94 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



public reserves be constituted, our so-called civilization will 

 soon have obliterated forever our natural wealth and left us to 

 the investigation of introduced species only, and these but few 

 in number. It is a fact lamented, grievously lamented by all 

 intelligent men, that in all the older portions of the country 

 species of plants once common, to say nothing of animals, are 

 now extinct County parks, if organized soon, would enable 

 us to preserve maay of these in the localities where originally 

 found. 



The objection to all this is that such parks as here 

 broached are impracticable. Such objection can lie in two 

 directions only: (1) The lack of suitable sites, and (2) the lack 

 of suitable control. As to the first, it may be said that in a 

 great number of our counties, especially eastward, such sites 

 exist and have, in many cases, been long used and, I am sorry 

 to say, abused by our people: 



" The Caves," in Jackson county; 



"The Backbone." in Delaware county; 



''Wild Cat Den," in Muscatine county; 



" Gray's Ford," in Cedar county; 



" Pinney's Spring," in Allamakee county. 



"The Palisades" in Cedar and Johnson counties, may be 

 cited as illustrations both of the fact that sites exist and that 

 people need and appreciate them. The "Backbone," in Dela- 

 ware, is ideal. Here are cliffs and rocks, woods, rivers and 

 bountiful springs and, what is rare in Iowa, clusters of native 

 jiine. Hundreds of people visit the locality every year, and 

 hundreds more would do so were the roads leading to the 

 park in more passable condition, and especially were the 

 grounds a park properly managed and controlled instead of, 

 as now, a cow pasture, so stocked as to jeopardize everything 

 green it contains. The "Den" in Muscatine county might be 

 referred to in the same way. I believe it is not yet too late 

 to find in possibly three fourths of our Iowa counties, suitable 

 sit*^s, grounds, for the purpose contemplated in this argument. 



The second count in the way of objection is a real difficulty 

 whose gravity I do not for a moment attempt to minimize. 

 How to secure, own and care for several hundred, or for that 

 matter, several thousand acres of land to be used by all the 

 people is a problem, especially under our form of government. 

 Were we in the old world we should find no difficulty. Such 

 locilities are owned by the king or his equivalent and are 



