p. 7

496

vegetation is destroyed. The time will soon come when many of the species here enumerated will exist no longer in Illinois. Already the number of "introduced" species (mostly vile weeds) is very considerable.
Mere catalogues of the plants growing in any locality might, without a little reflection, be supposed to possess but little value; a supposition which would be far from the truth. The intelligent farmer looks at once to the native vegetation as a sure indication of the value of new lands. The kinds of timber growing in a given locality will decide the qualities of the soil for agricultural purposes. The farmer will be interested to find how few of the plants he so assiduously cultivates are indigenous to the soil. The physician will see which of the plants having medicinal value may be gathered in his neighborhood; and may thus in cases of sudden emergency, when no time is allowed to send to a distant apothecary, be enabled to effect important cures. The cabinetmaker, the wheelwright and all other workers in wood will find what materials are at hand to answer their purposes. The horticulturist will look over the list with deep interest to find what flowers and shrubs may be obtained at home, and thus save the trouble and expense of purchasing and transporting from the east (perhaps covered with noxious insects,) the very plants he could have found near his own door.
Such lists are also useful, in a scientific point of view, as showing the geographical limits of species, and their diffusion, whether general or confined to limited districts. Many very useful as well as highly interesting results are obtained by comparing different catalogues and by the study of the statistics of different floras.
It will be seen by this enumeration that there are over seventy species in Illinois that attain the height and dignity of forest trees, including twelve or thirteen species of oak. The rich bottom lands along the margins of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Wabash, afford specimens of the noblest and most gigantic trees of the great valley of the west. It was here that Michaux became so deeply impressed with the grandeur and magnificence of the forests of the new world. "The difficulties, privations and dangers, to which he was exposed, at that early day, in these unsettled wilds, may be easily imagined; but we can readily conceive that these were more than balanced in his mind by the delights which he experienced in traversing a hitherto untrod-