Oscar Virden, one of the early pioneers, who settled in Waterloo Township four miles southwest of the city in 1851, and who died on March 6, 1905, related in 1904 the following in regard to the timber of the county:

    "When I came here one could look south over Orange and Eagle townships with nothing to obstruct the view. There was not a tree nor a shrub, only tall, waving grass. Sometimes in the summer time now, I stand on the same spot on which I stood fifty years ago and again look over that part of the country. So many trees have been planted that instead of the prairie I once saw I now see what appears to be a dense forest. Some people think that timber is becoming scarcer and that the forests and groves are dying out, being destroyed by the woodmen's axe. I have been here for fifty-four years and have watched with interest the changed conditions, and I say there is ten times as much forest now in the section as when I came."