THE FORESTS OF VERMILION COUNTY. 

 W. B. McDouGALL^ University of Illinois. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The area considered in the following pages consists of 

 about 25 sqiraie miles in the middle western part of the 

 Danville qnadraugle in Vermilion Coirnty, Illinois, and 

 inclirdes parts of Blount, Oakwood, Danville and Catlin 

 townships. It is cut by both the main branch and the 

 middle fork of the Vermilion River and also includes 

 parts of several valleys tributary to the north fork of the 

 same river, so that much of the area is very hilly. 



Practically the entire area is underlain with coal and 

 this fact has had considerable influence on the economic 

 development of tlie region. Numerous coal mines are be- 

 ing worked at the present time and numerorrs others have 

 been worked in the past and then abandoned. Consider- 

 able areas are owned by the various coal companies and in 

 these all other interests liave been subordinated to those 

 of coal mining. In several instances villages have sprung 

 up where new mines have beerr opened and after a number 

 of years the mines have been "worked out'' and the villages 

 have disappeared, only to spring rrp again in some other 

 locality. Often in tlie vicinity of these temporary mines 

 the miners and their families live in shacks that appear 

 wholly irradequate for the health and comfort of the occu- 

 parrts. Agriculture is of course, next to coal mining, the 

 most important industry of the region and the greatest 

 percent of the more level places is under cultivation. 



The soils of this region are very largely of four types.^ 

 Most of the upland soil is either brown silt loam or yel- 

 low-gray silt loam. The yellow-gray silt loam is an up- 

 land timber soil and was all formerly covered with for- 

 ests. A very high per cent of this soil, however, has been 



* Te writer is^ indebted to Professor J. G. Hosier of the University of Illinois 

 for all information concerning soils. 



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