244 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Of course we must import, must hurry tor a time, but it is the clear duty of every 

 Illinoisan to see to it that that time of dependence upon outside supply shall be as 

 short as possible. A retrospective glance at the possibilities we have missed may 

 teach us what may be done in the future. Farmers who have plowed prairie for 

 twenty years, have hauled their fuel six miles and sometimes ten and fifteen, all that 

 time, when Cottonwoods of two feet in diameter, heavy Maple of twenty inches, and 

 Waluut of fourteen inches and Hickory of nineteen inches, might have grown on their 

 own homesteads, if a little labor and care had been used in the right direction. Every 

 prairie farmer might have his sugar orchard in full production in ten years from the 

 planting of the seed of the honey Maple, and a supply of excellent fuel beside. But it 

 was not done except in a few rare instances — just enough to prove what might be. 

 As no great amount of care is required to do for natural growth timber, all which can 

 be done for it, it is strange that it is so generally neglected. Often the fuel procured 

 by trimming and training will more than pay the cost, leaving the increased growth 

 which this process stimulates, a clear profit. 



The crowded condition of the young groves, which have sprang up, where only the 

 hazel grew when the prairie fires were wont to consume everything, was their safety 

 and protection during the earlier stages of their growth ; but as soon as it becomes a 

 struggle for life among the trees, even the survivors were dwarfed and injured by the 

 crowding. The few experiments that have been tried, in thinning and trimming young 

 groves, demonstrate that for a number of years the growth is about doubled, and the 

 very year when the trimming commenced, can be seen iD the great increase in thickness 

 of the amulers or yearly wood ring. It is not only the trimming which promotes the 

 increased growth. Trimming off the limbs which from their positions have ceased to 

 be of use to the tree, instead of allowing them to remain, a task to its vitality, to die, 

 decay and slough off of themselves, will give a notable impetus to its growth. Only 

 a trial is needed to convince any observant person that judicious pruning is an actual 

 stimulus of growth. 



Not only does the tree, deprived of the branches of slow and puny growth, put on 

 an amount of increase upon the remaining parts, equivalent to the growth which the 

 last limbs would have made had they remained, but a greater aggregate growth is 

 produced, and that not only for one year but for several succeeding years. 



How best to preserve and increase the native timber is as much a question of import- 

 ance to our people as any of the questions of rural economy. And to answer that 

 question we would recommend, first to thin out trees of least worth ; second, to trim 

 into proper shape the desirable ones ; third, to cease pasturing groves and wood lots. 

 While the foolish and unprofitable system of fencing out stock instead of fencing it in 

 prevails, much groveland is used as commons because the farmers think they can hard- 

 ly afford to keep up fences around lands not immediately productive, and because few 

 people realize how much damage results to timber from cattle. But few of our 

 native trees will long survive the close pasturage of large herds. Cottonwood, Soft 

 Maple and honey Maple will stand almost any degree of abuse of this kind, but not so 

 the Oaks, Hickory, and Sugar Maple. 



In connection with this subject of natural forests, there are several popular errors 

 which perhaps deserve a passing notice : First is the folly of these wise men of 

 Gotham, the New York Farmers' Club, who grandly tells the whole world that groves 

 spring up upon the prairies spontaneously, where there was neither seed or root before, 



