. This still unconsolidated cover has a common depth of not less than 75 feet, with a probably maximum depth of 200 to 250 feet. We have some evidence that this mantle of silt and silty clay consists of two distinct formations, a thin overlying veneer, and a thicker basement section. The upper one is typified by the more mellow loess like material found mainly on those Palouse hills which are high enough to form the skyline. The second is typified by the red clay points which are always several to many feet below that skyline level. Whether this deep mantle of soil is a wind or water deposit is in dispute. I believe the upper loess -like and thinner layer is chiefly and probably entirely an aeolian deposit , and that the lower more clayey underlying deposit is mainly and possibly entirely sedimentary material. This description gave us the Palouse in the raw. Nature's processes, since that time, have been further modifying this unconsolidated soil mantle. Ever since the deposits were laid down, wind has been very slowly but surely building up the top of the leeward slopes and erosion has been carving a dendritic drainage pattern into its surface. Snowdrift action, nivation, and possibly even local microscopic glaciation have combined further to produce the unbalanced Palouse hills which are so universally characterized by the steeper leeward slopes. Meanwhile, climate has been developing a distinctive soil profile on the exposed surface, and the flora and fauna have both been adding organic matter to the topsoil. Leaching has acted further to carry some of the organic content and some of the colloidal clay content, to deeper levels. Then, by one bold stroke, nature provided the so-called Spokane flood which washed away the entire soil mantle from most of the area that is known today as the channelled scablands. The thousands of draws and minor drainage lines are entrenched to various depths into this mantle, whereas the main drainage lines are generally entrenched clear through the soil mantle and down into the underlying basalt. In the western portion, especially, they are eroded hundreds of feet into the rock, frequently becoming box- canyon-like in nature. Soil Notes The soils in the Palouse include both the separate and mixed products of many physical processes. Loessial, snowdrift, nivation. lacustrine. 8 Yearbook of the AssociationVol. 15 alluvial, glacio-fluvial, and possibly even other of nature's processes are represented. They are sufficiently heterogeneous that both hearty and widespread disagreement as to their manners of formation exists. The different soils do occur in a roughly parallel series of northsouth bands. This banding is principally resultant from (1) the increasing humidity as one goes eastward and (2) increasingly finer soil particles as one goes eastward. They range from the soils of the Ritzville series which barely touch the western edge of the Palouse, through the Walla Walla, Athena, Palouse and Thatuna series respectively to the mountainous lands along the eastern edge. The first four of these developed under prairie conditions, but the last evolved beneath a forest cover. Topographic Notes The area is a rather completely dissected plateau, rising in elevation from 1,500 to 1,800 feet along its western edge to about 2,600 to 2,800 feet along its eastern border. It has virtually no undissected upland but, strangely, also has relatively few alluvial bottoms. The land is nearly all sloping. The Palouse hills always make me think of sand dunes and, when viewed from certain angles and under certain special conditions, they look very much like dunes. From countless measurements, it is well known that the south and west slopes are universally of more gentle gradient than are the north and east slopes. Though the former average less than 20 per cent and never exceed 35 per cent slope gradient, the opposite sides of the hills always show a maximum gradient of not less than 40 to 55 per cent. From many aspects, the leeward amphitheaters look almost as if they had been scooped out. It is not entirely inconceivable that they are really tiny cirques formed by midget glaciers on the leeward slopes during the last Ice Age. The local relief in any 160 acres is usually from 100 to 200 feet. Since there are many hilltops and many amphitheaters per square mile over most of the Palouse, the general effect is one of dune-like topography . The topography appears especially striking when seen from a plane or from some high eminence. The effect is even further accentuated when looking in a southwesterly direction or when the snowdrifts are at their maximum. Several crystalline -rocked buttes, all older than the basaltic flows, break the sameness of the Palouse landscape. Steptoe Butte, which rises about a thousand feet above the Palouse farmland is to the Palouse region what the Black Hills are to their encircling lands. It is a real landmark! Kamiak Butte, Wildhorse Butte, and many others are much less prominent features on the Palouse landscape. Notes on Land Use The word Palouse has been said to have originated from a French word, meaning "a grassy place". Less than 100 years ago, the Palouse was one vast wavy sea of grass-covered hills. The area was practically treeless , although the projecting buttes and a few of the steeper north slopes supported some pines and firs. A fringe of trees and shrubs, chiefly chokecherry , hawthorn, willow, and cottonwood usually marked the occasional waterway, and here and there scattered clumps of these and other shrubs broke the endless sea of grass. Several species of bunch grass predominated in the landscape, with balsamroot, Indian paintbrush, lupine, and yarrow providing most of the floral display. 1953of Pacific Coast Geographers9 Today all is changed and the sea of grass is gone. By diligent search, one can find remnants of the old cover in every part of the area, but the total acreage is negligible. Almost every tillable acre within the Palouse is under cultivation, most of the scabland to the west is used for range, and the mountains on the east provide both timber and grass. When farming first started here 70 to 80 years ago, wheat immediately became the leading crop, and, except for a few years during and after World War II, when peas temporarily took first place, it has always been the leading farm crop. Until about 1930, crops were grown only every other year, in alternation with summer fallow. Under this system of farming, the land suffered excessive tillage, the soil became too finely pulverized, half of the organic content of the soil was lost, and the soil particles ran together , puddled too readily. Unwittingly farmers were doing their level best to destroy their land at the most rapid rate possible, the very opposite of their well meant intentions. Inevitably, sheet erosion became their dominant farm problem, and in 1930 I started specific research in the area looking toward the control of this newly recognized threat to the permanence of agriculture. That research has continued during the twenty-three years which have passed, and we are now seeing a new and safer system of farming gradually taking over in the Palouse. Conservation Farming Practices We soon found that the summer fallowing principle was one of the main causes of the sheet washing that had become so prevalent in the Palouse . The primary reason lay in the fact that at the time in late spring when the past year's stubble field was plowed to start the summer fallowing operation, the soil was already nearly saturated from the rains which had fallen during the rainy winter season just ended. Under fallowing practices of several summer cultivations of the land, the soil in the Palouse fallow field retained most of it· stored water in the soil right through the hot dry summer months. When the wheat was seeded that fall, the winter rains began almost simultaneously. The soil became fully saturated with the first rains and the newly-germinated wheat plants used scarcely any water before the following May. Of most of the 10 to 15 inches of water that fell on these already wet lands, very little could soak in. Therefore, much and in some years most of it ran off the surface, usually carrying large quantities of soil with it. The Palouse farmlands need to be cropped every yearl This change to annual cropping is a first step in the control of the erosion problem. Another almost universal custom of Palouse farmers was the burning of their grain stubble in the fall after they had removed the crop. This ill-advised practice is now almost entirely eliminated, although it has taken nearly twenty-five years to reduce the precentage of burning from 99 plus down to from 5 to 7 per cent. Instead of burning, the stubble is most effectively used and is of the greatest value toward the maintenance of the soil when it is tilled partly into and partly on top of the ground. Its primary value on top of the ground is the protection to the surface against sheet washing. Good stubble mulch, as this is called, is being increasingly used by Palouse farmers. 10Yearbook of the AssociationVol. 15 The most valuable single practice toward erosion prevention and improved soil conditions is the practice of green manuring. When this practice has been repeatedly applied to the land, it not only greatly increases crop yields (about 50 per cent more total crop over a period of twenty years), but it also eliminates the chief cause of sheet washing in the Palouse, namely the physical breakdown of the/ soil. Contour farming on all sloping lands is a supplemental practice which reduces sheet washing. Grassed waterways and farm ponds also prove highly valuable to the changed farming operation. Sprinkler irrigation, chiefly on the creek bottoms which extend across the Palouse like "shoestrings", is further advancing and stabilizing Palouse agriculture. Dozens of additional farmers are adding this practice to their other conservation practices with each passing year, and they are universally pleased with the results. Alfalfa is the usual crop grown and the water is pumped from drilled wells, many of which are artesian. Palouse farmers, using these conservation practices, and producing annual crops, can not only maintain, but greatly increase their agricultural production of wheat, peas, alfalfa, sweet clover, barley and other crops (or any number of centuries ahead. Because of the specific nature of conservation farming, livestock naturally becomes a major part of the operation on an average Palouse farm. When all Palouse farmers actively follow the principles included in these several conservation practices, the area will be adequately protected from erosion and its farmers will realize approximately twice the income they have been making under the currently obsolete, but still followed, exploitive farming of yesterday. It has always been a good place to live, but they they will make it a much better place to live. I believe the Palouse is the only major non-irrigated farming area in the United States which has never had a crop failure! Literature Cited 1.Hazard Stevens The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, New York, Houghton, Mi'flin, 1900, vol. 2, p. 71. 2.Donald William Meinig Environment and Settlement in the Palouse, 1868-1910, Univ. of Washington MA Thesis, 1950. 3.F. E. Clements, and V. E. Shelford, Bio-Ecology, John Wiley tc Sons, 1939, pp. 290-293; L. R. Dice, the Biotic Provinces of North America, Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1943, pp. 42-44. (This paper was somewhat revised after Mr. Rockie's departure for Africa, and he has not had an opportunity to review the editorial changes.) ...