106 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



by sand and gravel companies. In walking through such 

 tracts, signs of old and recent fires are seen, and it would 

 seem to us to be good policy for these companies to protect 

 their lands against fire even if the greater values do lie be- 

 neath the surface. Such companies might form cooperative 

 fire protective associations to good advantage, increasing 

 the value of these surface holdings by better handling of 

 their tracts and at least by fire protection. 



Where private companies do not take an interest in the 

 protection of the timber on such tracts, it would seem to us 

 to be good policy for the state to purchase the timber rights 

 after a careful examination and forest survey, protect them 

 from fire, carry on improvement cuttings and thinnings 

 which might afford a small revenue at times and hold them 

 as a future timber supply and protection forest. Some of 

 these tracts from which the larger trees have been removed 

 for lumber still have a potential value and in twenty-five 

 years might produce a considerable amount of tie and saw 

 timber. This has been mentioned several times by timber 

 men in this part of the country so that I do not believe the 

 acquisition of such tracts at a reasonable price to be at all 

 a fanciful proposition and it would assure another cut of 

 timber in twenty-five years; whereas if left in its present 

 condition repeated fires will change the composition of the 

 forest from white oak, tulip and beech to an inferior one 

 of black oak and hickory with inferior growth capacity and 

 hence low value. 



3. Bottomland Which Might Grow Another Crop of 



Timber Before Being Needed for Farm Crops 

 There are occasional "forties" and sometimes tracts as 

 large as 160 acres in drainage projects which contain fine 

 timber, such as sycamore, elm, maple, hackberry, and white, 

 pin and bur oak, that are subject to periodical overflow, 

 making their value doubtful when cleared for agriculture. 

 In one such virgin tract an elm was measured which was 

 30 inches in diameter at a height of 4^ feet above the 

 ground, with a merchantable length of 42 feet and it 

 scaled 921 board feet by the Doyle-Scribner log rule. One 

 bur oak was measured which was 15.1 feet in circumfer- 

 ence at a height of six feet above the ground, while a soft 



