6 FOREST TREES. 
was estimated that the amount of lumber cut in 1869, 
in the States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 
-was 8,311,372,255 feet. To obtain this quantity, 
883,032 acres, or 1,380 square miles, were stripped of 
their trees. The destruction of hard-wood forests is 
likewise very rapid. here is a constantly increasing 
demand for valuable kinds of timber for the manu- 
facture of machinery, farming implements, furniture, 
railway cars and wooden work of every description. 
Millions of ties, and millions of cords of firewood, 
are annually required by railroads. There can be no 
doubt that previous to the settlement of Central and 
Northern Illinois, the quantity of timber was annually 
diminished by the ravages of fire. When these 
ravages were in a measure stopped, a dense growth of 
young trees sprang up in the scattered woodlands, 
and twenty years since there was more wood than at 
the first settlement of the country. With the intro- 
duction of railroads commenced the destruction of 
the forests. It may safely be estimated that two- 
thirds of the full-grown timber in Northern Illinois 
has been destroyed within eighteen years past. Tracts 
of thriving young wood, whose annual growth added 
at least ten per cent to its value, have been cleared 
for firewood. The destruction still goeson. Such 
is the instability of our population, that woodlands 
which have been long preserved by their owners, 
sooner or later pass into the possession of those who, 
impatient to enjoy their value, and reckless of other 
considerations, ruthlessly fell them. Much of the 
land thus bared is of little value for any other purpose 
