177 



Illinois Central Railroad, the 

 woodland acreage rises to fully 

 twenty-four per cent of the en- 

 tire area; in the Kaskaskia 

 District, stretching eastward 

 of this last to the Mississippi, 

 including thirteen counties, it 

 is twenty-one per cent; and in 

 the Grand Chain District, in- 

 cluding the eleven counties in 

 the extreme south, it is from 

 twenty-five to twenty-seven 

 per cent." 



The accompanying map, 

 drawn from the above descrip- 

 tion, will make these figures 

 more easily understood. Since 

 they are based on agricultural 

 statistics of the Census of 

 1880, they really show the pro- 

 portion of the farm lands in 

 woods rather than the propor- 

 tion of woodland to the total 

 area. Since at that time more 

 than a third of some of the 

 southern counties of the 

 "Grand Chain District" was 

 not classed as farm land, and 

 consisted principally of tim- 

 bered bottoms, the actual per- 

 centage of the total area in forest was undoubtedly much higher than 

 indicated. On the other hand, the figures for the more northern 

 prairie country where this condition did not exist seem rather high. 

 Everywhere the interference of man has disturbed the natural 

 balance between prairie and forest, so that original prairie land has 

 been occupied by tree associations, while far greater areas of original 

 forest land have been cleared and now have the aspect of prairies. 

 The present study shows that there are nearly a million acres of wood- 

 land in the twenty-six counties covered by this report. At a rough 

 estimate, there is probably another million acres wooded in the rest 

 of the state, or a little more than three per cent. This would make 

 the present forest area of Illinois about two million acres, or five and 

 one-half per cent of the total land area. 



Table I gives a good idea of general conditions in the better wooded 

 portions of the state, although the estimates, especially of standing 

 timber, are only approximations based on an amount of field work too 

 limited to give absolutely reliable and accurate results. 



Fig. 1. Map of Illinois, showing percentage 

 of farm-land in forest in 1880. 



