Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, has both a Department of
Botany and a Department of Forestry where students may select courses
from a broad curriculum to study various aspects of plant life. Many
forest-oriented courses are available, and most of them include actual
work in the field. The University has an arboretum on campus where
ornamental species are emphasized. Guided tours of these arboreta, as
well as of the display greenhouse, can be arranged by contacting the
Chairman of the Department of Botany, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, Illinois 62901.
DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The department has programs in instruction, research and public service.
The instructional program offers professional undergraduate training in
forest science and wood science and these are accredited by the Society
of American Foresters. Graduate training is provided only at the
Master’s level within the department. Doctoral work can be pursued
through interdisciplinary programs in genetics, ecology, and plant
physiology under the general direction of forestry staff who are members
of these respective faculties.
Research is conducted at the main campus, the Dixon Springs Agricultural
Center in southern Illinois (Pope County), Sinnissippi Forest in
northern Illinois (Ogle County), and at other smaller outlying areas.
Support is provided by the Agricultural Experiment Station and grants
from industry and governmental agencies. Projects cover a wide range of
subjects related to the production and utilization of wood as well as
the use of forests for non-timber values. The latter includes recreation
and watershed management, with special emphasis on the role of forests
and forestry in water quality.
At Dixon Springs the emphasis has been on the ecology and management of
pine plantations. These plantings represent plant communities that have
been interjected by man into the natural succession of abandoned
agricultural land to forest. Factors affecting the growth of pine, and
the effects of pine on soil conditions, stand composition, and the
regeneration of native hardwood species are being investigated.
Watershed management studies are also concentrated at Dixon Springs.
The 2,500-acre Sinnissippi Forest, a private estate provides the
department with research opportunities. A nature tail is maintained as
an outdoor laboratory that is widely used by both adult and youth
groups. Sinnissippi Forest emphasizes the fact that a managed forest can
be aesthetically pleasing.
Public service activities are carried on through the Cooperative
Extension Service and provide advice and information to landowners,
youth groups, and other citizens of the State. This is accomplished
largely through group meetings and demonstrations and direct replies to
individual requests for information. Major emphasis has been on
establishment of windbreaks on farms in the prairie region; promotion of
sound management practices for farm woodlands; and the care of trees in
plantations and on farmsteads. Extension education emphasizes the
development of an appreciation by Illinois youth for conservation of the
forest resource; the promotion among adults of sound management of rural
and urban woodlands; and program for primary and secondary industries
that concerns the conversion of wood into useful products.