STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. ] li I 



We in Illinois have not suffered materially from change of climate 

 in consequence of the clearing of our forest land, for the reason that 

 since the prairie fires have been stopped young timber has grown upon a 

 considerable area of country, and a thick growth of young timber is 

 almost as valuable for this purpose as the old. But this will not continue. 

 The area of cultivated land is rapidly increasing. The farms are extend- 

 ing into the forests faster than the forests are extending into the prairies. 

 In fact, there is not much more prairie for them to extend over. If this 

 process continues, its effects will soon be felt. It will make colder winters 

 and hotter summers, greater drouths and greater floods, higher winds and 

 more variable temperature. It will have a blighting effect upon fruit, 

 and will be injurious to crops generally. It will do infinitely more harm 

 to fruit trees than do all the insects that now infest them. The great 

 fault of our climate now is its extremes and its changeableness. Its 

 extremes will then be greater and the changes more sudden and frequent. 

 Many of our people now have to leave and seek a more equable climate 

 or suffer from disease ; then more will have to leave or die. 



I now suggest the propriety of this Society appointing a committee 

 to mature some plan for the protection of forests, and the encouragement 

 of forest culture, in Illinois, and present, or have it presented, to our 

 Legislature, setting forth the importance of the subject, and urging upon 

 that honorable body the necessity for its favorable consideration. 



With a few general remarks on forest culture proper, I will close. 

 Our chief dependence are indigenous trees. A few foreign ones do well, 

 but they are the exceptions. It is easier to acclimate a northern than a 

 southern tree. To make the most timber (fully matured ) to the acre, 

 several species should be mingled together. A piece of land planted in 

 one variety is liable to become impoverished, and many of the trees die 

 while young, for want of a sufficient supply of the peculiar nourishment 

 that species requires. The same soil may furnish abundant nutriment for 

 a heavy growth of mixed timber, when it could not sustain an equal 

 growth of any one kind. Some regard must be paid to the natural 

 habitat of the species. Radical changes in this respect are dangerous. 

 One principle is well established in farming, that is, the necessity of rota- 

 tion in crops. One kind of grain or grass planted continuously on the 

 same land year after year exhausts it, and renders a change necessary, or 

 rather, exhausts the material necessary to develop and mature that partic- 

 ular kind of grain or grass. The same principle applies to forest culture. 

 The principle of rotation in forests has always been observed by nature 

 the world over. Of course these rotations in forests involve a long series 

 of years, but it is no less a fact. Any species of trees that monopolizes 

 a section of country, sooner or later exhausts the material that is neces- 

 sary to sustain it, dies and is succeeded by another. It has been proved 

 in Europe, by actual experiments, that it is impossible to renew old forests 

 with the same kind of timber, until after centuries have elapsed. I have 

 seen in this State large sections of oak forests die, and I believe from this 

 very cause. In these instances it would be folly to attempt to renew 

 them with the same kind of timber. 



