Note 39 — JOURNAL.

Old Fields and Wild Meadow.—There were many small, timberless tracts of land on the mountains and in the great valleys of Virginia and Pennsylvania, in regions which were generally, prior to the occupation and the clearing up of the country by the white man, densely covered with trees. Large tracts of such timberless land existed in the region now embraced within the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson and Frederick. Strange as it may appear some of this kind of land within the history of the settlement of the valley became covered with young forest timber. In some respects these openings resembled the treeless prairies of the west. No satisfactory explanation of this frequently observed condition has ever been given. Many of these meadows were the favorite pasturing grounds of the large game and were, therefore, of special interest to the hunter. Clearfield county, Pa., it is believed, got its name from the fact that there were within its territory extensive natural clear fields and meadows.