CONSERVATION AND PARKS. 



THE EVOLUTION OF FOREST, PARK AND CONSERVATION SENTI- 

 MENT IN IOWA. 



By Wesley Greene, Secretary Iowa State Horticultural Society. 



I may not be able, in a few minutes, to enframe a concept of Iowa 

 for a hundred years and hold it before your mind in such a manner that 

 you can see the changes that have taken place in that time, but will 

 try to bring into relief some of the more important factors and set them 

 in the fore-ground to give the proper perspective so you can catch a 

 glimpse of the motives that impelled the early settlers to do what they 

 did, while we pass rapidly over a review of this subject. 



Iowa a hundred years ago, was a possession of the Indians, however 

 much it may have been claimed by foreign nations prior to that time. 

 You will pardon me if I refer to two gentlemen, it was my privilege to 

 know in early youth as witnesses for the first thirty years, of which I had 

 no personal knowledge, who were active in transition of dominion in the 

 state from the red to the white race. 



Antoine LeClaire came to Fort Armstrong in 1818 as an interpreter 

 and served in that capacity in the treaty of 1832, and was the first person 

 to acquire title to land and erect a building in Iowa, notwithstanding oc- 

 cupancy of other adventurers who were temporarily, in possession at Du- 

 buque, Flint Hills and elsewhere. 



Geo. L. Davenport was born on the island in 1818 and had no play- 

 mates in early life other than the Indian children that lived in villages 

 on both sides of the river and learned to speak their language as readily 

 as English. He staked a claim near that of Mr. LeClaire's that was in 

 the days of "Squatter Sovereignty," the land had not been surveyed and 

 had little commercial value. 



Mr. Davenport assisted in the treaty of 1841-2 for the purchase from 

 the Indians of the remainder of their land in the state. They were re- 

 moved in 1846 but not completely extirpated until 1856 at Spirit Lake. 

 I have given you this much history to serve as a canvas on which to 

 visualize the concept of the emotions of the people" who followed the In- 

 dians in the building of a great state, one of the richest in agricultural 

 resources in the Mississippi valley. 



Settlement did not begin officially in Iowa until July, 1833. In 1836 

 there were 10,000, in 1840, 43,000, and in 1850 nearly 200,000 people were 

 within our borders. The state was admitted in 1846 and expressed its sen- 

 timents and prescribed rules of action to guide its people in the Code of 

 1851. Up to this time the settlers located among the tree-crowned hills 

 along the streams where the forest area was estimated to cover 15 per 

 cent to 17 per cent of the state. The sentiment of the pioneers was the 

 same in regard to forests as that held by their forefathers; that without 

 forests settlement in a new country was impossible. A glance at the 



