ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 5 



The Need for Forest and Game Preserves in Southern 



Illinois 



For many years it has been plainly evident to observing people that in 

 Southern Illinois there has been a steady decrease in wild life of all kinds. 

 Lovers of Nature, of whom there are very many more than those who are 

 indifferent to Nature's charms suppose, are deeply impressed and 

 greatly troubled by the knowledge of this fact, and it is in behalf of this 

 too much ignored part of our population that this article is written. Within 

 my own recollection many kinds of birds and four-footed animals have 

 utterly disappeared ; others are now on the verge of extirpation, and scarcely 

 a trace remains of our once splendid virgin forests. At least one species of 

 tree (the linden) is no longer to be found in my home county except 

 where planted, and many of our ornamental plants, beyond all others 

 prized for two centuries or more in European gardens, listed by practically 

 all American nurserymen, and once the glory of our prairies and more 

 open woodlands, have either totallv disappeared in the wild state or are 

 restricted to small and widely separated patches along roadsides and the 

 right-of-way of railroads, where through annual cutting and burning, they 

 are becoming each year more scarce and must soon vanish altogether if 

 present conditions continue. The wooded areas that remain, although 

 numerous, are despoiled of their best and largest trees, and all of them, 

 through pasturage (some of them also through fires set by hunters), show 

 little, often none, of the luxuriant undergrowth which formerly gave them 

 a distinctive character and afforded food, shelter, and nesting places for 

 thousands of birds, which, deprived of these necessities, are no longer to 

 be found there. So far as I have been able to ascertain, it is now impossible 

 to find anyw T here in this and other counties which I have visited a single 

 piece of woodland where the thickness of the stand, the grandeur of the 

 trees, luxuriance of undergrowth and vine-drapery, and abundance of 

 bird-life more than feebly recall those of forty or fifty years ago. This is 

 more particularly true of bottom-land forest, the most distinctive type of 

 Southern Illinois. 



That deterioration of remaining woodlands can easily be checked and 

 original conditions, except as to replacement of mature trees, be restored, 

 has been convincingly demonstrated by my own experiment on a small 

 scale. Of course the forest giants are gone forever, for their growth is a 

 matter of centuries. All the money in the world cannot replace a single 

 one of them. The most ambitious work of man, no matter what its cost, 

 if destroyed can be restored, for its restoration is merely a matter of 

 money ; but ten times the cost of the Panama Canal will not suffice to 

 replace a single tulip tree, black walnut, or oak of mature growth. 



The advance of civilization has up to date been too much one-sided, 

 having only the "practical" in view, and therefore the so-called "develop- 

 ment" of the country has resulted in destruction of much that is attractive 

 or beautiful. Indeed to such an extent is this true that it really seems as 

 if man's efforts have in large part been expended in striving to make 



