COUNTY PARKS. 



175 



sent all to school in matters of forestry and arboriculture; sent 

 to learn the value of the forest in the dear school of experience 

 where we are to be tauijht the arithmetic of cost. 



In the third place county parks would tend to preserve to 

 those who come after us, something of the primitive beauty of 

 this part of the world as such beauty stood revealed in its 

 original flora. I esteem this from the stand-point of science, 

 and indeed from the stand-point of intellectual progress, a 

 matter of extreme importance. Who can estimate the intel- 

 lectual stimulus the world receives by the effort made to 

 appreciate and understand the varied wealth of Nature's living 

 forms. In this direction who can estimate how great has been 

 our own advantage as occupants of this new world! But such 

 is the aggressive energy of our people, such their ambition to 

 use profitably every foot of virgin soil that, unless somewhere 

 public reserves be constituted, our so-called civilization will soon 

 have obliterated forever our natural wealth and left us to the 

 investigation of introduced species only and these but few in 

 number. It is a fact lamented, grievously lamented by all 

 intelligent men, that in all the older portions of the country', 

 species of plants once common, to say nothing of animals, are 

 now extinct. County parks, if organized soon, would enable 

 us to preserve many of these in the localities where originally 

 found. 



The objection to all this is that such parks as here broached 

 are impracticable. Such objection can lie in two directions 

 only: (i) the lack cf suitable sites, and (2) the lack of suit- 

 able control. As to the first it may be said that in a great 

 number of our counties, especially eastward, such sites exist and 

 have in many cases been long used, and I am sorry to say, 

 abused, by our people; 



'•The Caves," in Jackson county, 



"The Backbone," in Delaware County, 



" Wild Cat Den," in Muscatine County, 



'' Gray's Ford," in Cedar County, 



" Finney's Spring," in Allamakee County, 



"The Palisades" in Cedar and Johnson Counties, may be 



