48 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



arboretum with the Cook County Preserve along a small 

 river with wooded hills and banks, thus becoming a part 

 of this greatness and beauty. 



Winnebago County followed Cook with a county pre- 

 serve, and already has saved a forest selected for des- 

 truction. Peoria, East St. Louis and* other cities of the 

 state have their ambitions, and with the Chicago- Joliet 

 link as a commencement, this Queen of the States may 

 do something worth while, namely, save the forest before 

 it is cut over, the soil before it is washed away. 



Some of us can remember when Central Park, N. Y., 

 and the Commons of Boston, parkwise, stood alone in the 

 nation. The Arnold Arboretum is just fifty years of age 

 this year. White pine lumber in our time sold in Chicago 

 for sixteen dollars per thousand, firsts, and eight for 

 fencing. Some of us cut down the trees for the nuts, 

 the honey, or the coons, and set the woods on fire to warm 

 our hands. 



Now the national government is buying back the moun- 

 tain ranges of the Atlantic and Pacific slopes and the 

 water sheds of the navigable streams in between, and 

 sixteen states have adopted various forms of parks or 

 forest protection. Thus there is much encouragement, 

 the going is good, and why not continue to preserve all 

 the land in and about the forests not suitable for agricul- 

 tural purposes'? 



To do it largest, to do it first, pleases the taxpayers. 

 The best state in the Union should lead the way. Why 

 wait for New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts or 

 boastful California? 



The deep water route from the Lakes to the Gulf is 

 now well under way, and the suggestion of forest saving 

 along the scenic banks from the Lake to Cairo is receiv- 

 ing some attention from the press and Chambers of Com- 

 merce. Here would be greatness — probably the longest 

 enterprise of the character nation wide, the most used 

 and useable in the state. The Illinois counties on the 

 banks of this canal have a population twice as large as 

 all the other counties of the state, with four more counties 

 in Missouri to be heard from. The last census, 1920, 

 gave the waterway counties of Illinois a population of 



