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Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1920
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12 BOARD OF TRUSTEES [My 17, without preventing their attendance in other classes except for the fact that one of them placed her car at our disposal. The Committee believe that no considerable use of the woods as a field laboratory can be made until the University provides facilities for the transportation of classes to and from the woods without dependence upon the fixed schedule of the traction company and the great loss of time in walking. W e recommend that the University provide two cheap cars, fitted with long bodies with fore-and-aft seats, as carryalls. Each such car should accommodate a dozen persons. Cars of this kind, maintained ready for service by the Custodian's department, could be requisitioned with or without driver when needed, precisely as projection apparatus now i s ; and the small expense of the actual service could be recovered, if desired, in fees collected for the courses in which it was necessary. W e believe that such a provision would result in distinctly increased efficiency in all of the branches of nature study. Very respectfully, WM. F. TRELEASE SMITH June 25, 1918 DEAR PRESIDENT J A M E S : The Advisory Committee on the University Woods believes that the twenty acres of woodland immediately adjoining what is now owned by the University ought to be saved from destruction if it can be bought at a reasonable price. The value of what is now owned by the University will be permanently increased by maintaining the plantation in its full present size, for reduction of its area will influence injuriously, and in some respects possibly seriously, what remains. Though the tract is not large it is somewhat diversified in its flora, and the northern part, not now owned by the University, contains some elements that I have not seen in the woods bought last year, and its less hardy vegetation has suffered far less because it has not been so persistently used as a pasture. The ultimate provision of a half-pond will be possible only near the northern limits of what is now owned. If the remainder can be procured it will probably be extended north of the present boundary fence, for the lowest and wettest land lies there. W e are of the opinion that proper provision for the near future of nature study in the University dictates saving not only this but other remnants of the original vegetation of the State which lie where they may be reached for study or the collection of material, and that expenditures for this purpose will find further justification in the enhanced value of the land acquired. W e feel, also, that in some form or other the State should save for the general public examples of these nature products, and that every year brings added dangers to all that remain under private ownership. Very respectfully, WM. F. TRELEASE SMITH No action was taken in this matter.
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