120 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



one. This generation will not pass till the pine forests of the North will 

 be exhausted. This generation will not pass till nearly all the valuable 

 timber of New York, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wiscon- 

 sin and Minnesota, will be exhausted. 



Timber will not grow at railroad speed. From fifty to a hundred 

 and fifty years are required to make timber that is valuable for lumber 

 and building purposes generally. The planting of timber on a large 

 scale throughout the country should be begun now, to supply the demand 

 that is inevitable before it will grow to maturity. There is much waste 

 land that is the best for this purpose ; and on the broad prairies, where 

 there is no waste land, a portion of every farm should be converted into 

 forest. 



The requirements of civilization are altogether different from that 

 of savage life. A man alone in the wilderness is monarch of all he sur- 

 veys. But if another comes into this wilderness, he also has rights which 

 must be respected. When a country becomes settled, and a people 

 become a nation, with laws necessary to regulate and maintain their 

 existence, and they attain to any degree of civilization, the lakes and rivers 

 are regarded and held as common property for the good of the whole. 

 The individual rights to catch fish in those lakes and rivers are abridged 

 for the benefit of all, and the government very properly lends its aid for 

 replenishing them. The government prohibits men from indiscriminately 

 slaughtering game that may be found upon their own land. The forests 

 are a thousand times more a national benefit than these, and should be 

 protected. Individuals should not be permitted to have and to exercise 

 rights that will injure the whole people and coming generations. The only 

 reason why this is suffered is because the national benefits of forests are 

 * not known and the baneful effects of their destruction are not realized. 



Make it known to the people that with our rapidly increasing popu- 

 lation we are surely marching on to the destruction of our forests, and 

 let them know and realize what the consequences will be, and how 

 speedily they will follow, the people, being the sovereigns, will devise 

 some means to arrest it. They will devise some way to keep a due pro- 

 portion of land in forest ; so much as is necessary to secure the rain that 

 is required to mature the crops ; so much as is necessary to prevent 

 destructive drouths and equally destructive floods and inundations ; so 

 much as is necessary to temper and moderate the harsh cold winds that 

 will destroy our fruit and render our climate disagreeable and unhealthy. 

 The importance to the whole people of putting and maintaining a due 

 proportion of the area of this country in forest can scarcely be estimated. 

 It affects every interest of the country. And a failure to do so will result 

 in greater disaster than would the stopping of the navigation of all its 

 rivers and lakes. 



The drouths of Western Iowa, Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and 

 Colorado are caused chiefly by want of timber. The winds that sweep 

 over those plains have nothing to obstruct them in their course. If a due 

 proportion of that country was planted in forest, in twenty years the 

 drouths would cease and the wind would be greatly moderated. 



