FORESTRY SURVEY 189 



The Forested Aeea. 



In the davs before the coming of the first farmers, th(. 

 wooded area of Jo Daviess county amounted to 95 per cent 

 of the total acreage. Practically all of the open prairie land 

 vras in the extreme northeastern portion and extended as a 

 broad belt into Stephenson county. The demands of agri- 

 culture have continually lessened the amount of woodland 

 until at the present time only about 15 per cent remains in 

 timber, and even this has been depleted of all the virgin 

 growth and thinned by successive winter chopping until 

 the actual total amount of standing timber is not more 

 than 5 per cent of the original stand. 



As examples of the extent to which deforestation has 

 proceeded the following illustrations may be given ( see 

 maps for further particulars) : Section 26. in Warren 

 township, in 1S50. in its south half, had not to exceed 20 

 acres of cleared land. By 1S76 there were 150 acres in 

 farm lands, while in 191S there remained but 5 acres of 

 thin woodland. Section 35. due south of Warren town- 

 ship, was in 1S50 all timber : today 25 acres remain. Sec- 

 tion 2. continuing south, which is rough land adjacent to a 

 considerable stream, and likewise all timbered originally, 

 now has possibly 30 acres of forest. Even in an exceed- 

 ingly broken region like Section 4. the southwest quarter 

 of which is shown in Maj) 1. nearly one-half of the acreage 

 is cleared and cultivated. 



That this clearing of the timbered slopes has been ex- 

 tremely prejudicial to the best interests of conservation in 

 all its relations, may be easily conceded after one sees the 

 numerous gullies washed in the slopes, etfectually barring 

 cultivation, seriously injuring pasture, causing a silting up 

 of former clear and picturesque creeks and rivers, and ever 

 recurring disastrous floods. One of the latter was of such 

 magnitude that though only five miles in length, the 

 stream. Clear Creek, running through the east half of 

 Section 4. destroyed a stone mill-dam of seemingly inde- 

 structible proportions and absolutely wrecked the large 

 flouring mill. When the escaping waters had subsided, 

 some fifteen feet of silt was found on the bed of the pond, 

 the result of the wash of the surrounding cultivated 

 slopes, or expresseil in another form, the equivalent of one 

 foot of eroded soil from four square miles of farm land. 



