SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 211 



ILLINOIS FORESTRY. 

 BY G. AV. MIXIER, MINIER. 



In all of God's arrangements, the grand, the sublime, and the 

 beautiful prevail. The primeval forests of Illinois are,, by the hand 

 of man very greatly changed — in some localities, almost obliterated. 

 The pioneers were dependent for their cabins, and all other buildings, 

 as well as fences and fuel, on the groves and timber belts. Hence, 

 the first settlements were either in groves or along their margins. 

 The annual fires of the then seemingly boundless prairies, kept back 

 the the timber growth, and confined it to the banks, shores, and trib- 

 utaries of the rivers. Occasionally a grove isolated and detached, 

 was seen, which upon investigation, was found to have started on a 

 northern declivity, thus protecting the first planting of Dame Nature 

 from the fires of the aborigines and first settlers. 



Shakspeare tells us that Mab, Queen of the Fairies, travels in a 

 carriage made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, from a hazel nut; 

 and that they are, and have been " time out of mind the Fairie's 

 coach makers." I have not the temerity to dispute so high authority, 

 but in plain, blunt prose, will say that the squirrel, the bird and the 

 winds, have been, time out of mind, Nature's tree planters. Nature 

 drops first the minute seeds from which spring the herbaceous plants; 

 next the hazel is brought by the squirrel or bird. A spongy surface 

 is thus prepared for the winged seeds of the maples, the elms, and 

 the cotton woods. And now the birds and small animals make the 

 infant forest their home, and bring from other woods the nuts, the 

 acorns, and cones, until in primal beauty stands "God's first temple." 



A TYPICAL FOREST. 



In McLean County, of this State, lived, a few years since, a 

 practical man, of good, hard common-sense. We, lucky fellows (?) 

 who spent years of life at schools, would say of him that he was not 

 learned. 



It was my good fortune to know him personally. He honored 

 me by placing, for a short time, one his sons under my tuition. 1 

 just wish to say, in passing, that this old man was one of the best 

 educated men I have ever known. His faculties were drawn out. 

 Stuffing your books into the brain may make a man of knowledge, 

 but training the use of the faculties makes the educated man. 



Mr. President; Fm wearied, and well-nigh disgusted, with this 

 system of stuffing science into the minds of our boys and girls, and 

 when they get out of college they don't know how to get a liveli- 

 hood in a world which God, in infinite love, has filled with boundless 

 possibilities. And worse than this, some of our boys are returned 

 to us with the three graces of rum, swearing and tobacco. 



