Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 382]

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368

ing better in climatic conditions can be enjoyed, or desired, to place Northwestern States in the true position they should occupy—first, for health, wealth, and happiness of their people. Then will Illinois hold the highest place in that proud pre-eminence. DISCUSSION.

EDWARDS--This is the great physical question of the northwest. I remember that when a boy in "Western New York, that farms were advertised with a note of the acres cleared ; now the acres of woodland are given. In 1841 I helped to clear land in Ohio for cultivation. To-day the timber would be worth more than all the crops ever grown on the land. It is said timber is on the increase in Illinois ; but it is not so—it is diminishing. "We should plant for protection. I know thirteen acres of timothy protected on two sides by a fifteen feet Osage orange hedge, and on the other two by planted timber. It has produced three and a half tons per acre. Thinning out closely planted groves will pay the expenses of the plantation. Nut bearing trees should be planted where they are to remain. White Pine and Larch are the best trees. Pine should be planted with other trees to protect its leaders, which are apt to suffer when the tree is young. The pine is one of our best trees, and well adapted to our prairie soils. More than half of our prairie weeds are of a resinous character. G-ALUSHA—I can't refuse to talk upon this subject; but it is late. I heartily approve of all that has been said in the paper. I have fought on this line sixteen years already. I think we should draw up resolutions expressive of the sense of this convention on the subject, and I move that a committee of three, of which Mr. Edwards shall be chairman, be appointed for that purpose. SHAW—The dollar and cent argument has not been sufficiently pushed. I have observed in the last two years that a neighbor, having a house and lots worth $2500, made them, by tree planting, etc., to sell for $i5Q0. He sold six kegs of paint, fifty evergreens and a few little bushes, for $2000. EDWAKDS—One-third of the available timber on the Pacific slope is already destroyed. I t is already difficult here, I am told, to get black walnut enough for the use of our cabinet makers. The Commercial Bureau, of Chicago, gives a statement of a prospect of the speedy extermination of pine timber. GAXUSHA—The area and amount of pine timber in the north is greatly overrated.