Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 287]

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281 were almost wholly for trees to transplant. Another time or place there might or might not be such a demand. Certainly no one should count upon such sales as one of the legitimate and regular items of income from a forest plantation. Only in so much as the latter parfakes of the nature of a nursery can the sale of living: trees be considered appropriate to it. When not done directly by the University, the trees were cut away in thinning by individuals who took the poles for the work„ In this way, while no credit is given for the trees, the removal of those in alternate rows, as described, has really not lost anything which should be charged against the plantation. In most instances these removed trees were used for firewood; sometimes for stakes or poles. This matter of receipts in actual experience in central Illinois isvery different from the rosy accounts so frequently elaborated on paper. Under- present circumstances it seems to me impossible that forest-tree plantations can be profitable as a farm crop on land fit for wheat and corn. For financial returns from the timber, most assuredly the kinds to cultivate must be reduced to a very few. If the hardy Catalpa ultimately proves highly prized for posts and railroad ties, undoubtedly this leads in the promise of satisfactory receipts. In the future the demand for White Pine may easily make this tree most prominent in a plantation for profit. It is idle to talk of growing wood for fuel—except on farms, for home use— with the price of good bituminous coal, delivered, at two to three dollars per ton. The fact is, in Illinois, though the extent of the natural forests has been vastly diminished, the price of cord wood has not advanced during twenty years, tiood timber-land, somewhat remote from market, now sells at a less price per acre than uncultivated prairie land of equally good quality. The value of the timber in such places is less than the cost of clearing. It must, however, be recognized that the value of natural forests gives little information as to the worth of artificial plantations. The former may be mainly composed of what is in the locality most prized, but it is usual that a small proportion only of the trees are those commanding the highest price. In the artificial plantation judicially managed the whole may be high priced material; this, too, may be more readily accessible and within easy reach of the market. Let it be clearly understood that in the foregoing, tree-growing for timber has been the point discussed, and even in this exception is made for home u§e on farms. But the planting of trees has other and higher claims. Whether or not the actual amount of rainfall is modified by forests, there is not the slightest doubt but that the climate is affected. The temperature is equalized; the extremes of heat and cold are not so great. The air is modified asto the amount of moisture, especially in dry times in summer. The moisture of the soil is better distributed through the year; the running streams are better sustained and also less subject to* destructive floods. Heavy winds are greatly checked, much to the comfort of man and animals. Crops are preserved in various waysfrom the destructive influence of air moving too rapidly. Lastly, trees for the ornamentation of the home area, as well as for the wide expanse of the country itself, can never be neglected by a