Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 62]

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This arrangement would greatly simplify our work, and would relieve the Professor of Agriculture from that endless detail of supervision which must necessarily detract from his strength and usefulness as an instructor. The two hundred acres which are nearer at hand are ample for all valuable experiments in scientific agriculture, as these owe their value to their scientific accuracy, not to their great extent. Several of the Agricultural Colleges of Europe, after several years of costly trial, have found themselves compelled to adopt some plan similar to this to secure an efficient and economical management of their farms. It is not because scientific farming is unprofitable, but because the very nature and extent of a farm offers opportunities for so many leakages, which will only be properly guarded against by one whose personal interest renders him sharpsighted to see and eager to stop all such leaks. I most earnestly commend this whole subject to your thoughtful consideration.

THE FOREST PLANTATIONS.

Many of the trees are already gathered into our nursery for the projected forest plantations, and the plantations themselves may soon be begun. Dr. Warder and some other experienced gentlemen have carefully looked over the plans, and have suggested some alterations, both in the varieties of trees to be planted, and in the grounds selected for the plantations. These suggestions are already in the hands of the Horticultural Committee, and will doubtless receive earnest attention at their hands. I only add that it has always seemed to me unadvisable to occupy with these plantations any part of the two hundred acres of our experimental grounds, as these are the only lands we have sufficiently near to be used in the practical illustration of agriculture to our students. The proper extent of these plantations has also engaged the attention of some experienced men, and it is questioned whether one acre of each species of tree is not as good as four to test the value of such plantations, especially when it is considered that the entire forest taken together will occupy many acres, and that the conditions of your single acre of oaks or maples, will be precisely the same as if the entire forest were composed of oaks or maples. The experiment is confessedly one of our most important ones, especially in our great prairie State, and no abatement in extent should be thought of, if it will at all impair the completeness or lessen the value of this experiment. What we want to determine is the actual cost and profit of artificial forests, and the relative values of timber trees which may be grown in Illinois. If necessary, let one hundred acres be given to this important problem; but let us not burden our too limited funds—already full small for our current expenses--with plantations not only larger than are necessary for our object, but whose very size will render them unwieldy, and so endanger their real success and utility. I would suggest also, for the wise consideration of the Board, whether these tree plantation may not best be made through successive years, so that the experience gained in planting the first may be used to improve the second plantations, and so on ? Instead of planting at once, as proposed, four full acres each, with the leading sorts of timber trees,