INTRODUCTION 



Until very recent years definite knowledge of the amounts and con- 

 dition of our timber resources and the demands upon them has been so 

 limited that a reliable estimate of our timber requirements and supplies 

 at any future period has been impossible. It is now common knowledge 

 that the present forests of the United States contain an estimated total 

 of 481,800 million cubic feet of standing timber; that the annual drain 

 of 25,000 million cubic feet is partially offset by a growth of 6,039 million 

 cubic feet ; and that the virgin forests will carry us another twenty-five 

 years, after which we shall probably be wholly dependent upon growth 

 from cut-over lands. By utilizing the entire 470 million acres of forest 

 land, at prevailing rates of growth these cut-over lands can supply us 

 with an estimated annual yield of 14,000 million cubic feet — a little more 

 than half our present requirements. 



The conviction that satisfactory substitutes for wood will be found 

 is untenable when the enormous amount of wood required is appreciated. 

 This drain of 25,000 million cubic feet of standing timber a year means 

 that for every hundred pounds of coal, iron, cement, petroleum, and cop- 

 per consumed the forests supply 67 pounds of wood, and the crop lands 

 supply 44 pounds of all forms of crops including cereals, seeds, clover, 

 hay, forage, cotton, potatoes, sugar, fruit, and nuts. It is obvious that a 

 satisfactory substitution for a commodity representing by weight two 

 thirds of virtually all the minerals consumed, or one and a half times all 

 crops raised in the United States, is impossible. 



A timber famine will be more disastrous to Illinois than to any 

 other state. Her manufacturing establishments employ 11.6 per cent 

 more hands than agriculture, transportation, and mining combined, and 

 thirty per cent of all persons employed in manufacture are in industries 

 dependent upon wood. In the single item of lumber Illinois consumes 

 one thirtieth the total lumber-cut of the world. 



There is a striking parallel between Illinois and Great Britain in the 

 total wood consumption and .in the total area forested. Each annually 

 consumes approximately the same quantity of wood — 560,720,000 cubic 

 feet for Illinois and 600,000,000 cubic feet for Great Britain ; each has 

 about the same area forested— 3,021,650 for Illinois, and about 3,000,000 

 acres for Great Britain. But Great Britain, despite a population of 437.5 

 to the square mile as compared with 115.7 in Illinois, and the consequent 

 pressure for land, has deliberately undertaken to replant 1,770,000 acres 

 and this planting is being done at the rate of 20,000 acres a year. Illinois 

 has never planted 200 acres of publicly owned forests, her farm wood- 

 lands are decreasing at the rate of 4,500 acres a year, and the unimproved 

 and waste land on farms is increasing at the rate of 25,000 acres a year. 



The State Natural History Survey has undertaken an inventory of 

 the forests, and the purpose of this report is to present the area and con- 

 dition of the forests of Illinois, and to show the productiveness of the 

 common soil types in terms of forest crops. 



