TRANSACTIONS OF HORTICULTUKAIi SOCLETV OF NORTHERN ILL. 267 



now? Why, with almost the first settling of these prairies horticultural 

 societies were organized and the ways and means discussed and devised 

 for raising trees and fruits upon them ; we had to prove by examples that 

 trees would grow on these prairies, which were thought to be destitute of 

 them only because they wouldn't grow. Now we see groves and orchards 

 all over these prairies, and we have proved that trees will grow, and bear 

 fruit too. 



Notwithstanding all this, my friends, I must dissent from what our 

 President has said, in his excellent address, upon one point, viz. : that 

 there is more timber in the country than there was thirty years ago. The 

 fact is, nearly all our valuable timber is gone, timber-lands cleared up for 

 farms or partly cleared and seeded to grass, so that when the growing 

 crop of young trees is gone there will be no others to take their places. 

 I don't think there is more than one-fourth the valuable timber in the 

 State now that there was thirty years ago. There may be as many or 

 even more acres on which orchards, young artificial groves and scattering 

 young trees left from the original timber lands stand ; but we know there 

 is not nearly as much good timber now as formerly, and it seems to me 

 that it would be evident to any one who travels over Northern and Cen- 

 tral Illinois that the valuable timber-trees are not now growing to supply 

 the wants of those who are to come after us. For instance, in the Aux- 

 sable grove, near where I live, there are not, to-day, fifty acres of timber 

 land where there were one thousand forty years ago — all the best Black 

 walnut and ash trees are gone, even where the land has not been cleared. 



The President. — I do not contend that there is as much valuable 

 timber for mechanical purposes now as thirty years since, but I do believe 

 that there is as much leaf-surface now as then, and it is the extent of 

 leaf-surface upon which the amelioration of the climate or regulation of 

 the rain-fall depends. 



Prof. Thomas. — Mr. President, I have traveled quite extensively 

 over the State, and am satisfied that the state of things described by Mr. 

 Minkler is the rule. Of course we in Southern Illinois, where I live, have 

 too much timber-land — it is all timber, except where cleared up ; but the 

 groves along the streams which cross these great prairies of Central and 

 Northern Illinois are mainly either swept away or thinned out and seeded, 

 as he has said, so that the timber there will soon be gone. I do not believe 

 that Illinois has more than one-fourth the timber that she had thirty years 

 ago. These figures come from the census reports, for which people give in 

 as timber-lands all the bush pastures and partly-cleared timber-lands. I 

 have seen many thousands of acres on which there does not now stand 



