FORESTRY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 9 
but the idea that a forest tree was of any value except to be used up 
for rails or posts or boards, or burned to ashes for pearlash, is of com- 
paratively modern origin. Even when the settler reached the prairies 
of Illinois, where timber compared with the older States was very scarce, 
he does not appear to have exercised the least care or foresight. If he 
lived near the bodies of forest which skirted the streams, he cut them 
down for rails'or cord wood, as if the supply was inexhaustible, and 
out in the prairie the settler contented himself with hauling green wood 
a long distance for firing, nor dreamed of setting out groves about his 
house which should supply his demand for fuel at less trouble and ex- 
pense. 
Kindly nature strove to repair damages, and in many instances suc- 
cessfully. And when, in time, men heeded the warning and became 
less lavish in the work of destruction, the woodland began to gain in 
area, until in many parts of Illinois it is now much greater than when 
the country was first settled. In time came the discovery of coal, which 
lessened the consumption of wood for fuel; and the question of material 
for fencing becoming serious, hedges and other substitutes for posts, 
plank, and rails were resorted to. Thus by degrees the subject.of the 
value of forest, and so the possibilities of forest culture, became im- 
pressed upon the people; in short, forestry became a subject of popular 
interest. 
An augmentation of this interest came with the settlement of the 
country west of the Mississippi, and more especially west of the Mis- 
souri. Here were immense treeless areas, and believed by the first 
explorers to be uninhabitable on account of the absence of forest for 
building, fencing, or even fuel; it was known that travelers and hunters 
traversing these plains used buffalo chips for fuel. And yet here were 
millions of acres of surpassing fertility, opened to settlement by the 
passage of the homestead act; and the progress of settlement stimu- 
lated by the extension of the railroads. It will be seen that under these 
- conditions the forest question became one of the first importance. The 
rivers and the railroads solved the problem of building by bringing pine 
from the forests of the North, and the demand for fuel was met in part 
by the opening of mines of bituminous coal, which seem providentially 
to exist in most prairie countries. The fence question was met in Ne- 
braska and Kansas by the general adoption, after much discussion, of the 
herd law, which does away with large farm inclosures. In the settlement 
of these trans-Missouri States every step tended to reveal the transcend- 
ent value of forests. The lack of them, thoughsupplied as we have said, 
was felt, and as soon as horticultural and agricultural societies were 
formed, tree-planting became a subject of eager, active, and constant dis- 
cussion, and so has continued to be ever since. It is safe to say that 
there has scarcely beena number of anagricultural or horticultural paper 
issued in the States of Minnesota, lowa, Nebraska, or Kansas, in which 
the subject of tree-planting has not been discussed. 
