ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



19 



Friends of Our Native Lands< ape 



if the Friends of Our Native Landscape go down to history with no 

 other record to their credit than that they have led a band of nature lovers 

 to the country, given joy to some, and opened the eyes of others, they will 

 not have lived in vain." The primary purposes of the society, however, 

 are twofold: First to secure and preserve for the people of today and all 

 future generations examples of landscape types which are fast vanishing 

 before the encroachment of industry : Second, to cultivate in every in- 

 dividual a love for the world of the open with an understanding of how 

 it may be enjoyed in a social way without destroying those things we want 

 to preserve. 



To create an interest in the first object, an annual meeting of all 

 members of the society is held in June in some bit of primitive landscape 

 worthy of preservation by the state. The first of these "annual pilgrimages" 

 was to the White Pine Forest near Oregon. Illinois, where an original 

 masque by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman was enacted with a bend in the 

 flood plain of a picturesque creek for an amphitheater. This was in June. 

 1913. Succeeding pilgrimages have been to the Warren Woods near Three 

 Oaks. Michigan : to the Illinois Canyon near Starved Rock, and to the 

 Warren Dunes at Lakeside. Michigan. 



But when "Autumn has flung her crimson splendor abroad," the Friends 

 gather and go to the blazing dunes for the refreshment of spirit which only 

 broad horizons and wind-swept hill tops can give. At night they light an 

 enormous campfire and listen to reports from committees that have been 

 continuously active in promoting such work as state survey, county reserva- 

 tions, city reservations, public highways, school propaganda, and publicity 

 work. 



A GROUP OF '-FRIENDS'" OX AN OUTING 



