176 



that type for each county. Trees below six inches in diameter at 

 breast-height were not considered in formulating these estimates. 

 Their chief value is in characterizing the type and showing how it 

 varies in the different counties. 



The attention of the reader is especially called to the suggestions 

 given for handling woodland of the different types. It is hoped that 

 these will be of use to owners of woodland, and that reports will be 

 made either to the Forest Service or to the proper state authorities 

 of the results obtained through applying the principles outlined. 



General Conditions 



The first information published in regard to the extent and distri- 

 bution of Illinois woodlands is included in a descriptive and historical 

 volume by Fred. Gerhard, entitled "Illinois as It Is," issued in 1857. 

 It consists of a map by Dr. Fred. Brendel, of Peoria, showing the 

 prairies, woods, swamps, and bluffs. The wooded areas indicated 

 on this map have been copied on the forest map that accompanies this 

 report, since they represent, probably with fair accuracy, the original 

 forests of the state. About thirty per cent of the total area is given as 

 woodland. 



In 1882 the following information in regard to Illinois forests 

 was published in a book by Robert P. Porter, entitled "The West: 

 from the Census of 1880": 



"While Illinois is emphatically a prairie state, it has never been 

 so nearly treeless as the states beyond the Missouri. Large districts 

 of southern Illinois w-ere originally densely wooded, and forest belts 

 from three to thirty miles wade extended along the banks, and filled 

 the areas between the forks of rivers. In many sections large sur- 

 faces have been denuded of timber. The woodlands at this time, 

 based on the observations of the State Horticultural Society and the 

 Census returns, stand in about the following ratio to the entire area 

 of the country : In the Fox River District, embracing twelve counties 

 in the northeastern corner of the state, the acreage of woodland is 

 about six per cent of the whole; in the Rock River District, including 

 eleven counties in the northwest, it is now a little more than eight per 

 cent; in the Illinois River District, below Ottawa, extending across 

 to the Mississippi, embracing twenty-one counties, it is not far from 

 fifteen per cent; east of this district in the Grand Prairie District, 

 including seventeen counties in East Central Illinois, it is about six 

 per cent; directly south of this, in the Centralia District, embracing 

 seventeen counties, lying mainly between the Wabash River and the 



