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and so sought out a site near a running spring. The forests were the 

 only source of fuel and building material and he was ill-equipped to haul 

 heavy loads over great distances. The prairies were swept by intensely 

 hot fires, the winter winds found nothing to break their bleak force, and 

 innumerable malarial mosquitoes bred in stagnant pools. For several 

 years prairie land could be bought for five dollars, while forested land 

 sold for thirty-five dollars an acre. 



Thus we find the flow of settlers in the early decades of the past 

 century at first a mere seepage creeping over the heavily forested areas 

 of the southern part of the state, skirting the prairie, extending back up 

 the rivers, ever following river and forest, held from the prairie until 

 about 1830. The tide of immigration became ever greater, crept out 

 from the margin of the woods in the early thirties, and suddenly flooded 

 the prairies in the late thirties. In 1830 the prairies had scarcely been 

 touched by settlement. By 1840 less than one twenty-fifth remained 

 unsettled. This last frontier was not the rough forest land, but parts 

 of Ford, Iroquois, and Champaign counties. 



Settlement in Illinois in its effect upon the forests but repeated the 

 conditions of the older-settled states. The loamy bottomlands and best 

 soils were cleared. Generally the logs were heaped and burned. The 

 rougher slopes and poorer soils remained in forest. Although for the 

 most part destructive in his attitude toward forests, yet throughout the 

 uplands in the central and northern parts of the state, it happened that 

 probably for the first time in the nation's history the pioneer unwittingly 

 improved these forests. When in the thirties the prairie sod was broken, 

 forest fires were checked. The seedling sprouts which sprang up yearly 

 after the fires, now developed into a thick stand of saplings. The de- 

 mands of the region for fuel and building material resulted in cutting 

 the older inferior overwood. Free from shade the saplings quickly de- 

 veloped into a dense even-aged stand and even encroached upon the prai- 

 rie where not checked by the plow. 



The settlement of the prairie increased the value of the limited 

 wooded parts of the prairie counties. Settlers would not buy prairie 

 land unless several acres of woodland were included. This frequently 

 resulted in the wood-lot, which supplied the fuel and building material, 

 being several miles from the farm. 



Two events ocurring about 18G0 reversed the relative values of 

 prairie land and forest land for the prairie regions. The railroads came 

 to the farms, bringing building material and coal. The base-burner coal 



