4 Reminiscences of 



Southern Colorado, and especially about Algodones, 

 comparatively unsettled now, the plentiful remnants 

 of pottery, which can be dug up at about every shovel- 

 ful, ancient watercourses, and adobe walls extending 

 over many square miles, which have withstood the 

 exposure of centuries. Ruins of stone watch-towers, 

 and walls of immense community houses which were 

 occupied by hvmdreds of the earlj^ Toltecs, remain as 

 monuments of a departed race. 



The question of forest preservation is becoming 

 one of increasing importance, not only for game life 

 but for commercial purposes, and the consumption 

 at present by fires, and the demands for lumber, and 

 especially wood pulp, and for domestic uses, is reach- 

 ing alarming proportions; and in view of a rapidly 

 increasing population on the North American conti- 

 nent, which in another century will be four or five times 

 greater than now, one may readily see that the ques- 

 tion of wood supply and its preservation and cultiva- 

 tion will be one of vital interest. 



At fourteen and fifteen years of age — in 1849-50 — 

 I had plentiful experience in Illinois over its plains 

 and in the wooded region along the Mississippi River. 



The State was then young, containing about one 

 twentieth of its present population. Game was 

 plentiful : bear, deer, raccoons, opossum, wild turkeys, 

 water-fowl, prairie chickens, and quail. SquiiTels 

 were common about the hickory groves — gray, fox, 

 and some black — and many of the gray and fox fell 

 before my gun. I was very fond of this shooting, and 

 I have never seen such quantities of squirrels else- 

 where as were in evidence at that time. The fox 

 squirrels here moved about the com bins and fields, 



