20 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



region second only to the Pacific Coast" ; and in 1880, sixty-two of the one 

 hundred and two counties in the state were from fifteen to twenty- five per- 

 cent in forests and the remaining forty of them had from six to eight 

 percent. Now it is estimated that the forest area is only five ane one-half 

 percent of the entire land area. The people of the United States awoke too 

 late to the need of forestry regulations ; the wealth of timber in our country 

 seeming to be inexhaustible, it did not come into the minds of those in 

 authority that it was necessary to make permanent reservations of our 

 bountiful tracts of trees. Now we have the pitiful spectacle of the once 

 beautiful regions of the Blue and Alleghany Mountains a series of barren 

 slopes, and the forest sections in every one of the states largely denuded of 

 their useful and handsome growth. What would France have done in this 

 World War if she had not long, long ago, turned her attention economically 

 to the protection and growing, of trees, so that she was able by her great 

 state-grow?i forests to provide in enormous quantities the various kinds of 

 wood and timber for the needs of all the Allies in almost every manner? 

 And, what is more serious, what would America and the other allied coun- 

 tries have done without this marvelous and husbanded supply? 



At the beginning of the twentieth century, our then President, Theodore 

 Roosevelt, turned his attention with his characteristic thoroughness, to this 

 problem, being ably assisted by Mr. GifTord Pinchot, the enthusiastic and 

 capable head of the Government Forest Service, and measures to arouse 

 people to the seriousness of the situation were taken. The General 

 Assembly of the State of Illinois in 1903 passed a resolution asking the U. 

 S. Department of Agriculture to make an examination of the forests of the 

 State, with recommendations as to preserving and propagating them. Mr. 

 R. S. Kellogg, of the U. S. Bureau of Forestry (now Forest Service), had 

 charge of this examination with headquarters at Roodhouse, during the 

 summer of 1904. Under the direction of himself and Mr. E. A. Ziegler, 

 later of the Mount Alto Park (Pennsylvania) Forest Reserve and School,, 

 an examination and report were made of the White Pine Forest of Ogle 

 County, from which the following is quoted : 



"The piece of land should be made into a State Forest Reserve, since 

 it is the only White Pine Grove in the state and shows excellent prospects 

 of enlarging itself by natural seeding — in time, perhaps over-running the 

 greater part of the tract — if a little care is taken to cut out a little oak, 

 now and then, as the young pines become larger and denser. The natural 

 beauties are exceptional. Natural conditions are favorable to good tree 

 growth. The present forest is young, and evidently very few of the trees 

 in it are over 75 years old. In a rather hurried survey the following 

 species were noted : red oak, white oak, burr oak, scarlet oak, chinquapin 

 oak, white elm, slippery elm, largetooth aspen, quaking asp, sugar maple, 

 box elder, hornbeam, hop hornbeam, red mulberry, black walnut, butternut, 

 shagbark hickory, pignut hickory, mocker nut hickory, sycamore, white ash, 

 black ash, choke cherry, black cherry, wild plum, basswood, hop tree, black 

 willow, Juneberry, white pine (Pinus Stro r bus), red cedar. 



"The interesting feature of the proposed reserve is the small forest of 

 white pine which is unique for Illinois and represents the southernmost 

 extension of the species in this section of the United States. The maximum 

 height of the pine is 90 feet, and the largest diameter, breast high, about 



