22 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



has laws offering inducements for farmers and other land owners to plant 

 trees, but experience has shown the only way to preserve, secure and main- 

 tain forests for permanency is to do it under the thorough, firm control 

 and supervision of the State, whether national or State. 



Mrs. Rebecca H. Kauffman. 



To the foregoing description by Mrs. Kauffman should be added some 

 account of the efforts that have been made to include all this notable area 

 under the permanent protection of the State. The White Pine Forest has 

 many devoted friends but none more so than Mrs. Kauffman who has been 

 able to enlist in its support workers from various portions of Illinois. 



In 1903, the Oregon Woman's Council, under the lead of Mrs. Kauff- 

 man, its President, assisted in the work by many interested friends, who 

 came enthusiastically to its support from all over the State, secured the 

 passage of a bill for the purchase of 300 acres, carrying an appropriation 

 of $30,000 for that purpose. Attorney Horace G. Kauffman and Mr. 

 Charles Walkup, then of Pine Creek, had called upon all the owners of 

 the land and secured options from them on its sale for six months. The 

 measure had been ably managed in the General Assembly by Representa- 

 tive James P. Wilson, of Polo, assisted by Representative Johnson 

 Lawrence, also of Polo, in the House, and by Senator Henry Andrus of 

 Rockford, in the Senate. Governor Yates, however, vetoed the bill, 

 assigning the always-ready reason of economy. Another reason, however, 

 might be found. Every one now knows how land has gone up in price, 

 and that it would have been economy to have invested this comparatively 

 small sum at that time, adding more land to the tract as soon as possible, 

 as has been done with the Starved Rock Park. 



In 1903 Mrs. Kauffman also became a member of the newly-organized 

 Forestry Committee of the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs, and later 

 its chairman, thus securing the interest of one of Illinois' most practical 

 and ardent nature lovers, Mrs. P. S. Peterson of Chicago, and of all the 

 club women of the State in the preservation of this white pine region, — 

 and they have worked unceasingly for its ultimate purchase. Meanwhile 

 the tract has become famous, and has been visited by many of the best 

 known nature lovers. It is the mecca of automobile parties from every- 

 where. Being wholly unprotected, the gates of the forest "wide open," 

 there is ever-present danger of its destruction from fire, or other care- 

 lessness. In 1911 the White Pine Forest Association was formed, with 

 Mr. A. W. Brayton of Mount Morris as president, — Mr. Brayton who is 

 now the head of the Illinois State Horticultural Society. This tract has 

 been inspected at different times by members of the State Park Commission 

 and Mr. David Shanahan. 



Under the leadership of Mr. Jens Jensen, the Friends of Our Native 

 Landscape came to the Forest on one of tlieir annual summer pilgrimages. 

 On this occasion an original Masque written by the late Kenneth Sawyer 

 Goodman was given in the glen of Pine Creek and Nicholas Vachel Lind- 

 say recited his poem to the memory of Black Hawk. 



Inspired by this splendid wildwood, Mrs. Elia W. Peattie, one of the 



