ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 5 



In writing the story of forestry in Illinois, a consideration 

 of lumbering in the state is of prime importance. Suppose we 

 take first the timber in the southern hills, which at one time in 

 the ravines contained a considerable percentage of white oak, 

 tulip (yellow poplar), beech and maple. The evolution has been 

 something like this: The small portable mil) went in, cutting 

 up the best of the oak and tulip and leaving the beech. During 

 the past few years the beech has become valuable as a tie timber 

 through the perfecting of the process of wood preservation, so 

 that most of the product of these small portable mills has been 

 beech railway ties or beech car stock. With the change in 

 moisture conditions due to cutting out the beech, which is a 

 shade-loving tree, more light has been admitted to the forest, 

 and the black oaks and hickory have become the dominant 

 trees in the stand. 



At this stage the tie-maker enters the game, taking out 

 the remaining white oak and the best of the black oak for rail- 

 road ties ; and there follows him the mine-prop operator, who 

 takes out the smaller trees for mine-props, legs and motor ties, 

 the latter surfaced on only two faces. If fire is kept out of the 

 forest, we will have another crop of timber, mostly white oak, 

 black oak and hickory. If not, we will have conditions similar 

 to those described in Forestry Circular No. 2 of the Natural 

 History Survey, when fire takes its toll of mature trees and 

 kills young growth of seedling and sprout origin. The ground, 

 as in certain parts of the east, does not seem to be baked by 

 these repeated fires, although the nitrogenous matter it form- 

 erly contained must be partly burned out and its water-holding 



Photo by R. B. Miller 



HAULING LOGS TO THE MILL 



capacity in these hills greatly lessened by the destruction of 

 leaf litter and humus. Our foresters in southern Illinois have 



