The Prairie That Was

A tiny portion is all that remains of the once-vast Hempstead Plains

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Toward the end of every August, the purple-pink, bell-shaped flowers of the sandplain gerardia burst into bloom in a small section of a 19-acre protected site in the southeast corner of Nassau Community College in Garden City. That the fragile, endangered member of the snapdragon family survives at all in this place is because its home is one of the last remnants of the great Hempstead Plains.

The first known prairie in America and one of its first major tourist attractions, the flat and treeless, grassy Hempstead Plains was formed thousands of years ago by the outwash of the glacier that sculpted Long Island. Visitors made long trips to see this natural wonder, and they were not disappointed: In May the birdfoot violets created a magnificent blue-violet mantle across the plain; later in the season, the prolific tall grasses appeared as a gray-green lake, shimmering gently in the wind.

Today, only about 80 acres of the original 60,000-acre Hempstead Plains have survived the intrusion of man. Like a wistful reminder of a Long Island that once was, these remnants sit in isolation amid the concrete and steel effusions of 20th Century suburbia. The land there is a dramatic reminder that on Long Island, geography has been our destiny.

Indians may have hunted and camped on the plain. Colonial white settlers used it as common pasturage for their sheep and cattle, and later, as sod-busters, they put the land to the plow. Horse-racing tracks were built. The military made good use of the plains, from pre-revolutionary militia encampments to 20th Century army bases. Its flat vistas were ideal for the airfields that were laid out in what became the Cradle of Aviation. Garden City arose on the plain, as did Levittown and Plainview and Plainedge. Massive shopping centers sprouted.

Where once there were footpaths, the plains are now criss-crossed by superhighways. The grasshopper sparrows and the upland sandpipers have not been seen in recent years, and the heath hen is certified extinct. The bushy rock rose and the hand-maid moth are fighting for survival. The center of the Hempstead Plains is now the heart of Nassau County, which has adopted the birdfoot violet as the official county flower, and given the remaining 80 acres protected status.

Before the expansion westward, where pioneers discovered the Great Plains beyond the Mississippi River, the Hempstead Plains was the only prairie Americans knew. Running from eastern Queens almost to the Suffolk County border, it was a true prairie, flat and almost treeless, covered by tall, coarse grasses like broom sedge, Indian Grass, Little and Big Blue Stem and a profusion of wildflowers.

For some time, experts have debated why the Hempstead Plains retained its unique prairie characteristics, but there is no consensus. One explanation is that its upper layer of soil, although rich and loamy, is very thin, and the underlying sand and gravel subsoil allows water to percolate quickly downward, leaching away many soil nutrients. Also, the sod formed by prairie grasses has deep and dense roots, almost impenetrable to other plants. And, frequent burnings by Indians and later the colonists encouraged the growth of prairie grasses but inhibited everything else.

One of the first travelers to take note the Hempstead Plains' unique quality was Daniel Denton, who wrote in 1670:

``Towards the middle of Long-Island lyeth a plain sixteen miles long and four broad, upon which plain grows very fine grass, that makes exceeding good hay, and is very good pasture for sheep or other cattel; where you shall find neither stick nor stone to hinder the horse heels, or endanger them in their races ...''

In the earliest colonial days, the plain was not parceled out to individuals, but retained as common property, pasture land for everyone's cattle and sheep. When the Town of North Hempstead was separated from Hempstead in 1784, the town began to assign the plains land to individual farmers. But Hempstead Town retained the plains as common land for another century.

Little by little, acre by acre, the Hempstead Plains was put to other uses. First it was plowed over for the planting of crops. But at the turn of the 20th Century it became apparent that the flat Hempstead Plains was a natural terrain for the taking off and landing of the new flying machines. Aviation, which began as a pastime, became a major industry on Long Island.

Today there are 19 acres at Nassau Community College, a plot managed by the Nature Conservancy. Directly to the south, across Charles Lindbergh Boulevard, there are another 60 acres, the Hempstead Plains Preserve, supervised by the Nassau County Department of Recreation and Parks. The tracts can be seen by arrangement with the agencies.

The county biologist most concerned with maintaining the preserve is Carole Neidich-Ryder. But, she says, if left untouched, the last 80 acres of the Hempstead Plains will disappear as a prairie.

What, she is asked, would the 80 remaining acres of the Hempstead Plains look like in 10 or 20 years if they were left completely alone? ``It would look like the intersection of the Grand Central and the Cross Island Parkways,'' she replied.

Many nonnative species of plants are competing with native prairie grasses and flowers such as the rare sandplain gerardia, often crowding them out. The 60 acres south of Lindbergh Boulevard, for example, seem well on their way to that fate, as blackberry and dewberry brambles, black cherry, autumn olive, mugwort, bush clover and other nonnative plants and bushes are taking over.

Which leads to the intriguing conclusion that to keep the last of the Long Island prairie in its natural state, something unnatural will have to be done to it. It is going to have to be gardened.

``That's what environmental restoration is about,'' Neidich-Ryder said. ``It's about the fact that we've changed our natural habitat in so many different places that to get it back to where it was, it's gardening. It's gardening on a grand scale. Yeah, there's no mistake about that.''

So the Hempstead Plains has become a sort of living museum, but one that needs constant attention lest it become something else. ``The Hempstead Plains is so small, and the environmental stress on it is so great, that if the humans don't help it along by cutting or burning, or taking off some of the plants that we don't need, it will be lost from the face of the Earth,'' she said. ``You won't have it any more.''

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