126 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



Creeper looks like burnished copper, and all is glorious with color. 'Tis 

 then Old Pilot looks like a fairyland. 



FORESTRY NOTES FOR PILOT MOUND AREA. 

 By Dr. Thomas H. Macbride, President State University of Iowa. 



The forest area in these counties was originally, and has been until 

 recently, rather larger than usual in prairie counties. Especially is this 

 true of Hancock and Winnebago. In the latter the greater part of the 

 eastern townships was originally covered with forest trees and until com- 

 paratively recent years the same region has been more densely and ex- 

 tensively occupied by young native forest, the so-called "second-growth." 

 The same thing was true of a large part of Forest township and of New- 

 ton township, and there was native wood about Lake Harmon, and perhaps 

 one or two other native groves were known to the pioneer. In Hancock 

 county Ellington township, with the southern slopes of Pilot Knob and 

 the banks of Lime creek, were all extensively wooded country and native 

 groves were found all along the Iowa river in Avery township and about 

 Amsterdam. There is still a native grove at Twin lakes and one in sec- 

 tion 11 of the township of the same name, and another at Crystal lake. 

 The latter is now in part a park. In Kossuth county the native woods 

 were limited pretty nearly to the valley and flood plain of the Des Moines 

 river, particularly below the point where the tributaries, Black Cat and 

 Plum creek, enter. The list of species represented in these native forest 

 plantations includes the names of nearly all the arboreal forms found in 

 eastern or especially northeastern Iowa. Along the Des Moines about 

 Algona and along Lime creek east of Forest City and especially on Pilot 

 Knob and on its attendant hills genuine forest conditions prevail. Undis- 

 turbed by fires the trees make luxuriant growth and add a beauty to these 

 prairie landscapes otherwise unattainable. The presence of Pilot Knob 

 and its wooded sides, seen like a blue wall from all the surrounding coun- 

 try for miles, has to this country and for it a real commercial value, and 

 if the people who are so fortunate as to own farms and homes in the 

 neighborhood of this piece of natural attractiveness are wise they will 

 never suffer its beauty to be destroyed. Steps should be taken to make 

 Pilot Knob with its woods, its lakes and its meadows, its exhilarating 

 heights, a park to be for the delight and enjoyment of the people for all 

 time. Algona has also great natural advantages. Her wooded banks 

 and woodland drives along the river and across it, attended by the rich 

 variety of native groves, are certainly surprisingly beautiful and should 

 belong to the city, some of them at least, for the benefit of coming gen- 

 erations. 



Tree-planting in these counties has proceeded much as elsewhere for 

 the purposes of shelter and fuel. Every farmer has a grove, and some of 

 these are of fine proportions and show beautiful trees. Here as in other 

 Iowa counties the species planted have been selected as rapidly growing, 

 rather than for value when grown. Nevertheless there are plantations 

 sufficient to show that all sorts of trees common to our northern nurseries 



