ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 19 



The White Pine Forest of Ogle County 



The highway running from Oregon (9 miles) to Polo (7 miles) by the 

 Pine Creek Town Hall bounds the White Pine Forest Tract of Ogle 

 County on the south ; another highway runs by its east side north to Mount 

 Morris; the St. Paul line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 

 goes by on its northern edge ; to the west and southwest it reaches out 

 irregularly towards Stratford and over the charming Spring Valley Branch, 

 — these boundaries including about seven hundred acres. The tract is 

 owned by a number of individuals, many of whom purchased their holdings 

 years ago in small timber lots of from five to sixty acres, it being the 

 custom in an early day thus to divide up the forest area for use in connection 

 with the more fertile farming land near, for pasture, firewood, and the 

 various needs of the work and life on the farm. The tract is traversed by 

 Pine Creek, which rises farther to the north, flowing in a winding course, 

 and entering Rock River near the curious bend at Grand Detour. This 

 creek is a most picturesque stream along its course in other spots than where 

 it cuts through this forest, but here it reaches the height of its picturesque 

 beauty and variety, as it runs by the high, rocky, vine-and-flower-covered 

 banks, mirroring them in its clear ripples as it eddies by. The creek just 

 before it enters the tree tract was deflected from its course in 1885, by the 

 railway company in extending the road to St. Paul. To avoid washouts in 

 time of heavy rains, the rocks were blasted out and made as a natural 

 support for a bridge over the waters of the stream flowing far beneath, 

 being barred out of the former bed by the high embankments and grade of 

 the track. The name of this stream would indicate that pine trees pre- 

 vailed along the creek at the time it received its appellation. Old settlers 

 who came to the region about 1840, say that white pines w r ere found then 

 pretty much all along the east bank of the creek and extending out to a 

 breadth of sometimes a half mile and more. It is chiefly on this bank that 

 the white pine is found now. The red cedar is found in this tract mainly 

 on the west side. The American yew 7 , or ground hemlock, the third ever- 

 green growing in this tract, is found mostly on the east side of the stream, 

 creeping and hanging in long dark festoons over far stretches of the rocky 

 wall. 



In October, the brilliant colors of the hardwoods (which are intermixed 

 with the evergreens over most of the tract) mingled with the soft, rich 

 green of the white pines and the young growth, make a picture of en- 

 trancing loveliness. The white pine and red cedar, procured from along 

 Pine Creek, were planted around the early homes of the settlers, both in 

 town and country, to protect them from the fierce storms, and for their 

 beauty, too, for the people who made up the body of sturdy pioneers had 

 not lost their appreciation of the beautiful things in life, even though they 

 were struggling with the stern asperities of the new situation. The groups 

 of these evergreens, as they surround the homes and dot the landscape, are 

 today an evidence of the houses in which once lived a pioneer family. 



Mr. Robert Ridgway, the great naturalist, has shown that in Illinois 

 the "lower border lands were once the cream of the country and a big tree 



