THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



Illinois Lumbering and Forestry 



Reprinted by permission from Lumber VPorld 'Review, 9VZoi>. 10, 1921 



It is hard to trace the origin and development of the for- 

 estry idea in Illinois; but no doubt it started as early as 1873, 

 when Dr. Burrill, of the Department of Horticulture, secured 

 a small appropriation from the legislature to try out a planting 

 of the various hardwood and softwood trees at Urbana, this 

 tract being still known as "The Forestry," serving now more 

 as a windbreak and small park than as an experimental planta- 

 tion. 



In 1908 forestry interest progressed so far as to result in 

 a preliminary survey of the state, covering some twenty-five 

 counties. It was carried out by a cooperative agreement be- 

 tween the U. S. For- 

 est Service, which 

 furnished two men 

 for the field work, 

 and the Natural Hist- 

 ory Survey. The re- 

 sults were published 

 as a bulletin of the 

 Survey, "Forest Con- 

 ditions in Illinois," 

 and reviewers speak 

 very highly of this 

 publication by Hall 

 and Ingall, which un r 

 fortunately was not 

 accompanied 

 by a map of forested regions of the state, because of a lack of 

 funds. The measures advocated as a forest policy for the state 

 in this bulletin were fully ten years in advance of its time. 



A forester has been at "large in the state" for two years, 

 and by an addition to the last biennial budget of the Natural 

 History Survey, three others have recently been added, with 

 full authority to fall over the southern Ozarks providing they 

 can bring back some detailed information about forest con- 

 ditions there and elsewhere. For the information of any per- 

 son who has never struck Illinois south of the corn belt, the 

 original maps of the state show that at least thirty per cent of 

 the state was once covered with trees. The timber belts and 

 the rivers then formed the main lines of travel, the inhabitants 

 living in the timber, developing woodlots there, and from these 

 as base gradually they brought under cultivation the prairies 

 which have since made us famous. Even now there are parts 

 of the state where this combination should still prevail — timber 

 in the hills, orchards on the slopes, and farming in the fertile 

 and often narrow valleys. 



Photo by R. B. Miller 



A SMALL PORTABLE MILL NEAR ALTO PASS 



