PAPERS OF GENERAL INTEREST 4S 



UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN 

 ILLINOIS 



R. B. Miller, State Forester, Urbana 



Situated as you are in the unglaciated region of Illinois, 

 with a considerable area in each county unsuited by virtue of 

 its slope for agricultural crops, I believe you should con- 

 sider growing to a greater extent a crop which is suited 

 primarily to rough hilly land — namely, the timber crop. A 

 good photograph of many of your valleys will show that 

 the proper division will be corn and ti-uck in the valleys, 

 wheat on land not too steep, orchards on the hillsides and 

 woods at the top of the hills, all determined more or less 

 on the basis of topography and slope. You have also bot- 

 tomlands which are in drainage projects which have not 

 yet been successfully drained, being subject to periodic over- 

 flow. Men at the lower ends of these ditches are often 

 "flooded out." I contend that some of these bottomlands 

 might grow a second crop of timber before being needed for 

 agriculture, such rapidly growing species as cottonwood, 

 gum, elm, maple, hackberry and sycamore, so called "soft- 

 woods" suitable to supply the veneer factories of this region. 



Have you thought in connection with the planting of 

 orchards, of the importance of a perpetual supply of timber 

 for baskets, crates and hampers? The citrus growers of 

 Florida use about 12,000,000 boxes annually for the ship- 

 ment of their products, each box taking about five and a 

 half feet of lumber, or say 65,000,000 board feet required. 

 Truck growers of Florida use 13,000,000 more boxes, so that 

 the expansion of the industry may some time be limited by 

 a lack of material for crates and boxes in which to ship 

 the crop. 



You may reach the same situation in southern Illinois — 

 in fact you have already felt the pinch in the rising prices 

 of veneered material. Shooks for tomato crates and all 

 forms of boxes for berries and melons are rapidly increasing 

 in price, due in large measure to the exhaustion of the local 

 supply of timber. Last fall apple barrels were selling for 

 $1.50 each, a price which made their use almost prohibitive, 

 shippers preferring to use baskets, a much less permanent 



