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The great 19th-century naturalist John Muir was
onstage at New Salem State Park last Sunday, in the person of the actor
John Wallace. “The forests of America, however slighted by man, must
have been a great delight to God,” Muir said, “for they were
the best He ever
planted.” Muir was there to address supporters of the Friends of the
Sangamon Valley and discuss the group’s efforts to protect the
region’s natural areas through education, restoration, and
acquisition. “It’s so important to take time to save what is
left,” Muir told the crowd.
What is “left” relatively untouched in
Illinois is a mere seven hundredths of 1 percent of the land area,
according to a state study conducted in the early 1970s. The virgin prairie
of Illinois is one hundredth of 1 percent. When the Friends get a chance to
save what is truly old-growth forest, like the 50-acre Boyle Woods, between
Beardstown and Chandlerville, they jump into action to raise the funds (in
this case, $210,000) needed to acquire it. The fundraising campaign is
within $30,000 of its goal, and it looks like the Friends will save a
little corner of paradise, where wild orchids surround ancient white oaks
and the presence of maidenhair ferns shows that it’s never been
grazed. But 99 percent of the current forest in Illinois has
been grazed, logged, or otherwise “slighted by man,” so the job
of the naturalist usually goes beyond protection to restoration. Vern
LaGesse, president of Friends of the Sangamon Valley, is the modern Muir.
He knows every tree, wildflower, and prairie grass by name. He cores old
trees and marvels that a 398-year-old white oak was old when it saw
Lincoln. He can tell you, by how a 149-year-old limb is growing, that this
woods was logged 150 years ago. When he looks at a forest, he sees not only
what’s there but also beyond that to what used to be there and could
be again. Today’s woods are often dense and so dark that oak
seedlings die for lack of sunlight — but in the forests Illinois
pioneers saw and wrote about, trees were far enough apart that they could
drive a covered wagon through the woods. At the 68-acre Wolf Preserve, near
New Salem, LaGesse led Friends supporters on a hike to show off
what’s been accomplished in just two years of restoration work.
Sunlight streams to the forest floor, where sky-blue asters and wild
ginseng are coming back and year-old oak seedlings look healthy enough for
the long haul. These woods are starting to look covered-wagon-accessible
again. In his work as a “restoration ecologist,”
LaGesse has as his primary tools a chainsaw, herbicide, and fire. The first
job is to get rid of such invasive plants as bush honeysuckle and Russian
olive, introduced several years ago by well-meaning bureaucrats but now
taking over like weeds. Next to go are what LaGesse calls
“opportunistic natives” like the sugar maple, which forms such
a dense canopy that no seedling can get started beneath it. Sugar maples
have their place in the forest — on north slopes, for instance
— “but after 100 years without fire,” LaGesse says,
“they’ve wandered out of their places.” Controlled fire,
set once a year at first, then every three to five years, cleans up the
leaf litter, slows the growth of some undesirable plants, and brings the
forest floor back to
life. “When you take the bad stuff out, the good stuff comes
back,” LaGesse says. “It’s spiritual when you remove the
honeysuckle and see the bloodroot come up. The fruits of your effort bloom
and blossom.”
The spiritual rewards of an ecologically balanced
forest sustain groups like the Friends of the Sangamon Valley in their work
of preservation and restoration. A century ago, they moved the German
physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, who was asked where his ideas come from.
“They come particularly readily during the slow ascent of wooded
hills on a sunny day,” he replied. And they formed the great John
Muir, who advised his audience at New Salem, “Ramble about in the
forests and the prairies, and your cares will drop off like autumn
leaves.”
For more information about the Friends of the
Sangamon Valley go to www.fosv.org or call
217-525-1410.
Contact Fletcher Farrar at ffarrar@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2007.
