[njarboe]

Most of the land in the US East of the Mississippi was forested, cut down, and turned into farmland. Some marginal lands have returned to forest like in upstate New York and in the Appalachia Mountains, but Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and other mid-western states are/were the heart of US agricultural production. They are slowly beginning covered by urban and suburban development. I believe that people thought farming was not possible if the land did not already support trees. They were mostly right before irrigation and scientifically bred crops.