28 THE A UD UB OWNS Urisini aia 
RR, north of Michigan City Road, and south of Pulaski Road (154th Street). 
It consists of a series of parallel ridges and marshy swales. The ridges 
have excellent sand prairie vegatation. Salt Creek Woods, 245 acres, south 
of 3lst Street, east of Wolf Road, and north and west of Salt Creek, has 
deciduous forest and open areas with a diversity of habitat types for 
wildlife. . 
Forest Park Nature Preserve, 90 acres of rugged wild hills and ravines 
with mature hardwood forest, between Routes 29 and 88, north of Peoria, 
was dedicated by the Forest Park Foundation of Peoria. This was the first 
privately owned land to be dedicated by the Commission. 
Kankakee River Nature Preserve is a 24-acre island in the Kankakee 
River, known as Langman or Altorf Island, located 6 miles northwest 
of Kankakee. It has the only known natural population of the rare 
Kankakee Mallow, Iliamna remota. The Preserve is part of Kankakee 
River State Park, and will now be protected. 
Beall Woods, a virgin forest, the last remnant of the original forest 
which stretched from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, was brought to the 
attention of Governor Kerner and the State Department of Conservation 
by the Nature Conservancy, and after two years of negotiations, was 
bought by the State. There are 70 species of trees, some an impressive 
15 feet in circumference and 170 feet tall. There are 11 kinds of oaks and 
six of hickory. It is difficult to believe that this forest has been undisturbed 
for thousands of years. It occupies 190 acres on the Wabash River, south 
of Mt. Carmel. The woods have been dedicated as a Nature Preserve by 
the Commission. The adjoining unforested land will be used as a State 
Park. 
Several additional areas are being considered for dedication by the 
Commission. One of these is part of an area called Castle Rock, on Highway 
2, 4 miles south of Oregon, owned by the Natural Land Institute of Rock- 
ford. It is densely wooded and much dissected by ravines and ridges, with 
springs, swamps and meadows. Some of the ridge tops support hill prairies. 
A. white pine grove is reproducing in one of the valleys. This wilderness 
has a most unusual assemblage of plants: for example, 23 kinds of ferns 
and 4 kinds of clubmosses (out of 5 which grow in IJ]linois, all of them rare). 
The Commission is much interested in the preservation of strips of 
original prairie which lie along the rights of way of the railroads in 
Illinois. Dr. Robert Evers of the Illinois Natural. History Survey is making 
an inventory of native prairie remnant along the tracks, those which are 
dominated by turkey foot and Indian grass, and the many showy flowering 
plants of virgin prairie. Upon locating these areas, the Commission hopes 
to draw up agreements with the railroad companies, which will then 
protect the strips from mowing, burning, plowing, and spraying with weed 
killers. The Commission hopes to convince the railroad companies that 
the presence of prairie gardens along the trackways are enjoyed by the 
passengers and are a definite asset to the company. 
Dr. Robert Betz of the Department of Biology, Chicago Teachers 
College, North, has been actively engaged in the preservation and manage- 
ment of native prairie vegatation in pioneer cemeteries. He locates aban- 
coned cemeteries which are reverting to prairie and receives permission 
from persons concerned with their custody to remove weed trees, brambles, 
and cultivated plants, and to reintroduce certain prairie species which 
are presumed to have been in the region originally. 
Another topic of discussion by the members of the Commission deals 
with the problem of how areas owned by the Federal Government—the 
Forest Service, Agriculture Department, and the Army Corps of Engineers— 
