UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
/
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ?'*
UNITED STATES
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
ON BILLS HAYING FOR THEIR OBJECT
THE ACQUISITION OF FOREST AND
OTHER LANDS FOR THE PROTEC-
TION OF WATERSHEDS AND
CONSERVATION OF THE
NAVIGABILITY OF NAVI-
GABLE STREAMS
ALSO OTHER PAPERS BEARING
ON THE SAME SUBJECTS
SIXTIETH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1909
1*
A ST)
ACQUISITION OF FOREST AND OTHER LANDS FOR THE
PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS, ETC.
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
HOUSE or REPRESENTATIVES,
Wednesday, December 9, 1908.
The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Charles F. Scott
(chairman) presiding.
The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen of the committee, I wish to say that
about two weeks before the session of Congress opened I was re-
quested to grant a hearing to some gentlemen who wished to appear
here in the interest of the White Mountain and Appalachian forest
project. It was too late, then, to communicate with members of the
committee individually and hear from them, and I therefore took the
liberty 'of calling this meeting, taking their assent for granted, and
I am glad to note the presence of a very large portion of the
committee.
I understand that at a meeting held last evening of those who are
interested in this matter it was decided to ask Governor Guild, of
Massachusetts, to conduct the hearing. Before introducing him,
however, I wish to make a few statements touching the attitude 01
the committee toward this measure, which may, perhaps, have some-
thing of suggestion in them to those who are to speak.
In the first place, I wish to say that the committee is fairly well
educated on the general proposition. It has been discussed before
us at considerable length and by very able gentlemen.
In the second place the opinion of the Judiciary Committee of the
House seems to leave this committee with no alternative but to ex-
clude from consideration any question of the purchase of forest lands
for the mere purpose of preserving the forests. Under that opinion
we can only consider the propriety of such purchase in the event that
a direct and substantial connection can be shown between the preser-
vation of the forests and the continued maintenance of the navigabil-
ity of navigable streams. Therefore, what I think the comniittee
desires particularly to have this morning is facts bearing directly
on this latter proposition. We want to know, if any of the gentle-
men who are to appear before us are prepared to state it, just how
much difference in the stream flow of some individual navigable river
can be directly attributed to the deforestation of the watershed con-
tributing to that stream. I think we would like to know if there is
any data showing the record of streams for as long a period as possi-
ble, covering a period when the forests were in existence and since
they have been removed. I think we would like to know whether
200045
4 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
the erosion, of which complaint is made as resulting in silting up
the streams, is due to the removal of forests from the upper slopes
or from the lower slopes of the mountains; whether it is due to the
operations of farming or to the operations of lumbering. And I
think also we would like to have some information, if it is possible,
as to the probable price at which land can be bought in the sections
under consideration, and about the number of acres that would prob-
ably be required.
In making these suggestions you will understand, of course, Gov-
ernor Guild, that I am not seeking to dictate what the gentlemen
who are to appear before us shall say. I am merely trying to indi-
cate points that must be given very careful consideration by the com-
mittee before it acts upon this matter. And with these introductory
remarks I take pleasure in presenting to this committee Governor
Guild, the distinguished executive of Massachusetts, by whose pres-
ence here this morning I am sure we all feel honored.
STATEMENT OF CUETIS GUILD, JR., GOVERNOR OF MASSACHU-
SETTS.
Governor GUILD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee,
I am sure that the petitioners in behalf of this measure for the preser-
vation of the Appalachian forests will take due consideration of the
kindly suggestions made by the chairman of this committee, and will,
to the best of their ability, address themselves to them. I note the
remarks of the chairman, that the committee has already given a
number of hearings in regard to this matter and has posted itself
carefully and quite thoroughly, and therefore I shall ask, to use the
legal parlance, if I may put in evidence at this hearing, without read-
ing, the previous proceedings before this committee with the testi-
mony which you already have?
The CHAIRMAN. Certainly, that will be entirely satisfactory.
Governor GUILD. That is understood. I would also like to put
in evidence the report of the Secretary of Agriculture on the South-
ern Appalachian and White Mountain watersheds, which does give
the commercial importance, area, condition, feasibility of purchase
for national forests, and the probable cost, to which you referred.
Furthermore, the report of the Conservation Commission, now in
session, which is giving particular attention to the very practical
points that the honorable chairman has suggested, in regard to the
areas and to the specific effect of the destruction of the forests.
Finally, I take it that you do not, of course, desire, as 1 understand,
to exclude any evidence which any person now present may feel de-
sirous of offering as to any deleterious effect that may come to the
people of the United States from the destruction of our forests.
For if we have to consider, sir, the constitutionality of this measure
on the ground as to whether the waters of the river are thereby ren-
dered unnavigable or remain navigable, another clause of the Con-
stitution, of course, provides that Congress is to legislate for the
general welfare of the people, and certainly nothing is more for the
general welfare of the people than the preservation of a good water
supply and a watershed for rivers that furnish water for the use of
the people, whether they are navigable or not.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 5
This movement, sir, I need scarcely say, is not of a sectional or
local character. The President of the United States, in his address
yesterday, declared that the one specific thing that must be done, and
done now, for the conservation of our national resources, was the
passage of this act for the preservation of the Appalachian forests.
He even publicly advocated, if necessary, the issue of bonds by the
United States for that purpose, and in that declaration *he was sec-
onded by the gentleman who, if not the President-elect, is at least the
President elected, Hon. William H. Taft. I suppose it may not be
out of place for me to call the attention of the committee, and not in
any spirit of controversy and not in any sectional spirit, to another
fact. The city of Boston, the capital of the Commonwealth which I
have the honor to represent, is the second port of import in the United
States, furnishing, with the exception of New York, the largest rev-
enue from customs to the United States Government. New England,
Massachusetts, is delighted to have the National Government take up
national development. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, though
we have not one square yard of arid soil which needs irrigation in our
Commonwealth and have made no petition to the National Govern-
ment for irrigation, yet sent its delegates to the National Irrigation
Congress in New Mexico, to show that the New England States and
the Atlantic seaboard are quite as much interested in providing water
for the arid lands in the West as we are in providing water for the
mills and streams in the East. We do not border on the Mississippi
Valley or on the Ohio River, but we are heartily in accord with the
movement for deeper waterways for the Central West, and our dele-
gates have taken their part in the deliberations for that great purpose.
We shall hope to show you here to-day that the interest which is taken
in this movement and the support for it do not come alone from the
sections which are to be benefited. The support for it comes from all
over the United States, from the West as well as from the East, from
the South as well as from the North, and I take particular pleasure ir
calling the attention of this committee to the fact that I believe that
this is the first occasion where the governor of South Carolina and the
governor of Massachusetts, have appeared hand in hand together
before the National Congress to ask for something for the common
welfare of the United States. [Applause.]
The effect of the shortage of water supply caused by the cutting
of the trees at the head waters of the streams we shall try to show
you has been wide-reaching. The diminution of water power in-
creases the cost of production to our manufacturers, it increases the
prices of our products, not only of cotton cloths, but particularly of
paper, of which New England, as you know, is the center. It has
added to the cost of the production of garden truck and the products
of the farm. Finally, I shall endeavor to show you that lack of
attention to these forests and the consequent low water in the streams
has materially contributed to the spread of disease. The water
sinking in the streams causes a deposit of sewage along the banks,
and from that springs the dread plagues of typhoid fever and diphthe-
ria, and certainly it is for the general welfare to prevent the death
of citizens of the United States by pestilence in time of peace, as well
as preserving the equipment of soldiers in time of war.
Something has been said in regard to the extent to which the
various Commonwealths might be expected to cooperate with the
6 FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
National Government if this new movement is crystalized by you
gentlemen and jour associates into law. Some of the States have
already acted. We have recently, in New England, had a New Eng-
land conference of all six of the New England States, called by the
six governors of New England, not merely in regard to forestry, but
in regard to other legislation, that state legislation throughout New
England may, as far as possible, be made uniform for all the States,
and that a confusion of law may not exist. One of the topics there
considered was forestry. The papers read and the discussion were
submitted to the six state foresters of the New England States, and
measures have already been recommended by them for adoption by
all the state legislatures. In our own Commonwealth, the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts, active work has already been done for the
preservation of our forests. Here, for example, are some of the laws
of Massachusetts which I will present to the committee, and as you
will see from the cover of this little pamphlet, forest fires, especially
as caused by railroads, have been made the subject of particular
legislation. We have a forest warden for every city and town in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, charged with the execution of these
various laws and with the prevention of forest fires. We distribute
free to the people instructions how to collect white-pine seeds and
how to plant them. We furnish those to schools. We have had
applications from outside of our own Commonwealth for books for
children with instructions how to distinguish one tree from another,
and how they can be preserved.
The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of fact, the State of Massachusetts
is taking care of its own forest problem with its own resources, and
is not asking any consideration from the Federal Government?
Governor GUILD. Because, sir, we have no great tract at the head
of our great rivers which demands our particular attention. Our
great rivers, the Connecticut and the Merrimac, arise outside of
Massachusetts, and the amount of land which would there have to
be acquired to the extent of the timber land which would have to
be protected is, as seems to us properly stated yesterday by the
different speakers at the Belasco Theater at the Conservation Com-
mission, beyond the means of any one State to take care of. We are
doing this as supplementary work to what we hope the National
Government will do, and I am simply quoting this to show that we
make this application in good faith, and that we are not relying
wholly on the National Government. We have, for example, 23,000
acres of state forest reserves in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is not
asking for any national forest reserve in Massachusetts, but she does
appear here for her sister State of New Hampshire, and asks that
the White Mountains shall be protected by national legislation, be-
cause, as I understand, in that region some 600,000 acres will be
required, and that is beyond the limits of the treasury of the State
of New Hampshire to attend to. Furthermore, New England asks
for 600,000 acres for her forest reserve, and she is equally anxious
that her southern sisters, to the south of us, should have not 600,000
acres, but if necessary, 5,000,000 acres for the preservation of the
entire Atlantic watershed and for the benefit of all the States of the
* Union. [Applause.]
Mr. WEEKS. It is a fact that 23,000 acres was purchased by a
direct appropriation for that purpose, is it not?
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 7
Governor GUILD. Yes; the reserves, as you know. In addition to
the state forest reserves, I should say we have great systems of parks
in Massachusetts which also include forests. The various municipali-
ties in Massachusetts are planting trees. Our highway commission in
Massachusetts plant trees along every one of our Massachusetts state
highways. This I am quoting merely to show the good faith in the
demand for national action, that we are prepared to supplement your
efforts, gentlemen, and that we do feel that the various States in
which these forest reserves are located ought not to be asked to pay
for them from the limited means of their own state treasuries. I
appear as representing one of the Commonwealths which is to have
no national forest reserve within its borders, but which will gladly
contribute its share of the national revenue to establish forest re-
serves, not according to political lines, where forest reserves are
needed. [Applause.]
I have quoted already the national character of this movement and
the support that has arisen behind it all over the nation. I might
close with, perhaps, a bit of sentiment, a coincidence if you please,
which, nevertheless, is rather interesting. When the United States
first gathered together for its war for independence, the first flag of
any army from the united colonies, the flag under which Washington
took command of the Continental troops under the old elm tree at
Cambridge, was a white flag with a pine tree; it was the first flag of
the United States Army. When the first American fleet was char-
tered by George Washington at the siege of Boston, with Commo-
dore John Hardy and a little fleet of fishing schooners, they flew a
white flag with a pine tree, and the same motto, "An appeal to
heaven." The first flag of the United States Army, the first flag of
the United States Navy, under which they began the battle for na-
tional existence, was the flag of the liberty tree, the flag of the pine
tree. We come before vou in peace, as they went forward in war,
under the same sign, for the preservation of national health and
national wealth, and we ask for the preservation of forests, not in the
interest of any one State, not in the interest of any section, but in the
interest of the entire American people. [Great applause.]
Mr. POLLARD. Governor, I do not know whether you have ever had
occasion to look over House bill 22238, which is a bill I introduced on
this subject. I just wanted to ask you this question. I think the
committee are all agreed that the object for which you gentlemen are
contending is a good one. I do not believe this committee needs any
evidence to convince it that something ought to be done. What we
want to know is the method, the means to the end, not the feasibility
of the end itself. It occurred to me, and I have embodied the idea in
this bill, that the Federal Government might, without the necessity
of purchasing these tracts of land, supervise the forests and accom-
plish the same end through the cooperation of the States, as you have
suggested, and evade the necessity of the purchase of the lands out-
right. What little investigation I have given to the subject, and I
think the same holds true with some of the other members of the
committee, has convinced me that if we enter into this matter, it is
not a question of the purchase of 5,000,000 acres of land in the south-
ern Appalachians or perhaps 600,000 acres in the White Mountains,
but ultimately it means the purchase of from 65,000,000 to 75,000,000
acres of land in the southern Appalachians and perhaps 3,000,000 in
8 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
the White Mountains, so it is a pretty big task. Now, then, if we can
accomplish the same purpose without purchasing, why should we not
do that? Have you given that subject any consideration?
Governor GUILD. I most certainly have, but I think it will be
answered later by some of the various experts on whom I shall call.
But I might call your attention, sir, and no doubt it has already
occurred to you, that the National Government is already protecting
reserve tracts of public land, as, for example, in the Yellowstone
Park.
Mr. POLLARD. That is different, Governor ; that is part of the pub-
lic domain. We are speaking of private land now.
Governor GUILD. I understand that, sir, entirely; but it has also
found constitutional means to appropriate money for the irrigation
of the dry lands of the West, the furnishing of a water supply for
those dry lands, and as the President and the President elected and
the United States Senate have seemed to find no constitutional diffi-
culty with that, and as the President and President elected seem to
think it desirable even to issue bonds, if necessary, I can only say that
I cordially agree with their opinions, and we will have it demon-
strated in detail later.
I shall now ask Mr. Finney to present various resolutions favoring
this project.
(The following resolutions were presented by Mr. John H. Finney,
secretary of the Appalachian National Forest Association:)
At the eighty-fifth meeting of this association, held at Saratoga Springs,
N. Y., September 30, 1908, the following resolution was unanimously adopted :
" Resolved, That the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers again
recognizes the vital importance of conserving the national resources to diminish
the growing evils of drought and flood and recommends the passing of laws by
States and nation that will apply in correction of loss through fire, waste, and
unscientific lumbering, and encourage the planting of new trees necessary to
accomplish an increase in our wooded area. It has been fully established by
experiences in other countries that competent forest cultivation results in an
appreciable increase of timber products.
" We heartily indorse the effective work of the National Commission for the
Conservation of National Resources, and recommend that our association cooper-
ate with this commission in furthering our mutual interests."
A true copy from the records.
Attest: C. J. H. WOODBUBY,
Secretary.
lUTIONS IN BE FOBEST BKSERVES IN THE WHITE AND APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN
BANQES.
Whereas the preservation of forests is indispensable to the national welfare
in order that a permanent timber supply may be had and that the water supply
of rivers may be maintained and regulated; and
Whereas the effect of denuding mountain ranges of timber is to subject them
to forrential action whereby the soil is washed away, the surface rendered bar-
ren, the future growth of forest trees prevented, and disastrous floods caused
at certain seasons in the lower courses of the streams, with great destruction
of property in cities and towns and damage to farming lands in the river bot-
toms, while at other seasons stream flow is almost suspended and great damage
inflicted upon manufacturing industries dependent upon water power and
navigation; and
Whereas the unrestricted cutting of the forests upon the White and Appa-
lachian mountain ranges threatens those forests with complete destruction,
whereby one of the most important sources of timber supply will likewise be
destroyed, irreparable damage be inflicted upon vast manufacturing interests,
particularly in the New England States, and the towns and cities in the
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 9
drainage area of the Appalachian range be subjected to great harm from
annually recurring floods of increasing volume ; Now therefore be it
Rcsolrcd by the board of directors of the Merchants' Association of New
York, That the welfare of the nation requires that the National Government
provide, as speedily as possible, for the preservation of forests, especially in
mountain regions, the regulation of timber cutting therefrom, and for the con-
servation of the water supply arising in such forests with a view to lessening
floods and maintaining an equitable stream flow for the promotion of agricul-
ture and manufactures.
Resolved, That speedy action by the Congress of the United States is neces-
sary to prevent the destruction of the forests of the White and Appalachian
mountain ranges and the evils incident to such destruction, and, therefore,
that the Congress is earnestly requested to enact into law the measures now
pending for creating forest reserves in the regions named with a view to pre-
serving the forests thereof by restricting and regulating the cutting of timber
and promoting new growths.
NEW YORK PRODUCE EXCHANGE,
New York, December 4, 1908.
Mr. W. M. CROMBIE,
SI New Street, New York City.
DEAR SIR : At a meeting of our board of managers, held yesterday, I brought
up the matter of forestry conservation and replanting, and after discussion
the inclosed preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted.
I am sure these resolutions embody the sentiment of practically our entire
membership, as we are all fully in accord with the desire to preserve our for-
ests for the general benefit of the country.
I send you these resolutions, and you have permission to use them in any way
that you may deem most advantageous.
Yours, very truly, WELDING RING,
President.
Whereas the constant cutting off of our forests, which is rapidly increasing
every year, and only very limited efforts being made to restore this timber
by replanting; and
Whereas this destruction of our forests and woodlands is very greatly
affecting our climate by the quick drying up of our streams and reducing the
water supply of our lakes and rivers, thereby seriously interfering with naviga-
tion; and
Whereas these conditions can be materially changed for the better within a
reasonable period by systematic and constant replanting and by proper reser-
vation of lands for forest reserves :
Resolved, That the New York Produce Exchange earnestly requests and urges
the passage of one or more of the bills now under consideration by the National
Congress, providing for the reservation of forests and replanting of woodlands.
RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE DIRECTORS OF THE LOUISVILLE BOARD OF TRADE AT A
MEETING HELD ON JANUARY 22, 1908, FAVORING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
PROPOSED APPALACHIAN NATIONAL FOREST.
Whereas official statistics show that the people of the United States face,
within a decade, a lumber famine due to wasteful and extravagant use and
wanton methods of cutting; and
Whereas our Appalachian forests are now being rapidly depleted and are
about our only remaining source of hard-wood supply ; and
Whereas we recognize that forest coverings are essential not only to our tim-
ber supply, but are of supreme importance to climate and agriculture, to water
supply and navigation; and
Whereas the cutting already done has shown its baneful effects throughout
the South, and demonstrates forcibly from many standpoints the necessity of
the conservation of this source of our natural wealth ; and
Whereas the perpetuation of our forests can only be done by the National
Government: Be it
10 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Resolved, That the Louisville Board of Trade, of Louisville, earnestly urges
upon the Congress of the United States the establishment of national forests
in the Appalachian region by the prompt passage of the Appalachian- White
Mountain bill.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent by the secretary of the
board to all Congressmen and Senators from this State, requesting their hearty
and active support and their vote for the measure.
EESOLUTIONS.
CHABLES TOWN, W. VA., November 26, 1908.
Whereas there is pending before the House of Representatives and is before
the Committee on Agriculture Senate bill 4825, providing for the establishment
of the Appalachian-White Mountain National Forest; and
Whereas the establishment of this forest area is deemed of vital concern to
the South and to New England, as well as to the nation at large : Therefore be it
Resolved by the Board of Trade of Charles Town, W. Va., having a member-
ship of 75, That we most earnestly indorse the project of establishing such
national forest, and urge upon the Congress immediate and favorable action
thereon.
Be it further resolved, That we urge the adoption by the Congress of a sys-
tematic, progressive, and definite forest policy, which will insure the extension
of the national forests to all sections of the country where they may be con-
stitutionally established.
That a copy of these resolutions be sent to our Senators and Representatives
in Congress and to the Appalachian National Forest Association, Washington,
D. C., for presentation before the House Committee on Agriculture December 9,
or such ofher date as may be set for the public hearing on the bill.
Adopted November 26, 1908.
[SEAL.] S. M. OTT, President.
Attest :
W. I. NOEBIS, Secretary.
Resolutions similar to the last above quoted were submitted by the following :
Engineers and Architects' Club, Louisville. Ivy.
Greater Charlotte Club, Charlotte, N. C.
Chamber of Commerce, Washington, N. C.
Chamber of Commerce, Huntington, W. Va.
Mobile Chamber of Commerce, Maritime Exchange, and Shippers' Association,
Mobile, Ala.
Commercial Club, Cloverport, Ky.
Columbia Chamber of Commerce, Columbia, S. C.
Cominercial Club, Montgomery, Ala.
Chamber of Commerce! Roanoke, Va.
Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Raleigh, N. C.
Mass meeting of citizens of Toccoa, Ga.
Chamber of Commerce, Augusta, Ga.
Board of Trade, Appalachicola, Fla.
Pulaski Board of Trade, Pulaski, Tenn.
Business Men's Club, Wolfe, W. Va.
Chamber of Commerce, Spartanburg, S. C.
Board of Trade, Clarksburg, Tenn.
Board of Trade, Nashville, Tenn.
Tobacco Board of Trade, Oxford, N. C.
Young Men's Commercial Club, Talladega, Ala.
Business Men's Association, Mebane, N. C.
Commercial Club, Johnson City, Tenn.
Business Men's Club, Memphis, Tenn.
Builders' Exchange, Louisville, Ky.
Newbern Chamber of Commerce, Newbern, N. C.
Chamber of Commerce, Elizabeth City, N. C.
Belington Board of Trade, Belington. W. Va.
FOEEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATEESHEDS. 11
STATEMENT OF ME. JOHN G. HUGE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE
SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS.
Mr. RUGE. It is my pleasure and privilege and honor, as vice-presi-
dent of the Southern Commercial Congress, to present to you a reso-
lution adopted yesterday, which reads as follows :
The Southern Commercial Congress in convention assembled, with accredited
representatives of 64 commercial organizations from the 15 States participating
therein, does resolve as follows :
Deeming the establishment of the proposed Appalachian White Mountain
National Forest of paramount importance to the nation, and realizing the ur-
gent necessity of immediate congressional action thereon, we commend the
Senate in passing the bill ; we deplore the delay of the House of Representatives
and its Agricultural Committee in withholding favorable action upon it; and
we unite, as earnest and patriotic believers in the utmost conservation of our
national resources, of which the forest is certainly one of the most important, in
this expression of dissatisfaction in any further delay.
And we further instruct the chairman of this congress to appoint a committee
of this body to attend the hearing before the Agricultural Committee on Wednes-
day, December 9, and to express in no uncertain terms our attitude in this
matter.
Governor GUILD. I have asked pur representatives here to-day to
confine their remarks to the five-minute limit, and with your consent,
sir, shall notify them when their time has expired.
The CHAIRMAN. That will be satisfactory to the committee, with
the understanding that, in fairness to the gentlemen appearing, if
the committee protracts their time with questions of its own the limit
will not be enforced.
Governor GUILD. We appreciate your kindly courtesy, sir, and
merely desire to reciprocate.
As the first speaker, especially as he is obliged to attend duties in
the Senate chamber shortly, I shall call upon the Chaplain of the
Senate, the Rev. Edward Everett Hale.
STATEMENT OF DR. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, CHAPLAIN OF
THE UNITED STATES SENATE.
Doctor HALE. The reason why Governor Guild calls upon me is
that I am the oldest person hereabouts who has really worked in the
New Hampshire forests. I had the good fortune, when I was 19
years old, as a boy, to serve on the Geological Survey in the State
of New Hampshire. I have slept under these very pine trees which
have long ago been cast down, and within two years I went over the
absolute ground, where there was not a stick as big as that stick I have
to lean on now. It makes a man cry, when he has slept under a pine
tree 10 feet in diameter. I have talked with men who saw George the
Third's " broad arrow " on trees, which the King would never per-
mit to be cut down — and now to see the places where they grew grow-
ing up in blackberry bushes. I respect entirely what the chairman
has said as to the nature of the testimony desired by the committee,
and I will try to confine myself within that limit.
When I was here a year ago the question had not been raised, even
as an academic question, as to the right of this committee to do any-
thing about it. The chairman informs us that it has been raised
since. I went from this room then and addressed a note to the Navy
12 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Department and to the Land Office, and asked them to send us the
particulars about the purchase, more than one hundred years ago,
by the Navy Department, of lands at the South, because they had
live oak upon them/from which the department wanted to build our
frigates and vessels. The Land Office and "the Navy Department
together were kind enough to furnish those documents, and they are
the evidence that more than one hundred years ago the nation was
in the habit of buying land, owning land in fee simple, from different
States and from different individuals all through the South be-
cause it had live oak upon it, and that covers completely every state-
ment which gentlemen have wished to make here with regard to that.
Those papers can be obtained by the chairman and by yourselves.
Speaking about denudation, I do not think there is any lesson that
the committee can learn outside of the hills of New Hampshire them-
selves as to what we mean by denudation. In the old days, of which
the governor has spoken just now, these pine trees were employed
in the American Navy. Mr. Chairman, in the great battles of 1780
and 1781, when the British navy was engaged, when the American
Navy was engaged, when the French navy was engaged, when the
Spanish navy was engaged, every spar used by every frigate, prob-
ably, and every man-of-war was from the New Hampshire and Maine
forests. Up until 1775 the export of these spars had been necessary,
and every navy-yard in western Europe and every fleet in all the
great naval encounters flew their flags from flagstaffs supplied from
the New Hampshire forests. In the last ten years, I was going to
say, there has not been a spar as big as that cane sold from a New
England forest, and why is it? It is because in the present business
of lumbering — the very paper you are writing upon is made from
spruce timber cut down up there. A lumber baron will send his
men in, and he says, " Oh, do not pick out the good trees ; cut down
everything." It is so much easier to clear the whole thing, make a
clean sweep of it, that the denudation goes forward as it did not go
forward in the days when I was a surveyor there. In those days the
man who sold lumber sold timber which was of use to cut up. Now, if
he can sell a stick as big as my arm he can make as good paper out
of that stick as he can make out of a big log, and therefore the in-
structions to the workmen are to cut down everything and to leave
nothing.
* Then comes a God-appointed shower, and the shower washes off
everything, because you have nothing to hold back the water. It
washes off everything. It washes off all the soil, everything that will
go. It washes off everything but large stones. So, when Governor
Guild and I go up there with our nice pine seed and plant them
there they will not grow. You have swept away the soil, and you
have nothing left but gravel and rock.
The plea, therefore, for the preservation of the forests, that has
now become a national plea, is a plea made necessary on account
of the uses made of the timber when it has been cut down, and I beg
that you put in as a part of the statement we make that the cutting
down of the forests now leaves the thing as bare as that table, you
might almost say, and it sweeps down the soil, and the governor has
told you what becomes of it. It lies on the shores of the rivers and
creates malaria and all those evils.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 13
The precise position of the State of New Hampshire has been
alluded to. I am a resident of that State every summer; in fact, I
officially represent here a body of the people of one of the valleys
there, who were kind enough to make me the chairman. That State,
the chairman must remember, includes not only the waters of the
Connecticut Kiver, but the waters of the Androscoggin River, which
rise in the State of Maine. I do not think, Mr. Chairman^ that
anybody had dreamed, when I was here a year ago, that this com-
mittee had not full power to act in that purpose. I think it was an
academic question which came up afterwards, when our friends say
the Judiciary Committee sent down to you and said you could not
do certain things which you wished to do. But it seems to me that
the question of the live-oak lands is an interesting one, and it shows
that the people one hundred years ago thought they had that power,
and if that does arise, it shows that the conditions of timber cutting
are wholly different from what they were one hundred years ago.
I see the chairman looking at his watch, and I only allude to the
question of the bonds, and if you will fix it so that the Government
will take care of the forests as Bavaria and other European countries
have, fifty years hence you will have a larger revenue from your
forests and you will pay "f or your bonds with them.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN H. STEPHENS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS.
Mr. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, I desire to state that I have a bill on
all fours with the Appalachian and White Mountain bill, for protect-
ing a natural forest growing on the headwaters of the Red River in
the plains of Texas, extending almost to the eastern side of New
Mexico. We have organized, in the southwest four States, into a
congress known as " The Red River Improvement Association." We
passed resolutions requesting that 100,000 acres of land be purchased
on the headwaters of the Red River for the purpose of protecting the
forests there, and the conditions will not exist as described by the last
speaker if Congress would purchase this land and protect the timber
there now, which will not require being replanted. Neither will the
conditions exist that exist at present in the Southern Appalachians,
but the land has passed from the State of Texas ; it no longer belongs
to us. One-half of it was given for the purpose of building interstate
railroads running across the continent, the Texas Pacific and the
Southern Pacific, and that is the reason we have not any public do-
main left there, mainly because we gave away one-half of it for the
purpose of building our railroads. So we now ask that the Govern-
ment appropriate $500,000 for the purpose of purchasing 100,000 acres
of land as a forest reserve and a park on the headwaters of that river.
This is joined in by all of those States and by various cities and towns
and various associations, and I will now ask leave to file these, together
with the numerous maps and documents obtained from the Forestry
Bureau and other documents of interest in this matter, with your com-
mittee for your investigation.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the papers will be filed.
14 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Be it remembered that at the second meeting of the Red River Improvement
Association, held in Denison, Tex., on November 6, 1908, the following resolu-
tion was unanimously adopted :
" Resolved, That we favor the passage of the bill now pending in Congress to
create a national park and timber reserve in the canyons forming the head of
Red River, believing the preservation of the forests to be essential to the
improvement of Red River."
Respectfully submitted.
JNO. H. STEPHENS,
Author of bill referred to, etc.
To the chairman Red River Improvement Convention:
We, your committee on forest reserve, beg leave to submit the following
report :
Whereas this convention, recognizing the great natural resources of the Red
River Valley and of the paramount importance of restoring navigation on the
Red River, not alone to the people along said river, but to the nation as well,
and of the importance of preserving and fostering of the native timber at the
head of and along said river and its tributaries ; and whereas the Hon. John H.
Stephens, Representative in Congress from the Thirteenth District of Texas,
has introduced in Congress a bill seeking to have a national park established in
the Palo Duro Canyon, in Randall and Armstrong counties, Tex., on the head-
waters of Red River.
Therefore we indorse said bill and recommend that the same be passed by
Congress at its next session, and further recommend that this association take
steps to encourage the people along the Red River and its tributaries in
systematically preserving the natural forests along said stream and its tribu-
taries and engaging in fostering the growth of timber as well.
We further recommend that the secretary of this organization be requested to
furnish a copy of this document to the Senators and Representatives in Con-
gress of the States of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas and request
their united efforts in support of the above measures.
Respectfully submitted.
J. W. CBUDGINGTON,
Chairman, Amarillo, Tex.
HENRY Cox, Fulton, Ark.
H. P. MAYEB, Paris, Tex.
S. R. CBAWFORD, Graham, Tex.
J. B. LEEPEE, Denison- Sherman, Tex.
H. G. EVANS, Bonham, Tex.
HUGH COREY, Alexandria, La.
R. D. BOWEN, Pan's, Tex.
Mr. STEPHENS. If the governor of Massachusetts will permit me, I
will inform him that the governor of Texas will take pleasure in
joining with vou and with the governor of South Carolina, and with
greater zeal, because she is much larger than all the Southern States
and all New England combined. [Laughter.]
Governor GUILD. And you might add one more thing, that the
other States joined together to make a nation, but Texas as an inde-
pendent nation joined the United States.
Mr. STEPHENS. The gentlemen must remember that Texas annexed
the United -States. Texas was an independent government itself,
and I always contend that Texas annexed the United States, and not
the United States Texas. [Laughter.]
Governor GUILD. There is no compliment which you can pay to
the Lone Star State which we of New England will not take pleasure
in joining with you.
I take pleasure in presenting as the next speaker a gentleman who
is obliged to leave very shortly, and I therefore will introduce him
out of order, one of the governors of the West. I take pleasure in
presenting Governor George E. Chamberlain, of Oregon.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 15
STATEMENT OF GOVERNOR GEORGE E. CHAMBERLAIN, OF
OREGON.
Governor CHAMBERLAIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am here
at the request of some of the distinguished gentlemen from the
Northeast to join with them on the part of the Northwest in further-
ing this movement. I desire to say that Oregon has at least one-fifth,
probably a little more than one-fifth, of her area in the federal
reserves, and that area embraces the most magnificent forest reserves
of the whole western country. Until the Government established
these reserves and took control of them there was very little done
toward forestry protection, but since the Government has taken
charge these forests have been better preserved, trespassers are in
greater fear of the Government than they ever would be of any of the
state authorities, and the results there are splendid. I want to say
that I believe that some policy ought to be taken by Congress to
acquire, not in the name of the State, but in the name of the United
States, those deforested areas, not only in the Northeast, but along in
the Appalachian Range as well. The suggestion has been made that
possibly the same end might be subserved if the title remains as it is,
or possibly in the State with federal supervision, but it seems to me
that in order to accomplish results these lands ought to be purchased
by the Federal Government, either by agreement with the parties
who own them or by the exercise of eminent domain, if that can be
done, and I think it can be. Not only will it be necessary for refor-
estation of the deforested areas, but it seems to me it will eventually
become necessary to expropriate, if I may use that term, the ownership
in the water powers as well as in the deforested areas. So I want to
say that the Northwest heartily joins in this movement, and I think
that the Government, if it does not do it now, will be compelled in
the very near future, for its own protection, to buy these areas.
Governor GUILD. I need scarcely remind you gentlemen that Gov-
ernor Chamberlain spoke for the governors of all of the United
States in response to the address of the President.
I present as the next speaker the president of the University of
Wisconsin, Dr. C. R. Van Hise.
STATEMENT OF DR. C. R. VAN HISE, PRESIDENT OF THE UNI-
VERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
Doctor VAN HISE. On yesterday afternoon I had no expectation of
saying anything in reference to this matter to the Committee on Agri-
culture, but the men who are especially interested in this measure in
the southeastern part of the United States asked me to say a few
words in reference to the condition of that part of the country. As
a member of the Geological Survey for a number of years I had
charge of the work in that region, and therefore traveled extensively
over it all the way from Virginia to Georgia. I am therefore some-
what familiar — indeed very familiar — with the actual situation in
that region. I am not going to undertake to present the details upon
which the conclusion is reached that this upland region should be
reserved as a forest, since I understood one of the members of the
committee to say that that point was already conceded; that it was
admitted that it was extremely desirable — indeed, almost necessary —
that this great upland region be reserved as a forest.
16 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
However, there is just one point in connection with that to which
I wish to call your attention. It is this, that this region is one in
which the conditions are especially critical. In the northeastern part
of the United States — and I am not talking against the White Moun-
tain reserve, for I believe in it — in the northeastern part of the United
States, or in the northern part of the United States, below the sur-
face there is a sand and gravel which makes a porous stratum which
carries water. In this southeastern part of the United States the
rocks have not disintegrated and are nonporous; there is clay. The
water does not readily find its way into them, and the result is that it
gathers upon the surface very readily and very easily into streams of
considerable power, and is therefore' especially potent in this matter
of erosion. Every one of you who is at all familiar with the region
in the southeastern part of the United States must have appreciated
how much more extensive the erosion is in that region, even on slopes
of moderate steepness, than it is in these other regions in which the
conditions are less crucial, and therefore I wish to urge that in this
particular the southern Appalachian forest region has an exceptional
demand for attention. I unhesitatingly assert that somehow, for the
good of the States and the nation as a whole, it is absolutely necessary
to preserve the protective covering of vegetation on this upland area
of the southeastern part of the United States. But that I understand
to be conceded, and therefore I shall not dwell upon it. So that the
question comes back, How can this great task be accomplished ? Why
should the Government undertake a portion of its accomplishment ?
In the first place, it is a tremendous task ; a task of such magnitude
that to properly accomplish it will require, it seems to me, the joint
efforts of the nation, of the States, and of the citizens. But if it is
merely a local interest, why should the nation participate? And that,
of course, is the crucial question, from your point of view. It seems
to me there are two very good reasons, one of which has been sug-
gested to me since I came into this room, why the nation ought to par-
ticipate, why they will find it economical to participate in this mat-
ter. In the first place, the nation is taking up the question of
improving its waterways, to maintain a uniform and equable flow.
There is talk of spending not five millions, or ten millions, but
scores of millions of dollars in the improvement of inland water-
ways. This vast expenditure which is necessary can be reduced, in
my judgment, and I think if time were sufficient it could be proved
that it could be reduced if the problem is studied at the head in-
stead of the foot ; that is, if the forests are preserved, if the covering
vegetation is preserved, a uniform and equable flow of the streams
is produced.
The question may be asked, Is it a fact that in consequence of the
removal of the forests floods have increased ? Does the water go down
more rapidly at one time and less rapidly at another in consequence
of the removal of the forests ? In reference to the Tennessee River,
one of the long streams which heads in this region, that is unquestion-
ably true. The most careful investigation which has ever been made
in this country upon the relation of forest covering to stream flow
has been made by Mr. Leighton of the United States Geological Sur-
vey during this past summer. This investigation has taken into ac-
count not only the number of floods during the past twelve years
and the previous twelve years, but the number of flood-producing
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 17
rains, for an investigation which does not take into account the num-
ber of flood-producing rains is very imperfect. I can not, of course,
in the five minutes time present these results in detail. I will sum
it up in a sentence and leave the question to be proved by Mr. Leigh-
ton in case you desire it, but the result of his investigation shows that
as a consequence of the change of conditions due to deforestation
during the past twelve years the floods are 18.75 per cent more fre-
quent than they were during the previous twelve years, taking into
account the precipitation, the number of flood-producing rains, as
well as all the other factors. This is the first investigation which has
been made, and this investigation concerns directly this southern
Appalachian forest reserve.
. Now, the second point is this : The Government spends millions of
dollars in dredging out harbors, and yet no effort is made by the Gov-
ernment to prevent the silt from going down into harbors and filling
them up, and so that process goes on year after year and year after
year and must continue to go on, because it will never be possible to
altogether prevent the silt from going down into the harbors.
The CHAIRMAN. Has it not always gone down?
Doctor VAN HISE. It has always gone down.
The CHAIRMAN. Does not the location of the great bar at the mouth
of the Columbia, which has existed ever since navigation discovered
that access, indicate that there has been very severe, erosion through
that watershed from time immemorial, and extending through a time
when the watershed was just as perfectly protected as it ever could be
by forests?
Doctor VAN HISE. That is entirely true. There never will be a
time in which the silt will not be carried down into the harbors and
rolled over and over and carried along by the waves meeting the cur-
rent. There never will be a time when that is not the fact, and there
never will be a time in which the harbors will not fill up. But the
amount of silt that is carried down from the mountains has been
vastly increased as a result of this deforestation.
The CHAIRMAN. Is that merely a deductive opinion, or is it a
demonstrated fact?
Doctor VAN HISE. It is a demonstrated fact, as it seems to me, from
the results of these very investigations that have been made with
reference to the Tennessee. There is no question on the part of any-
body that the erosion in the South and in the headwaters of these
streams, as the result of the removal of the forests, has gone on at a
speed which never occurred before. That is to say, before the forests
were removed the forces of nature were making the soil faster than it
was being washed away, so that the soil was ever getting thicker and
thicker and thicker. Wherever the forests have been removed, and
especially on the steeper slopes, erosion has gone on faster than the
making of the soil, so that the bare rocks are protruding, conclusive
proof that there has been carried down with the streams, and ulti-
mately to the mouths of the streams, much more material than was
carried down under conditions of forest cover.
The CHAIRMAN. Has any investigation been made to determine
what proportion of the soil, eroded from the slopes at the headwaters
of a stream like the Tennessee, reaches the navigable portions of that
stream ?
72538— AGR--09 2
18 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Doctor VAN HISE. There will be a direct relation, unquestionably.
It will not reach it at once. Of course the silt picked up high in the
mountain is carried part of the way down with this flood and it is
dropped on the way; then another flood comes along and it is carried
a little farther down and dropped again, and ultimately it either
reaches the outlet and fills the harbor or else flows over its banks and
destroys the farming lands, as in California, where sand and gravel
have been distributed over the lowlands as a result of hydraulic min-
ing operations. I do not hesitate to assert that the silt and loosened
material that goes down in the Appalachian and White Mountain
regions, if those regions were denuded, would be fully one hundred
times as much as has been washed down in the rivers of California as
a result of hydraulic mining operations.
The CHAIRMAN. You are very familiar with the Southern Appa-
lachians ?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. In your opinion has the erosion which has thus far
taken place come from the operations of lumbering or from farming?
Doctor VAN HISE. Mainly from farming as yet, but of course it is'
a twofold thing. It naturally happens that when the timber is re-
moved it is removed from the more accessible areas. When once it is
removed from an accessible area that accessible area will be made into
a farm. Combination of the two results in the erosion. Undoubtedly
there have been mistakes in this particular. Some areas from which
the timber has been removed, or removed in part, should never have
been made into farms. They are too high up, the slopes are too steep,
so that the erosion goes on with excessive rapidity, and therefore it
can not be asserted to be one or the other ; it is the result of both.
The CHAIRMAN. Very large sections of the Appalachians have
been lumbered. All the valuable merchantable timber has been taken
out. In such sections have the lumbering operations gone to the
extent of contributing very greatly to the erosion?
Doctor VAN HISE. I think they have. I want to be perfectly fair
and express the things in absolute proportion. I do not believe that
the lumbering operations alone, m case the lands had not been
farmed afterwards, would have resulted in as great erosion as has
resulted from the farming operations after it on lands not' adapted
to farming. The great difficulty has come as a result of lumbering
operations followed by farming operations on lands that never should
have been taken for farming.
The CHAIRMAN. You know, of course, that the clearing of the
slopes for farming in the southern Appalachians has been under the
compulsion of necessity. Men have been obliged to find some place
upon which to earn a living, and they have cleared certain of the
most accessible slopes. They have not deliberately and with malice
aforethought gone and taken the steep and almost inaccessible slopes
when other land was available. We are obliged, therefore, to take
into consideration the conditions that exist and which have resulted
as a mere incident of civilization. Remembering that, and remem-
bering, as I think we also must, that the people of North Carolina,
for example, must continue to live in North Carolina — we can not
depopulate the State and send it back to the wilderness — I would
like to ask you, if you were commissioned by the Government to buy
land in North Carolina for the conservation of the stream flow, would
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 19
you purchase the lower slopes or the upper slopes of the mountain ?
And I want your scientific opinion.
Doctor VAN HISE. I shall give you my best judgment of the mat-
ter. My principle of action would be this : Upon the whole, from the
point of view of the nation, is this land more valuable to the nation
for agricultural purposes or for the purposes of forestry and the
regulating of the sCTlams? If, upon the whole, that land, using the
best data and judgment, if the slopes were such, the soils were such,
the conditions were such that the land could be used for a reason-
able length of time, with care practically perpetually, for agricul-
tural purposes, certainly it should be used for agricultural purposes.
But if the slopes are so steep that that is not practicable; if the
slopes are so steep that it is not economical to do that; if the slopes
are so steep, as in the Balsams, for instance, where the land will be
gone in five years, that never should have been allowed to become an
agricultural tract, and if under those circumstances that land has
become an agricultural tract, it should be reconverted into a forest
tract.
The CHAIRMAN. Governor Guild, let me say aside, you will pardon
me for taking this time with Mr. Van Hise, but it is because we know
he is an expert on this question, and I think we can get some informa-
tion, and I am sure the committee will extend the time.
Governor GUILD. Certainly, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Now, Doctor, leaving out of account the question
of the rights or the necessity of the people to live in North Carolina,
as a scientific proposition, if you were commissioned to buy the land
and had to take your choice between the lower third and the upper
two-thirds of the* ranges, and your only purpose in buying it was to
conserve the stream flow, which would you buy?
Doctor VAN HISE. I would buy the headwaters of the streams.
The CHAIRMAN. You do not understand my meaning. I say.
Would you buy the lower slopes of the mountains or the upper slopes,
assuming that you could not get both, but that you would take the
one which would most conserve the stream flow?
Doctor VAN HISE. I can not make quite a satisfactory answer
to that, because the erosion depends on two things — on the steepness
of the slope and the volume of the water; and, of course, the lower
down the slope you are. the heavier the volume of water is. There-
fore those uplands which should be selected first should be those up-
lands in which the slopes are so steep that if converted into agricul-
tural lands they would be p'ractically destroyed, but low enough down
so that they would be where the erosion would be likely to be the
greatest. I would not select the tops of the mountains, the flat tops,
because the lands on the top there would not be so easily washed off
because they are flat, in the first place, and because, in the second
place, the stream currents are not strong. But after you get over the
top and down these slopes here and the streams have gotten the
volume so that the erosion would be great and the slopes are steep
there; joining those two factors together and picking out the area in
which the damage would be the greatest by the removing of the for-
ests; those would be the areas which I should select if it were left
to me.
The CHAIRMAN. Suppose I had a cone here approximately the shape
of a mountain, sitting in a panfull of water: suppose I tie a sponge
20 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
tightly about the upper two-thirds of that cone and sprinkle lamp-
black over the lower third, and then have an artificial rain falling
on the whole cone. The water in the pan would be discolored immedi-
ately, would it not, by the washing of the lampblack?
Doctor VAN HISE. Undoubtedly.
The CHAIRMAN. Supposing now we reverse the situation, sprinkle
the lampblack over the upper two-thirds and bind the sponge tightly
on the lower third of the cone, then have your artificial rain; is it
not likely that the sponge would serve as a sort of filter and hold a
lareg proportion of the lampblack, and the water would not be so
discolored ?
Doctor VAN HISE. That is so, but I would question, if you may
permit me, the applicability to the case. This lower land is not a
sponge, but it is, as I have explained, impervious, relatively, and is
soft enough so that it can be removed.
The CHAIRMAN. All the advocates who have come before us have
compared a forest to a sponge. That is the reason I used the illus-
tration, and my application of it was this : That with the forest sponge
upon the lower slopes of the mountain, any erosion from the upper
slopes was much more likely to be retained and held and not to get
into the streams than if the upper slopes should be protected and the
lower slopes left bare, because then when erosion begins there is not
anything to filter the water, and it carries its load of soil into the
stream. My observation through that country has been that erosion
always takes place, if the lower slope is bare, no matter what the
declivity may be, and no matter whether the upper slope is covered
or not. It does not Always take place if the upper slope is bare,
while the lower slope is left covered.
Doctor VAN HISE. I would not dissent from that. I did misunder-
stand. I feel I am taking too long a time, but I would like to put
the actual conditions before the committee. The cone does not cover
the case, because the mountains are not cones. The mountains are
mainly flat-topped ridges and valleys. Supposing this to be a moun-
tain [illustrating]. The condition is represented by that kind of a
curve. You start with a flat top, in that way, and you go down the
curve, getting steeper and steeper. The Hogarth line of beauty rep-
resents the curve of the valley to the top of the mountain. I would
quite agree with the chairman of the committee that this part away
up here would not be the part that is most eroded, because the streams
have not gathered sufficient volume, nor would the valley lands, which
would be this belt in between, where the streams have gathered suffi-
cient volume to become powerful and where the slope is steep. If you
premise here a belt, the forest being down here, it will in a measure
stop and check the work of erosion that is going on higher up.
The CHAIRMAN. That being true, does it not follow that if you
are going to protect the hills, and in that way protect the streams
from silting up, you must keep the forest cover on the intermediate
slopes that vou speak of, rather than on the upper slopes?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. If that is true, the suggestion which has always
been made before this committee, and which is the whole burden of
the report from the Secretary of Agriculture last year on this ques-
tion, that we must preserve the upper slopes, has proceeded upon a
mistaken hypothesis?
FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 21
Doctor VAN HISE. Of course, as I understand it, this bill does not des-
ignate the particular lines to be selected. It is to be supposed that
the Secretary of Agriculture, in case* the bill is passed, would have
that selection made by men who best understand the forestry and
erosion, and therefore, we think, would select the lands which, upon
the whole, are best adapted to this end. I perhaps would not put it
so strongly as the chairman and say the lower slopes, but I would say,
on the general principle which you have in mind, that this interme-
diate area, which combines volume of water and steepness of slope, is
the most crucial and dangerous area, and it would be very greatly
aggravated and might be worse farther down here were the forest
removed.
The CHAIRMAN. And that area which you speak of as the crucial
area is crucial right now because it has been cleared and is used as
farming land ?
Doctor VAN HISE. A part of it is crucial on that account, but there
is a lower part that has not been cleared. These steeper slopes have
not been cleared.
The CHAIRMAN. Oh, to be sure, there are places where the crucial
slopes have not been cleared; but the ones we are speaking of now,
those having the effect on streams — are those which are being used or
have been used for farming purposes?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. So, if we are going to take possession of them, we
must dispossess men who are using them for farming purposes?
Doctor VAN HISE. I answer yes in every case in which land upon
the whole is so badly located that it can not be maintained as a
farm successfully, and is better adapted to forestry than to farming.
That is the practice we have in Wisconsin. The commission goes
to work there and we use our best judgment. We say, " Is this par-
ticular tract better adapted to agriculture or forestry?" and studying
that particular tract, if we consider its soil, slope, and everything
are better adapted to agriculture than to forestry, we sell it for agri-
cultural purposes and use the money to buy land suitable for forestry
purposes. On the other hand, if the land, by its location, by its
character, is better adapted, upon the whole, to serve the State as
forest than as farm, we change it into forest, even if it be a poor
farm, and we are doing that thing now.
The CHAIRMAN. You can do that where the land does not belonff
to anybody who is making a home on it, but do you not apprehend
a little difficulty in securing the land that you would have to acquire
from people who have lived on it, and perhaps their fathers before
them, for several generations?
Doctor VAX HISE. We do not pay any attention to that.
The CHAIRMAN. We are obliged to pay attention to it.
Doctor VAN HISE. It seems to me, of course, that the interests of
the State and the nation are superior to those of the individual.
The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me. We must bear in mind all the time
our responsibilities as legislators; and would you recommend that
this committee favorably report any measure which, for its successful
carrying forward, must take with it the authority of some govern-
ment official to determine whether a given tract of land is more valu-
able for forest purposes than for farm purposes, and if he decides
that it is more valuable for forest than for. farm, give him the
22 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
authority, under eminent domain or some power of condemnation,
to compel the owner of it* to part with it ?
Doctor VAN HISE. I answer yes to that, unqualifiedly.
Mr. STANLEY. Excuse me, Doctor, do you proceed upon the theory
that the Federal Government would have the same right and has the
same jurisdiction to take the land by a process of eminent domain,
belonging to private individuals, on account of its better adaptability
to forestry than to farming, that a state government would have ?
Doctor VAN HISE. If necessary to protect the equable flow in the
waterways, and therefore to protect navigation effectively and
cheaply, and if necessary in order that the harbors shall not be filled
up, if necessary for watershed for that purpose, then I say yes.
Mr. WEEKS. You speak of the State of Wisconsin purchasing land
and setting it aside for forest purposes. Has the State expended any
money for this purpose which has not been obtained from the sale of
state lands ?
Doctor VAN HISE. No large amount. We have a small appropria-
tion which we can use for that purpose and can invest in tax lands,
but we are going to ask a much larger amount for that purpose, and
we have every reason to suppose we shall secure a larger amount, but
our start was on the basis of the state lands going to the commission,
with the power to sell and to buy, using the money which we obtained
from selling to purchase.
Mr. WEEKS. Has there been a criticism of that process of procedure ?
Doctor VAN HISE. Substantially none, because we have been ex-
tremely careful to dispose of the lands, which really are agricultural.
We have tried to interpret that feature of the act fairlv. If it was a
very reasonably clear case that the land was really agricultural land,
and a man said, " I want that land for agricultural purposes," and our
experts showed it was really adapted to agriculture, we would adver-
tise and sell it to him, even if it involved a special advertisement and
sale.
(Thereupon, at 11.50 o'clock a. m., the committee took a recess until
1.30 o'clock p. m.)
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Wednesday, December 9, 1908.
The committee met at 1.30 o'clock p. m., Hon. Charles F. Scott
(chairman) presiding.
The CHAIRMAN. All the members of the committee are not here,
but, as the record is printed, they will have access to it, and I do not
wish to delay the hearing any longer. May we ask to have Doctor
Van Hise take the stand again for a few moments only?
Governor GUILD. Possibly, to save a little time and answer some of
the questions that have been put forward, it may be frankly admitted
at once that the acquisition of forest reserves would dispossess some
mountain farmers of their farms, but thereby not only is the infi-
nitely greater number of farms lower down on the river, which
would otherwise be sterile, rendered fertile by water, but thousands
of times the number of people can be supported in cotton mills run
by the water power thereby obtained than could be supported on the
few farms which it might be necessary to have taken.
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 23
Then, in regard to the question of the form of mountains. I believe
that matter is thoroughly discussed in the proceedings of the con-
servation commission, which will be available to you, and, as I under-
stand this bill, it is a flexible bill, by which whatever portion of land
that would be necessary might be taken, and in some instances it
might be the extreme tops of the mountains and in others the inter-
mediate slopes.
The CHAIRMAN. Governor, it is true, as you say, that the bill which
was passed by the Senate is a flexible bill, and yet the reports which
have come from the Forestry Bureau, and practically all of the argu-
ments which have been made before this committee, have urged that
it is the upper slopes of the mountains that need to be protected,
leaving the inference, of course, that the lower slopes, which are now
cleared off for farming, are not necessary to the success of this project.
It rather seems to me, therefore, that if the fact should be developed
that it is the 'lower slopes and not the upper slopes that are important
to the project, our confidence in the judgment of those to whom we
have looked for guidance in this matter must be severely shaken; and
furthermore, if it should be developed that it is the lower slopes and
not the upper slopes that must be safeguarded, it will be at once
conceded that the cost of the project will be enormously increased.
We have been urged to pass this measure upon the theory that be-
cause it is the inaccessible upper slopes that are needed we can get
them cheaply, but we know that if it should prove to be the acces-
sible lower slopes that are necessary, those can not be gotten cheaply,
and, you see, it makes a vast difference.
Governor GUILD. I quite understand.
The CHAIRMAN. That was the point of my inquiry.
Governor GUILD. I quite understand it, sir, and it was a fair in-
quiry, unquestionably; but the point I wished to establish was, that it
is practically impossible, as I understand it, to establish an absolutely
hard and fast rule that in no cases must lower slopes be taken.
Furthermore, one other point I wished to put in was in regard to the
constitutionality which was put here, that eight Southern States and
two Northern States, Maine and New Hampshire, have already passed
enabling acts in regard to the right of eminent domain, by which the
State practically invites the National Government to come into those
States and exercise that right for the purpose of forest reserve.
Mr. POLLARD. Now, Governor, if that is the case, and there is a
general disposition among the States that are covered by these moun-
tain regions in question, why is it not just as feasible for the Govern-
ment to come in and cooperate with those States and exercise the right
of supervision instead of purchasing the land?
Governor GUILD. I would state that the governor of California,
who has had some practical experience on just that point, will answer
that question later.
Mr. POLLARD. It seems to me if we would have a cooperative ar-
rangement between the Government and the States, or desire to co-
operate, we might find a solution in that way and not purchase the
land.
Governor GUILD. The first part of your proposition I think I have
already answered, or at least I have tried to, by saying that the States
are perfectly willing to cooperate, and are cooperating, and in our
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for example, where we are asking
24 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
for no reserve land, we are cooperating on the lower reaches of the
rivers and spending our money to a certain extent; but, as I stated
before, the State can not possibly out of its limited treasury be ex-
pected to provide for the large tract of land that would be required
at the headwaters of the rivers.
Mr. POLLARD. I fully agree with you in that, but through a coopera-
tive arrangement, the States being willing, could not the Government
exercise the right of supervision in those States and obviate the
necessity of purchase?
Governor GUILD. I do not think it would be possible, sir, to obviate
the necessity of expenditure from the National Treasury.
Mr. POLLARD. You do not understand my question.
Governor GUILD. Possibly not.
Mr. POLLARD. I did not mean that the expense should all be shoul-
dered upon the States. I meant that the Government should share its
proportion ; but to obviate the necessity of purchase, permit the forest
lands to remain in the hands of the present owners and permit the
Government to go in there and cooperate with the States, with their
permission, which I understand would be necessary, and then we
would exercise the right of supervision, the Government bearing a
portion of the expense, or, so far as I am concerned, I would not
object to its bearing all of it, and accomplish the same end, but
obviate the necessity of purchase.
Governor GUILD. I do not think that could be obviated, sir. We
have had practical experience in my own Commonwealth, and we
have actually bought out of the state treasury tracts of forest lands
and established them as reserves in the Commonwealth, and mere
supervision of the land has not seemed to be possible. But if you
will pardon me for a moment, sir, we were in the midst of some
expert testimony, and I am afraid we are getting off the track.
Mr. POLLARD. The reason I asked the question was because it bore
directly on your statement.
Governor GUILD. I thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF DR. C. R. VAN HISE— Continued.
The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, if you will permit me, I would be glad to
ask you two or three more questions developing facts along the line
we were discussing before the adjournment. When a slope has been
cleared and farmed until it is so eroded as to become useless for
farming, what becomes of it under present conditions?
Doctor VAN HISE. Under present conditions it does and would, in
most humid areas, reclothe itself in time with vegetation, and finally
with timber, but that frequently will not happen until the disinte-
grated material is practically all gone down into the streams and
there has been very extensive wash. But in general it is true — I do
not wish to in any way avoid, the difficulties — that in these humid
areas, if there is any soil left, they" trill reclothe themselves with
vegetation.
Governor GUILD. After how many years? How long does it take?
Doctor VAN HISE. Of course it depends on whether you mean just
the shrubbery or mean trees.
Governor GUILD. I mean trees.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 25
Doctor VAN HISE. Of course many years for trees, and they have
very much less favorable conditions than the first time because of the
fact that they would have bare rock and a very scanty soil instead of
abundant soil.
The CHAIRMAN. How long does it take to bring back the cover that
will prevent erosion and retard a run-off.
Doctor VAN HISE. Usually, if there are no fires and if the streams
are not too powerful, it will have begun to get a tangle of under-
brush within five years.
The CHAIRMAN. I would like to say right there that I have seen a
great many slopes where the erosion has been very bad that were com-
pletely reforested, so far as the creation of a cover to prevent further
erosion was concerned, in much less than five .years. Then there is
an inevitable cycle, is there not, beginning with the forest and end-
ing with the forest, with a little period of farming in between ?
Doctor VAN HISE. There is where I should not accept the state-
ment. There Is- an inevitable cycle if we take lands for agricultural
purposes that never should have been taken for such purposes.
The CHAIRMAN. But we are assuming conditions to be as they are.
Doctor VAN HISE. But if lands are not taken for agricultural pur-
purposes which should not have been, there is not an inevitable cycle ;
there can be continual preservation of the disintegrated surface and
continual forest cover.
The CHAIRMAN. Of course the point I have in mind is simply this:
It has been brought out that the trouble we are now suffering, has
come from the clearing of the land for farming purposes and not
from the lumbering operations.
Doctor VAN HISE. Partly from each, but more largely from farm-
ing.
The CHAIRMAN. More largely from farming.
Doctor VAN HISE. That is entirely true.
The CHAIRMAN. More largely from farming than from lumbering.
That being true, it has occurred to some of us that the situation was
one which carried its own remedy; that even if the lower slopes were
cleared off, as they have been, when they become useless for farming
purposes there is nothing the owner can do but abandon them, and
when they are abandoned they are again covered, and we can not see
what else the Government could do if it owned the land than to let
nature take its course, just as it does now; for to go and artificially
replant such areas would, of course, be prohibitive as to cost.
Doctor VAN HISE. If I might interrupt you right there —
The CHAIRMAN. It is no interruption.
Doctor VAN HISE. So far as these lands have been deforested, and
so far as they have been applied to agricultural purposes when they
should not have been, there is nothing to do but to get them back to
forests as rapidly as we can by the best means we can, but there are
very extensive areas in the southern mountains in which that process
is now going on, and which will continue, and it will continue to go
on and continue to dump this great quantity of material in the
streams and in the harbors if you do not stop the deforestation, which
should not be permitted. We can stop that present damage if we
will. Great damage, has been done. These areas have been defor-
ested. There has been serious wash. These areas which never
26 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
should have been denuded of their forests ought to be restored to
forests, and no more area similar to that should have the forest re-
moved from it.
The CHAIRMAN. In a summary of data submitted for the use of
the forest section in the National Conservation Commission, as you
will remember, there occurs this statement:
The eastern mountain region lies east of the Prairie States, in which the
planting of trees for the production of timber is of much more importance than
for the production of stream flow or crops.
Do you concur in that?
Doctor VAN HISE. I would not concur in that for this southeast-
ern part. It might be true, if that means the entire eastern part of
the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains ; that might possibly
be true. But as applied to this southeastern area, which is under
discussion, I would dissent from it altogether.
The CHAIRMAN. This statement also occurs in this same summary :
The Southern States contain about 12,000,000 acres upon which natural repro-
duction is insufficient or lacking, but ui>on which adequate fire protection will,
In the main, restore good forest conditions —
And talking with citizens of North Carolina and Tennessee — and,
I may say, very enthusiastic advocates of this project — they stated to
me personally that they found it was altogether a question of fire;
that if fire could be kept out of the Appalachian Mountains the
slopes would never become sufficiently denuded to be a menace to
the prosperity of the country. Do you agree with that statement?
Doctor VAN HISE. No; not that it would altogether. If you say
that the factor of fire is an extremely important one on keeping this
clothing, I say yes, but that it would be alone sufficient to keep the
fire out, I would not agree to it, because the removal of these areas
on these slopes which have never been made into forests is another
factor, and out of that factor has come this great erosion, or if not the
greatest erosion a very large part of it. Therefore this can be ac-
complished by a number of things. It can be accomplished by
returning to forest these areas which should never have been cleared.
It can be accomplished by retaining in forest those areas which are
better adapted to the forest than for agricultural purposes, and those
two together, combined with the prevention of fire, will solve the
question. You must have the three — prevention of fire, retention as
torests of those areas that are better adapted to forests than to agri-
culture, and restoration to forests of those areas which never ought
to have been denuded of their timber.
The CHAIRMAN. One more question. Do you regard the statement
which has been presented here showing the high and low water sta-
tistics for such rivers as of any scientific value ?
Doctor VAN HISE. That general statement made by the forestry
commission, of course, was a very large average statement.
The CHAIRMAN. The reason I questioned the value of the statement
is because it covers so brief a period.
Doctor VAN HISE. It is a very general statement, but it so happens
that, as to this particular southeastern problem, we have a much
closer study of the Tennessee. It so happens that Mr. Leighton has
given all his time for four months in studying the Tennessee particu-
larly, and I have here this summary of the results. Mr. Leighton, if
FOKEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATEESHEDS. 27
the committee desires, can bring before you the evidence which shows
the results, and in the case of the Tennessee, which I have gone over
somewhat carefully, it seems to me it is a strictly scientific paper.
It seems to me that the information he furnishes shows conclusively
that in the past twelve years, as compared with the previous twelve
years, floods have been more frequent in proportion to the number of
flood-producing storms, and that is the point involved, by 18 per
cent or thereabouts. This is the one stream, it so happens, upon
which there has been a strictly scientific detailed study and analysis
of the facts.
The CHAIRMAN. The theory, of course, is that the forest cover
constitutes a sort of sponge that absorbs the water, and in that way
prevents flood.
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. Is it not true that when this forest cover, this
sponge, becomes thoroughly saturated any excess water immediately
runs out?
Doctor VAN HISE. No; even then the excess water will gather in
the needles and the leaves, and they will hold quite a lot of it.
The CHAIRMAN. For instance, if I had a slate here instead of this
blotting paper, any water I dropped upon it would run off imme-
diately?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. I take this blotting paper and drop water upon it
slowly, and no water runs off. I could continue that for quite a
while. But suppose, first, that I immerse the blotting paper and
saturate it thoroughly, then if I drop water on it would it not
run off?
Doctor VAN HISE. It would run off slowly, and that is the great
point. The average run-off is the same. There is no claim by us
that there would not be the same average run-off if all the forest was
watered, but what I say is that instead of that being made homo-
geneous, so that this is a stream free from sediment, it will be a vast
torrent carrying down gravel and silt at flood time, and there will
be practically no stream at the other times of the year. So that this
flat surface is to equalize the flow, and so make it valuable for water
power — more valuable for water power than for navigation, and so
forth.
The CHAIRMAN. I realize that an ordinary rainfall would be ab-
sorbed by the humus and would be given out slowly later on, but
«very flood comes from an excessive rainfall ?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. Otherwise there would not be any flood. When
that condition occurs, when your humus is absolutely saturated, is it
not true that if the rain keeps on falling there will be a flood? And
is it not true that we have had floods in the rivers from time im-
memorial? Is it not true in Oregon and in Washington that some
of the severest floods that have ever occurred have come while the
forest cover was perfect?
Doctor VAN HISE. It is entirely true that if the rain is so excessive,
if there is a flood-producing rain away beyond the capacity of the
forest to absorb it, that even with a virghT forest we still may have
a disastrous flood, although it will not be usually so ?ilt laden a flood
28 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
as under these circumstances ; but the point I hold, and it seems to-
me Mr. Leighton in his report clearly shows, is that the same number
of flood-producing rains under conditions of the removal of the
forests produce more floods than what would occur were the forests-
kept there, and the rapidly increasing percentage, 18 per cent in
the last twelve years, as compared with the previous twelve years,,
due to the difference in denudation.
The CHAIRMAN. Are you familiar with a paper written by Col.
H. M. Chittenden and read before the American Society of Civil
Engineers ?
Doctor VAN HISE. No; I am not. I have heard of it, but I have
never seen it.
The CHAIRMAN. Colonel Chittenden has been studying this ques-
tion for twenty or thirty years.
Governor GUILD. If you will pardon me at this moment, Mr.
Swain is very familiar with that, and if perhaps Doctor Van Hise
is not familiar with it, we had better let the expert who is familiar
with it answer your questions in regard to it.
Mr. WEEKS. The floods are not all produced by excessive rains.
In the snow regions the floods are produced by excessive melting of
the snow ?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes; causing an excessive flow of water. In
snow areas, where there are heavy snowfalls, that is a factor. I
have not said very much about that, because it is not a very important
factor in reference to these southern mountains.
Mr. WEEKS. It would be a factor in the White Mountains?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes; it is a very important factor in the White-
Mountains.
The CHAIRMAN. Would you believe it to be true that a heavily
forested watershed in a northern latitude, like New Hampshire, might
give a result of more disastrous floods that an open watershed?
Doctor VAN HISE. Do you mean the one that is not timbered?
The CHAIRMAN. The one that is not heavily timbered.
Doctor VAN HISE. I would say, as far as the facts are analyzed
it bears the other way; that even where there are snow areas the
number of floods is less. Although no one stream is accurately ana-
lyzed in the same way that the Tennessee is analyzed, yet these tables
show that the same thing has occurred, taking the evidence as a
whole.
The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of pure reasoning, we know that in a
heavily timbered watershed the wind is broken and the snow falls
practically on a level all the way through, and by the shade of the-
trees it is held there a long time, until the air becomes warm. Then
the warm rains come along and wash it all away at once.
Doctor VAN HISE. That is comparatively rare.
The CHAIRMAN. Does it not happen every winter and every spring?
Doctor VAN HISE. The rain has to be a very long-continued and
abundant rain. One of the greatest floods described by John Muir
occurred under those conditions. That is a possibility; it is not only
a possibility, but it actually occurs. But on the whole the precipita-
tion in the form of snow serves to equalize* the flow. In the region
of the Rocky Mountains, and also in the great valleys of California,,
it is a maxim: " There is a good snowfall; we will have a good year
for irrigation."
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 29
The CHAIRMAN. That is, the unprotected slopes of mountains allow
the snow to be piled in the canyons?
Doctor VAN HISE. And the trees produce the same effect exactly
as the canyons.
Mr. WEEKS. As a matter of fact the White Mountain region is not
•entirely wooded ; there are open spaces and then wooded spaces.
Doctor VAN HISE. Rocky spaces.
Mr. WEEKS. If you are familiar with that section you know that
very often the snow is entirely melted away in the open spaces when it
may be a foot or two deep in the wooded spaces. Therefore if the
timber or wood had been cut off in those wooded places it would have
all gone off at the same time and produced much more water at one
time than is produced under present conditions ?
Doctor VAN HISE. Exactly. May I make one statement? I have
tried to answer these questions specifically and concretely without
giving their qualifications and modifications. So, in fairness to my-
self, I think I ought to be permitted to make one qualifying statement.
I was asked the question if I were allowed to select an area, and if I
could only have one, which would I select? I said under those cir-
cumstances the lower part of the steeper slopes would probably be
the most important. However, I would not desire the committee to
conclude therefore that I do not believe it is necessary to conserve
these steep upslopes to the flat tops, because they are the' great sponge
which holds this water and allows it to come down through springs
and equalize the flow. That is to say, if you should remove this top
area, supposing this is one of the regions, there would be destructive
wash and floods here which would carry the material down. It seems
to me that the only safe procedure, the only possible procedure in the
Southern Appalachians, with reference to the good of the Nation, is
for the Nation and the States and individuals by some system of co-
operation to conserve practically all the slopes which are steeper than
those which should be used for agricultural purposes.
Mr. WEEKS. In the final analysis, in this last statement you have
made, you would be governed by the specific conditions surrounding
«ach case?
Doctor VAN HISE. I would be so governed precisely, if you ask me
what I should do provided I had the money and could go down there
•and do it. In making a careful survey of all the States my idea
would be to pick out the steep slopes in which there had been some
.iorest removed, perhaps. I would get the headwaters of the streams,
<md take here a bunch and there a bunch of, say, 25,000 or 50,000 acres,
where the injury is the greatest and the destruction is the greatest,
and use those as areas, not only to stop the wash and to stop the flow,
but to serve as educational areas for individuals and States both.
Mr. POLLARD. This proposition, then, resolves itself ultimately in
the purchase by the Government, or the bringing under the control of
the Government practically all of that area — that is, the upper re-
gions, as well as the lower regions — if the success of the project is
•complete; is that not true?
Doctor VAN HISE. Yes. " Complete " is a perfect word, you know.
That is true, before all this destruction is stopped ; yes.
Mr. POLLARD. Then, of course, the report sent to the committee
by the Secretary of Agriculture, in which he says that 5,000,000 acres
would suffice, is merely a beginning, and before we got through we
30 FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
would have to bring under the control of the Government, or pur-
chase by the Government, practically all of the 75,000,000 acres that
is described in that report?
Doctor VAN HISE. No; I do not agree to that statement, for this
reason : I have had the experience myself with the great power of
example in educational influence, and I have had to do with trying
to get States to cooperate in this very problem — Wisconsin, Michi-
gan, and Minnesota — and we have made great progress up there, and
have had a demonstration lesson. The action of Wisconsin has been
of great help in getting Minnesota and Michigan to move in the same
direction, and I think, as I stated at the outset, that this is so large a
movement that the Government, being vitally interested in the water-
ways, vitally interested in the harbors, ought to do what it can.
Then the States can go forward and do what they can, and the
Government and the States must cooperate with reference to fire
patrol, and then public pressure must make the individuals feel their
public responsibility and make them handle their holdings as public
trusts.
Mr. POLLARD. Granting all that to be true, must we not banish all
hope that this can be accomplished by the purchase of 5,000,000 acres
in the Southern Appalachians ?
Doctor VAN HISE. If you mean that the purchase of 5,000,000
acres in the Southern Appalachians will prevent altogether this de-
structive wash, it is wholly inadequate. However, I have no doubt
that with the purchase of 5,000,000 acres to serve as examples to Vir-
ginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama we will get
those States to go to work and do their part, and it will bring pressure
on individuals to do their part.
Mr. POLLARD. Then I understand that your idea is that if the
Government purchases these 5,000,000 acres' in blocks, that that will
encourage the States to come in and buy other parts?
Doctor VAN HISE. My hope is that ; yes.
Mr. POLLARD. My understanding was that it was a mammoth un-
dertaking. We have been lead to believe that the 5,000,000 acres
was sufficient, and we have labored under the impression that we
should simply take care of these upper watersheds. Now it seems to
be developed that it is of greater importance to protect the interme-
diate sheds and a portion of the lower sheds. This report of the
Secretary, where it refers to the 5,000,000 acres, simply covers the
upper sheds, so that these intermediate slopes and the lower slopes
are not taken into account at all in his estimate of 5,000,000 acres.
Doctor VAN HISE. I confess a lack of familiarity with the details
and recommendations of the Secretary of Agriculture, and I did not
understand that there were any definite lands recommended. I
understood that if there was money appropriated for the purchase
of the 5,000,000 acres experts would go and find out where they had
best be purchased, leaving them free to select the most pressing and
crucial a pens, which will, on the whole, do the most good in the way
of educating the States and individuals in the way of preventing
erosion. I fear that I have taken too much time.
The CHAIRMAN. It was at our request, and we are very much
obliged to you. Governor, will you allow me to ask you a question
before you introduce anyone else?
Governor GUILD. Most certainly.
FOKEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 31
The CHAIRMAN. Because I know you have considered this from a
broad standpoint.
Governor GUILD. I have tried to.
The CHAIRMAN. You have heard Doctor Van Hise express the
opinion that what the Government might do would be to go into
these States and buy tracts of from 25,000 to 50,000 acres as a sort
of object lesson to the people?
Governor GUILD. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever taken into consideration the view
that would be held locally upon the proposition of taking that much
property off the local tax rolls — what might happen to some one
county, perhaps, where 50,000 acres were thus sequestered?
Governor GUILD. Most certainly. Although it might take a certain
amount off a local tax roll, it would add so much to the land in the
other place, which would thereby be improved by the water supply
and by water power that the one would much more than offset the
other, we think.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think that the parties whose assess-
ment was increased would think it was rather unfair that in order
that the Government could have this property for reservation they
would have to pay more taxes?
Governor GUILD. I think the best answer to the local opposition of
States to which you refer is that 8 Southern States and 2 Northern
States have already requested that the thing be done.
The CHAIRMAN. I am perfectly aware of that, but I was wondering
whether it had been specifically considered.
Mr. HAWLEY. Was it not stated before us last year that the Gov-
ernment would be expected to share the profits of these forests with
those States, or find some other way to compensate them ?
Governor GUILD. I was unfortunately unable to be present at the
hearing of last year, much as I desire to be here, but Mr. Ayers
understands that phase of the question and has been present at all
the hearings, and I will call upon him, if you please, the state for-
ester of New Hampshire.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP W. AYERS, STATE FORESTER OF NEW
HAMPSHIRE.
Mr. AYERS. I merely desire to answer the point raised by the chair-
man, that the bill which passed the Senate proposes that these re-
serves in the eastern mountains, if established, shall be conducted in
exactly the same way as the western reserves. I think it has been
decided by the Forest Service to be a fact that the western reserves
turned back the portion of the incomes in which those counties are
located.
The CHAIRMAN. You understand that it further developed in these
hearings that the price of lands now having workable timber upon
them would be so high that nobody would advocate their purchase,
including the timber, and that the best that could be expected would
be that we could buy the land with the privilege to the owner of
removing the merchantable timber. That being true, of course we
could not expect to get any revenue until the second growth became
available, so that there would be a period of from five to one hundred
years before a return could be possible.
32 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Mr. AYERS. If the governor will permit me, as far as the White
Mountains are concerned — and I am familiar with the White Moun-
tains— there are various kinds of land which would necessarily be
giving a return, even in a small tract of 25,000 acres. Being the for-
ester for Dartmouth College and having under my personal charge
a tract of 26,000 acres, I know that even though that has been cut
over, we are able to get an annual revenue of from ten to fifteen
thousand dollars from that particular cut-over forest. That is ex-
actly what we want to do in other places of the White Mountains. If
you take a tract as large as 25,000 acres already, there is certain to be
mature timber, and a certain part of that revenue will go to the
county.
The CHAIRMAN. Can you give us an idea of the price that land
containing that timber could be bought for?
Mr. AYRES. Land in the White Mountains can be had, according
to the degree to which it is cut over, some more and some less, from
$1 to $20 per acre.
Governor GUILD. Before going further with the hearing, of course
it is thoroughly understood that the committee is seeking for infor-
mation, and therefore, of course, the examination of our expert wit-
nesses has become a necessity. We recognize that, but unfortunately
it is a fact that thereby a number of prominent representatives of the
various States may be prevented from testifying at all, and I should
like to state, as a part of the record, with your permission, that we
expected to have introduced this morning, as sympathizing with and
behind this movement and asking for its adoption, Governor Hoke
Smith, of Georgia; Governor Martin F. Ansel, of South Carolina;
Governor Kollin S. Woodruff, of Connecticut; Governor N. C.
Blanchard, of Louisiana ; Governor John A. Johnson, of Minnesota,
and President George E. Barstow, of the National Irrigation Con-
gress. These gentlemen were all ready to speak this morning.
Whether it will be possible for them to come here this afternoon I do
not know, but I am sure you will not object to having the list of their
names. ,
The CHAIRMAN. The committee will take official notice that those
gentlemen would have favored this measure if they could have ap-
peared before us.
Governor GUILD. Governor Pardee, of California, is here, and I
shall call upon him next for a few words.
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE C. PARDEE, EX-GOVERNOR OF
CALIFORNIA.
Governor PARDEE. Understand, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of
the committee, that my name will be entered in this distinguished
list, not because it is distinguished, but because I am here. I wish
to add this to what has already been said: I know of no way by
which government supervision, be it state or national, of privately
owned lands can be effectively carried out along the lines for which
this bill provides in all cases. If the forests be taken when they are
in their prime and before they have been cut and burned over and
the police power of the States first, and then, if necessary, of the
nation thereafter, be invoked to preserve them, a supervision without
public ownership might, and probably would, be sufficient, but there
are many places in my own State, and I apprehend the same thing
applies to the Appalachian and also to the White Mountain regions,
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 33
where the state of affairs has gone beyond that, and in those cases I
have no doubt in the world that there should be public ownership;
whether of the States or of the nation is a question to be decided by
the relative powers of the two governments, state and national, to
acquire those tracts of land. My own State has done something,
other States are doing more, toward that end. But I apprehend that
you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of this committee, will agree with
me when I say that it is more than a state issue. It is a question
which applies in the Appalachians, to California, and Oregon. I
believe thoroughly and heartily, gentleman of the committee, in the
question of cooperation as between the individual States and the
nation, but there are certain occasions, and"! believe that those have
been arising in the Appalachians and also in the White Mountains — I
know they have arisen in my own State — where it is not a question of
cooperation between the Government and the private ownership, but
public ownership, either of the State or of the nation, shall be
acquired.
Mr. POLLARD. Will you describe those conditions, Governor ?
Governor PARDEE. When the forests have been cut and burned
extensively, where great waste is going on, where the streams have
filled up, where the harbors at the mouths of those streams are filling
up and have filled up, then the strong arm of the Government should
come in, either of the State or of the nation, and take charge of that
affair and see that it is absolutely stopped.
Mr. POLLARD. May I ask you a question?
Governor PARDEE. A dozen.
Mr. POLLARD. I take it, Governor, that all of those who favor the
preservation of these forests are not so much concerned about the
means as about the end. It is the end that we are seeking to attain.
That is, we want to accomplish the preservation of the forests and the
uniformity of the stream flow, rather than to be wedded to any par-
ticular method.
Governor PARDEE. Yes, sir.
Mr. POLLARD. It is the end.
Now, t then, this committee has been led to believe that the only
manner by which the Government can either supervise or purchase
the desired land is under that provision of the Constitution which
gives Congress jurisdiction over commerce, and the Judiciary Com-
mittee holds that the only lands that we could buy, even it we want to
go out to purchase lands, would be those lands that had a direct bear-
ing on navigation, and that other lands were out of the question. I
am not a lawyer, and it does not matter to me whether you and I
agree to that or not, but that is the opinion they have handed down.
Inquiry develops, to my mind at any rate, this fact, that if the
Government can go and buy a tract of land for the purpose of aiding
navigation by the preservation of the forests on the rivers, it can also
go in under the same constitutional power and regulate the manner
in which the private owners shall control that land, so far as it has
a bearing on navigation, and that the same constitutional authority
gives the right to do one as it does to do the other. Why can not the
Government, if that be true, exercise a supervision over such a tract of
land as you have described, just as well if it bears on navigation in one
case as the other?
72538— AGR— 09 3
34 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Governor PARDEE. Would that not, in very many cases, be practical
confiscation ?
Mr. POLLARD. The bill to which I refer provides for payment in
such cases.
Governor PARDEE. Then, practically, the Government is buying the
land.
Mr. POLLARD. If the damages cover the value of the land, yes.
Governor PARDEE. And it must, in those cases, because otherwise
the land can not be used for any purpose to which the owner has
been in the custom of using the land, and therefore it is confiscation.
Mr. POLLARD. In that case the Government would have to pay
for it.
Governor PARDEE. Which is a practical purchase by the Govern-
ment of the land.
Mr. POLLARD. Practically so.
Governor PARDEE. I have no doubt in the world but what there
should be the cooperation, but speaking with due humility for my
own State, the State of California, and I presume that other States
are in the same condition, especially the newer States are very slow
to move in those matters; but it is for the benefit of the Eastern
States that the State of California shall take up those matters, and
if the State will not take it up the Government itself shall take it up.
Mr. POLLARD. What objection would there be to a plan like this : For
the Forestry Department of the Government, under the direction of
the President, to make a survey of the forest land, say, in the South-
ern Appalachians and the White Mountains — those are the mountains
in question here — and determine what portions of them should be pre-
served as forest reserves, and then, by proclamation, to bring them
under the supervision of the department ? Then the Government goes
out to supervise those lands. The question at once arises as to whether
they have a bearing on navigation, and if it is so held, under the deci-
sions of the Supreme Court, I think the Government has the right to
regulate those lands without any question, just as much as they have
the right to purchase them in the first place.
Governor PARDEE. Undoubtedly.
Mr. POLLARD. Why would not a plan of that kind reach the object,
accomplish the object we are seeking to accomplish, and obviate the
necessity of purchase ?
Governor PARDEE. It would not accomplish all we have to reach,
for the reason that down in the lowest parts there is land that is in
deep trouble, land that is being denuded of its soil, having been
already denuded of its vegetation.
Mr. POLLARD. Would that not come under the terms of the law, if
it were shown that it interfered with navigation ?
Governor PARDEE. Then, would the United States go in and spend
money on private property?
Mr. POLLARD. It would not spend any money there.
Governor PARDEE. Then how could it regulate it?
Mr. POLLARD. It would simply prevent the owner from using the
land in such a way as to excite this erosion.
Governor PARDEE. Therefore take his right of living on the pro-
ceeds of that land away from him and leave him to starve. Confis-
cation, it seems to me, is the absolute result of that proposition car-
ried to that end under those conditions.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 35
Mr. POLLARD. The terms of this bill provide that in such cases he
\vill be reimbursed.
Governor PARDEE. Then the Government purchases the land. [Ap-
plause.] I have no quarrel at all with the proposition that the Gov-
ernment can, under the case decided by the supreme court of Maine,
regulate the use of land that is forested and in good condition, and
it is not taking the land away from the owner. I am no lawyer, by
the way, and I sympathize with you heartily on that. The owner
may still, under the supervision of the State or the Government, use
the land for the purpose for which it is intended — that is, forestry —
and for which he is using it, but he may not denude that land.
Mr. POLLARD. That is true.
Governor PARDEE. This land down in the Appalachians, a good
deal of it, as I am told — I have never been there, but I am so told,
and I believe that is admitted — is already denuded of its forests;
that land is not primarily agricultural land of the best kind and
quality, and that it has been so used, and that it has not only been
denuded of its forests and vegetation, but is now being, and a great
deal of it has been, denuded of its soil. Now, to say to those people
who have denuded it of its forests for agricultural purposes, and be-
cause of the agricultural use of the land it is being denuded of its
soil, that they shall not use that land for agricultural purposes, is,
with due deference, confiscation, and the only thing left for the
Government is to step in and buy the land.
Mr. POLLARD. Granting that to be true, and I am inclined to agree
with you, would it not be just as well to have a general system of
supervision, which you admit, as I understand, would apply to most
cases excepting instances such as you have just described? Then we
would not purchase any of the land, would exercise supervision over
all that where it is only partially, say, removed — partially denuded, I
should say — and the Government then would only purchase, by con-
demnation proceedings, as you have described, those tracts that are
wholly denuded and ought to be brought back into forest condition.
Governor PARDEE. Except those slopes of the forest land, and I am
told that very large tracts of such exist, where any cutting of the
timber would lead to its denudation, not only of the vegetation of the
forest growing upon it, but also of the soil itself, there the Govern-
ment, in justice to the owners of it, must go in and buy in order to
preserve the status quo. Otherwise we simply say to the man that he
may own the land and derive no benefits from it ; must pay taxes on
it, but can not use it for the purposes for which he bought it. There-
fore, to my notion, there is a manner given for the Government to act
under those circumstances — the government of either the State or the
nation — to buy that land and use it for the purpose for which nature
designed it to be used, and for which the Government of the United
States desires it to be used, as a protection for the rivers, the streams,
the harbors.
Mr. POLLARD. Under a plan where the Government went in there
under supervision and prevented the cutting of anything but matured
timber?
Governor PARDEE. I am told that there are some places there where
even the cutting of the matured timber would make trouble. I am
also told that a great area of that country has already been cut and
is being cut at a very rapid rate.
36 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
The CHAIRMAN. Will you permit me to suggest right there that I
think that is an exaggeration of the existing conditions ? Of course,
I do not mean to say that I have traveled all over the Southern Ap-
palachians, but I did spend a week in a part of North Carolina,
where I was advised to go by a very enthusiastic advocate of this
project, because it was stated that the worst conditions resulting from
the denudation of the forests were to be found there that could be
found anywhere. I think it would be conservative to say that not
to exceed 10 per cent of the total area of the mountain sides was de-
voted to farming— denuded.
Governor PARDEE. I know nothing of that at all.
The CHAIRMAN. I merely wanted to have that statement go in,
because I think it was conveying the wrong impression to give out
the idea that a great proportion of the country is denuded.
Governor PARDEE. Would you permit me to call your attention
again to a statement made by Doctor Van Hise, which struck me
as the meat of this whole proposition — that there are great areas
of that country which never should have been and never should be
put to agricultural purposes, and that those properties are the 10 per
cent which have already been put there, and that the other 90 per
cent of those districts should never be put to agricultural uses.
The CHAIRMAN. I saw the slopes in North Carolina, which, coming
from the Kansas, where our land lies as it should lie, I should have
said ought never to have been devoted to farming, and yet it belonged
to men who said that they would not part with it for less than $20
an acre, because they were raising crops on it every year.
Governor PARDEE. No doubt.
The CHAIRMAN. And therefore it might become a serious question
as to whose judgment should determine.
Governor PARDEE. Finally, Mr. Chairman, experientia has doceted
me [laughter1] that finally }7ou must come to the expert and take
his views ; that the blacksmith must shoe the horse best ; he may now
and then lame a horse, but he can shoe the horse best. I have been
dragged a little away from my proposition, which was simply this,
that where cooperation is possible, and in a great many cases it is,
that that is the thing; that where the States will not or can not or
do not do as they should do in those matters, then the Government
of the United States, in defense of itself and in defense of its people,
should step in; that where necessary purchases should be made by
the State, where the thing can be regulated by the State or, if neces-
sary, finally by the Government, and where that regulation is itself
sufficient, then regulation is enough. But that no purchases should
be made, speaking from the standpoint of the Californian, I deny.
[Applause.]
Mr. HAWLEY. Was that case you referred to from Maine a deci-
sion on the case, or was it an advisory opinion handed down by the
court to the legislature ?
Governor PARDEE. It was an advisory opinion.
STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK D. CURRIER, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Mr. CURRIER. Mr. Chairman, I wish very briefly to present some
facts bearing on the question of whether the removal of forests from
the mountains affects in a material way the uniform flow of navi-
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 37
gable streams in the East. For twenty years the Government has
been conducting stream measurements at Plymouth, on the Pemige-
wassett River, which is a main branch of the Merrimac, and I have
here a chart made for me by the Geological Survey showing the
result of those measurements, and, by the way, the measurements
began in 1886 and cover the twenty-year period down to 1906. It
was about that time that the great cuttings began in the White Moun-
tains, particularly on the southern slopes, the Pemigewassett rising
on the southern slopes of the mountains. You will see from that
chart, Mr. Chairman, that the low-water period has increased from
nine hundred days in a ten-year period to one thousand three hundred
days, or four hundred days in a ten-year period, running up sharply
from the nine hundred period to the thirteen hundred, while the
rainfall has remained almost the same, this line here indicating the
rainfall. This chart states the persistency of low-water stages on
the Pemigewassett River by progressive ten-year periods, showing
number of days in each period from 1886 to 1906 that gauge at
Plymouth, N. H., registered 2.5 feet and below. Also corresponding
mean annual rainfall for progressive ten-year periods. The chart
gives striking evidence, it seems to me, of the effect of removing the
forests from the White Mountain region, for that was about the time
the cuttings on that slope began. I wish each member of the com-
mittee would look at this chart, and I file it as one of the exhibits.
I do not know how it may be in the Southern Appalachians, but all
we need protected are the high, steep slopes in the White Mountain
country. All the rest will reforest itself. It is only on the high
slopes, when the forest is taken off, the soil is all washed away down
to the bare granite rock.
The CHAIRMAN. Does that extend all the way to the bottom of the
mountain?
Mr. CURRIER. No ; it is only on the high, steep slopes.
The CHAIRMAN. When the lower part of the mountain is refor-
ested, does it not serve as a sort of retarder ?
Mr. CURRIER. Not if you have a mile and a half of bare rock above
you, where every drop of rain will run off in thirty minutes.
Mr. WEEKS. You should have used the words " burned away."
Mr. CURRIER. Yes; burned away, because the fire burns off the
growths in the burned-over areas. The fires that come from cut-
over lands extend into the virgin growth, but it is rarely indeed that
a fire.starts in the virgin growth. But what we need is protection for
the timber land for the higher slopes that never can reforest them-
selves.
The CHAIRMAN. Is it, in your judgment, a question of fire pro-
tection, largely?
Mr. CURRIER. No; fire is a very important factor in it. Fire starts
in your cut-over lands, started by hunters in the fall. As the hunting
season opens early, the timber is dry, and the fire starts and gets
under tremendous headway in those cut-over lands, but I scarcely
ever heard of a fire starting in a virgin growth,
Mr. HAWLEY. Did I understand that you had continuous slopes a
mile and a half long in the White Mountains ?
Mr. CURRIER. I think so.
The CHAIRMAN. Has New Hampshire any fire patrol ?
200045
38 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Mr. CURRIER. Not any. I do not know, but apparently there has
been an intimation that New Hampshire ought to have gone ahead
and established this reserve. It is too great a work for this little
State, and I want to state that four New England States are more
interested in that question than New Hampshire is. Substantially
every river of any consequence in New England rises right there in
the White Mountains, and those rivers flow into every New England
State except Rhode Island. Take the Connecticut in four of them.
The Merrimac supports two great cities in Massachusetts that would be
flag stations on the railroad if it was not for the water of that river-
Lowell and Lawrence. The Saco, that rises in the White Mountains,
is not utilized at all in New Hampshire. The Androscoggin is used
at only one point and passes on into Maine. They support great
cities, and the Connecticut, that flows between New Hampshire and
Vermont, across the Massachusetts line, is not utilized by the State of
New Hampshire. Every manufacturing plant on the Connecticut
opposite New Hampshire is located in Vermont.
The CHAIRMAN. Of course we can not take the question of water
power in the stream.
Mr. CURRIER. I am talking about navigation, not about water
power, although I take it that it would not be an objection in the
minds of this committee that it would serve to give employment to
tens of thousands of people if you could do that as an incident.
The CHAIRMAN. Undoubtedly not. But mav I ask you this ques-
tion, whether any data has been prepared showing to what extent the
water power has been diminished ?
Mr. CURRIER. I just presented it to you, four hundred days in a
ten-year period, four hundred days more of low water than there was*
ten years ago.
The CHAIRMAN. That might be true and yet the water might not
be low enough to result in a loss of power.
Mr. CURRIER. Even now we have to have an auxiliary steam plant
and machinery, and if we undertake to run with steam alone, with
coal as high as it is, we would close our plants; and all along those
rivers the leading industries have auxiliary steam plants.
The CHAIRMAN. Have any data ever been prepared showing the
difference in actual horsepower of the water power developed now
and developed in a similar period?
Mr. CURRIER. No; I would think not; except that when you have
got what they call the low-water period at Plymouth, you inay be
sure that the water is not furnishing much power at the manufac-
turing cities of Manchester, Lowell, and Lawrence, and that period
has increased forty days in a year. Pardon me if I make one sugges-
tion as to Mr. Pollard's proposition about the government regula-
tion. The lands we need to acquire can not be gotten under govern-
ment supervision or regulation. When you get lands on the high
slopes in New England, you have got to get every single thing. You
go in there and thin out your matured trees, and the next winter
the wind will bring down all those left.
The CHAIRMAN. How do they ever get to be big, then ?
Mr. CURRIER. Because they have grown up almost a solid mass.
You go in there and take out half the trees. No one has ever seen
a New England forest cleared out but that he finds on the high slopes
that the trees are blown down.
FOEEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATEESHBDS. 39
Mr. POLLARD. Is that on account of the shallowness of the soil?
Mr. CURRIER. Principally that; a great many of the trees have
been simply turned over. I do not know that I have anything more
to say.
Mr. HASKINS. Is it the lumber interests of the White Mountains or
the farming interests that have denuded the lands?
Mr. CURRIER. The lumber interests.
Mr. HASKINS. Entirely so?
Mr. CURRIER. The lumber interests. The chairman was speaking
about the floods caused by the snows going off. What my friend,
Mr. Weeks, said about that is true. Half those lands, or great patches
everywhere, are cleared. I live in the mountains at home. Half of
the country about me is forest, and from the other half the snow
goes off before the snows in the forests move at all. We never have
freshets when we have a heavy snowfall. When we have 3 or 4 feet
of snow in the woods we never look for freshets, because that amount
of snow will stand a thirty-six hour rain before it will let out a drop.
We look for freshets when we have 5 or 6 inches of snow ; that is, in
the fall, when it all goes off with a warm rain.
The CHAIRMAN. I notice the statement, which is attributed to Mr.
Ayers, to this effect : " The farms in the Connecticut Valley are
among the richest in the State, that is, in New Hampshire, and have
been less abandoned than elsewhere. There is, however, a goodly
acreage, amounting to 25 per cent, which was cleared land in 1850
and which has reverted to forests, much of it good white pine for-
ests." And I have seen elsewhere that the watershed of the Connec-
ticut Eiver above Holyoke is very much better forested now than it
was forty years ago.
Mr. CURRIER. All through my own section, which is about halfway
up the State, in the Connecticut Valley, we have more forests than
we had fifty years ago. I want to say another thing. It has been
suggested that the diminution of stream flow has been largely caused
by drainage in clearing the lands. I want to say that that does not
apply to tEe Pemigewassett at Plymouth. All along this river there
is less tillage land than there was fifty years ago, and more woodland.
The CHAIRMAN. How do you square that with the argument that
it is the denudation of all the woodland that creates the floods ?
Mr. CURRIER. The denudation is at the head of these streams
around the White Mountains, where this enormous cutting is taking
place. [Applause.] We are not asking the Government to buy any
lands down in the low hills and the flat country. That will reforest
itself; it does it with marvelous quickness. My own section is a
white-pine section. I have a neighbor who three times in his life-
time has cut over his pine lands completely.
Mr. HAWLEY. How large would the trees be ?
Mr. CURRIER. Forty thousand feet to the acre, board measure.
The CHAIRMAN. When you speak of the watershed of a river, I at
least get the idea that you mean the entire watershed.
Mr. CURRIER. I did not mean the entire watershed.
The CHAIRMAN. But when you say that the watershed is better
forested now than it was fifty years ago, it would really seem to me
that we ought to find out what relation that has to the flow.
Mr. CURRIER. Not the lower reaches of the river, but the reaches
of the river as it comes out of the mountains. If you could see the
40 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
slopes of the White Mountains yourself, any of you gentlemen, some
of them with a stupendous growth and others cut as clean as Mr.
Hale described it to-day, you would realize that those snows, all left
open to the sun, going off rapidly, and with the rains coming down
on it and the soil being washed on the upper slopes, leaving bare
granite; every drop of water runs off.
The CHAIRMAN. If the denudation there results in bare granite
and has resulted already in bare granite, and if you can not raise a
little tree without the protection of larger trees, what would you
have the Government do in case it purchased that?
Mr. CURRIER. Those slopes that have not been cut over have not
a very valuable growth on the upper slopes; the prices are small.
There is a growth there which is worth cutting now if those lands
could be purchased. Under those operations the soil itself all washes
away, and nothing can be done. The mountains that have been cut
over in my State, which are more than 3,000 feet high, have got now
from 500 to 1,000 feet down to bare rock, and they used to be cov-
ered over the summit with trees.
Mr. POLLARD. What would be the cost of this land which you spoke
of a moment ago that you want the Government to purchase ?
Mr. CURRIER. It is difficult to lumber there, and they are short-
bodied trees, as they call them. I could not tell you the cost ; but they
are not particularly valuable ; nothing like the value of the great pine
growths of the lower slopes.
Mr. POLLARD. Could you approximate it?
Mr. CURRIER. No.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you think the upper slopes, which you de-
scribed as bare granite, should be purchased in any scheme of this
kind?
Mr. CURRIER. Possibly not; but I would purchase clear up to the
timber line. Nobody expects you to purchase the top of Mount Wash-
ington. The bare rock up there is worth $3,000 or $4,000. Nobody
wants that purchased ; but purchase as high up as the timber goes.
The CHAIRMAN. I would like to suggest to the gentlemen here, we
do not want to give the wrong impression. The questions that are
being asked by the chairman and the gentlemen of the committee are
asked for the purpose of eliciting information. They are asked to
meet objections we hear on every hand.
Mr. CURRIER. Any information I can possibly give, you know I
will.
The CHAIRMAN. You will understand, I know, Mr. Currier; I
want the rest of the gentlemen to understand that any question is
not asked as a question of objection or controversy, but in absolute
good faith. [Applause.]
Mr. HAWLEY. As to the matter of forest reproduction, that was a
matter in which we are greatly interested. I asked a question a
moment ago, and I have been figuring. If I understood you cor-
rectly, you said that one man, in his lifetime, had cut over his land
three times.
Mr. CURRIER. White-pine growth.
Mr. HAWLEY. At the average of about 40,000 feet to the acre?
Mr. CURRIER. Yes.
Mr. HAWLEY. That would be 120,000 produced on 1 acre of land
in a man's lifetime?
FOKEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 41
Mr. CURRIER. Yes.
Mr. HAWLEY. Or about 20,000,000 feet in a quarter section?
Mr. CURRIER. Yes.
Mr. HAWLEY. That is a remarkable reproduction of timber.
Mr. AYERS. That is not in the mountains.
Mr. HAWLEY. Anywhere.
Mr. CURRIER. There is no pine after you get up 2,000 or 3,000 feet.
Governor GUILD. Are those lands in that part of New Hampshire
in which it is contemplated to purchase forests ?
Mr. CURRIER. No.
Governor GUILD. Then that does not enter into this subject, does it?
Mr. CURRIER. No; he was speaking about the reforestation of the
low slopes.
Governor GUILD. Exactly; but we are talking to this particular
proposition.
Mr. WEEKS. Conditions are very different in the White Mountains
from what they are in the Southern Appalachians ?
Mr. CURRIER. Very much.
Mr. WEEKS. The lands that you propose to purchase in the White
Mountains are those lands where the soil is very thin, and where if
the timber is once cut off and the fire gets in it burns everything as
clean as the walls of this room and it is impossible to do anything
with that in the future. That is what you want to buy. The fact
is, probably, that there is more wooded territory in New Hampshire
than there was fifty years ago, taking the whole State.
Mr. CURRIER. I have no doubt of it.
Mr. WEEKS. But that is not true around the headwaters of these
rivers ?
Mr. CURRIER. Not at all. Fifty years ago it was an absolutely vir-
gin growth.
Mr. WEEKS. And what you want to buy in the White Mountains
are those slopes which have not been cut off yet ; and if they are once
cut off will leave a bare surface that will precipitate all the moisture
that strikes them in a short time ?
Mr. CURRIER. Just that, Mr. Weeks.
Mr. HAWLEY. How large would a tree be that this man would get
off this land? How many inches through at the point of cutting
would it be ?
Mr. CURRIER. I suppose 14 to 18 inches.
Mr. HAWLEY. And that would be reproduced three times in the
lifetime of the man ?
Mr. CURRIER. This old man, 83 or 84 years old, told me last winter
that for the third time in his lifetime he cut over his land.
The CHAIRMAN. As I understand it, then, the problem in the
White Mountains is not the protection of the lower slopes, because
they protect themselves, and it is not the purchase of the upper slopes
that are now denuded ?
Mr. CURRIER. It is not like the Southern Appalachians.
The CHAIRMAN. Let me finish my statement. It is not the pur-
chase of the upper slopes that are already denuded, because they can
not be reforested. It is the purchase of upper slopes that have not
been cut over in order that they may be protected ?
Mr. CURRIER. That is just it.
42 FOEEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATEESHEDS.
The CHAIRMAN. I believe you said a moment ago that you did not
believe the situation could be taken care of with an effective fire
control ; that even without fire going over these upper slopes the mere
lumbering would result in washing away the soil ?
Mr. CURRIER. It is very apt to. Everything the lumbermen leave
is blown down. The bare, rocky soil is only a few inches thick, and
it turns up, disclosing bare granite rock.
Mr. WEEKS. Do you not think the State of New Hampshire ought
to organize an effective fire control?
Mr. CURRIER. I want to say that the State of New Hampshire will
give you any aid. Beyond all question, in my mind, if the Govern-
ment should take the first step, the State would make purchases direct
from the treasury. On the matter of tax, these mountain towns are
largely supported by appropriations from the state treasury to-day.
The taking of this property away from taxation would simply put a
little more burden on the treasury, because we largely support their
schools in these wood towns.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you tax the land uniformly in your white-pine
country, or do you tax the lumber as it is cut?
Mr. CURRIER. No; we tax the land. We are supposed to tax it at
its full value, but timber lands are not taxed at the full value, and
particularly the great tracts in the north of the State.
Mr. WEEKS. Do you think it would be inadvisable, if a bill is re-
ported from this committee to purchase lands in any State, that it
should be made conditional that a fire control should be established
in the State before it is purchased ?
Mr. CURRIER. Not at all. Our1 State would be entirely willing to
do that.
Mr. STANLEY. This soil, as I understand you, being very thin, is
not the result of any disintegration of the rock, but is just an accu-
mulation of partially decayed debris from the vegetable growth itself ?
Mr. CURRIER. If it is let alone it gradually becomes that.
Mr. BEALL. What is the general ownership of the land ; is it owned
by private individuals or by corporations?
Mr. CURRIER. Private individuals. I suppose the largest timber
concern is the Berlin mills, which, by the way, is the largest lumber
concern east of Michigan, I believe. They operate under an expert
forester, and where the lands will permit, they take out nothing but
matured trees, their purpose being to have an inexhaustible supply of
lumber, but on the high scopes they can not cut that way.
The CHAIRMAN. Have you heard of any syndicates being formed
in the White Mountains which have taken options upon lands with a
view to their sale to the Government?
Mr. CURRIER. None except some rumors here; nothing there. The
International is a very large timber company, and one or two other
paper companies, the Berlin mills, and I do not know what others.
The CHAIRMAN. You do not express an opinion as to the price at
which this land could be gotten?
Mr. CURRIER. No.
Mr. BEALL. What is the state of feeling of the individual owners
on this question ? Do they seem disposed to favor it ?
Mr. CURRIER. I do not suppose there is a man, woman, or child in
all New England who is not intensely interested in this matter. [Ap-
plause.]
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 43
Governor GUILD. That is true.
Mr. CURRIER. This committee does not realize how much in earnest
we are, and you do not realize, either, the growing feeling in the East
that the East is not getting a fair show. [Applause.] Mr. Pinchot
says that the forest reserves west of the Mississippi Eiver are worth
1,500 million dollars, and we are asking an appropriation for all this
country east of the Mississippi of one-third of 1 per cent, and we
think we ought to have it. [Applause.]
Governor GUILD. Mr. Chairman, I regret extremely that my duties
in Massachusetts make it imperative for me to leave at this time.
The meeting of the executive council has been postponed for twenty-
four hours for the express purpose of letting the chief executive of
Massachusetts come down here and express the intense feeling of the
people of that Commonwealth in favor of this bill and this proposi-
tion of forest protection for the whole Appalachian region, from the
most northern to the most southern States, and in parting may I
thank you, sir, and members of the committee, for the great courtesy
which has been accorded me and the kindness and patience with
which you have listened to the arguments. I shall take great pleas-
ure in presenting as my successor, Mr. Harvey, of Philadelphia, who
will introduce the speakers. Congressman Currier has not exagger-
ated one moment the intense feeling which prevails in New England
in regard to this matter. There are cities in New England which
can not run their electric-light plants, and they are now in darkness
on account of the drought. There are rivers' in Massachusetts, the
banks of which have, for the first time, become coated with sewage
owing to the lack of the water flow. That, we are informed by the
experts in arboriculture, is due to the denudation of the regions at
the headwaters of the great rivers of New England, and I think Mr.
Ayers will bear me out that whether an exaggerated statement has
or has not been made in regard to the southern Appalachians, the
condition has not been exaggerated in regard to the White Mountain
region, for if the thing continues at the headwaters of the New Eng-
land rivers at the present rate, the upper slopes there, which we need,
wil be denuded of trees in five years, and therefore we pray you for
immediate action and for the strong arm of the National Government
in behalf of the Atlantic slopes. I thank you very much. [Ap-
plause.]
The CHAIRMAN. Governor Guild, the committee has felt honored,
I am sure, by your presence here to-day, and regrets very much that
you can not remain throughout the entire hearing.
We will now listen to Mr. Harvey.
STATEMENT OF ME. WILLIAM S. HARVEY, OF PHILADELPHIA.
Mr. HARVEY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, in succeeding our
splendid chairman, which honor I appreciate, and also appreciate
how incompetent I am to properly succeed him, I will only say on
behalf of the many persons here that I was sent here to represent the
National Board of Trade, being chairman of the committee on for-
estry and irrigation; that the National Board of Trade, which repre-
sents about 72 boards of trade and chambers of commerce throughout
the entire United States, have advocated forestry measures for more
than fifteen years. They were among the first advocates of the
44 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
creation of the Forest Bureau, for having transferred to the Forest
Bureau all the lands that were in the possession of the Department of
the Interior that were suitable to be made into reserves, to be cared for
under proper forestry conditions. So the National Board of Trade
feel that the condition at the present time that has been attained,
the education that has developed, the interest that has brought about
and created a conservation commission, that the whole country,
through the educational work that has taken place throughout these
years, has become alive to the importance of the conservation and the
utilization of all of our natural resources. I am also here on behalf
of the deep waterways* and inland waterways people, being identified
and associated with them. I also have the privilege and the honor to
be the chairman of the executive committee of the American Forestry
Association, and we have worked for many years to help to develop
and create the sentiment that is making what we want done now
possible to be done. We believe, looking at it as we do from the
commercial side and not from the sentimental side, that the most
important thing we have to consider is the preservation and the
intelligent utilization of our forests, especially on the headwaters of
all of our streams, if inland waterways are to be developed and trans-
portation is to be furnished, not only for the present, but for the
future; that the preservation of the forests and reforestation, and
the proper use of them, are the fundamental and underlying ques-
tions that are involved in the whole question of conservation and
utilization of waterways.
I am not going to burden you gentlemen with an address. I did
not come here to do that. I did not come here with any expectation
of acting further than as a spectator. I came here " swift to hear
but slow to speak." But the people of Pennsylvania, whom I also
represent as a member of the conservation commission of the State
of Pennsylvania, and had the privilege of representing that State at
the conference at the White House as well, are doing, and have done,
and have been pioneers in doing, what has been suggested that the
States shall do in your hearing to-day. The State of Pennsylvania
took this matter up more than fifteen years ago. We now own
830,000 acres of land, much of which was bought, I think, at the
averaging price of a little less than $3 per acre. The State is reforest-
ing. I visited plantations of the State last summer. They have
millions of seedlings. They are planting out this year about 800,000
pine trees on the reserves, and the State of Pennsylvania will within
ten years have an income from her reserves. Not only that, but the
State of Pennsylvania has been the pioneer in one of the most magnifi-
cent things that has ever been done by any State, and it shows. Take
the city of Philadelphia, which is known as the " City of Brotherly
Love." Its influence has extended throughout the entire State, and
that praiseworthy element has so influenced the people of the entire
State that their interest in suffering humanity has been so great that
our legislature appropriated $1,000,000 a year ago for the establish-
ment of camps for tuberculosis patients on the reserves of the State,
and that work is now being done as an example to every State on
behalf of those who are suffering from what has heretofore been con-
sidered an incurable disease. I visited these camps last summer.
The week before T was there 1C men and women had been sent
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 45
home cured, after a residence of nine months, and Pennsylvania is
the pioneer in that great work. New York has commenced to do the
same thing. New York to-day has a million and a half acres in her
reserves. Now, Pennsylvania is not asking the Government to pur-
chase any lands for them. I am here as a Pennsylvanian.
The CHAIRMAN. I beg your pardon, but I thought there was a
project on hand to induce the Government to purchase a large tract
of land in the watershed of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers.
Mr. HARVEY. At a meeting at Pittsburg I believe that was con-
sidered.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what sentiment there is back of it;
whether in case the precedent should be set, for example, by the
passage of this bill, we might expect next year to have a proposal
from Pennsylvania to buy a large area in that State?
Mr. HARVEY. Mr. Chairman, I think the suggestion grew out
of some of the suggestions that were made to extend the Appalachian
reserve all the way up to Pennsylvania, to protect some of the waters.
Nothing much grew out of that. It was not a matter by which Penn-
sylvania was in anyway benefited, just as New Hampshire is not bene-
fited by the use of the waters that have their origin in the State of
New Hampshire. A number of our great rivers have their origin in
the mountains of Pennsylvania, in the Alleghenies.
The CHAIRMAN. I made the remark only to call your attention to
the fact that the proposition which is now before us, of purchasing
tracts in the White and Appalachian mountains, is by no means all
that we are asked to consider. There are bills before this committee
calling for appropriations for similar purchases in a great many
other States, and while I think there is none from Pennsylvania, yet
I had understood that a movement was in abeyance there, merely
waiting favorable action upon this bill.
Mr. HARVEY. I do not think that Pennsylvania is liable to seriously
urge that. I hope you gentlemen will excuse me for taking so much
of your time. I simply intended to act as the medium of introduc-
tion of the other gentlemen who are to be heard, and the next gentle-
man on our list is Professor Swain, of the technology school at Boston.
STATEMENT OF PROF. G. F. SWAIN, OF THE MASSACHUSETTS IN-
STITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.
Professor SWAIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the commit-
tee, I had the honor of appearing before you last spring, and I was
in hopes that on this occasion it would not be necessary to call upon
me again, but that other experts might be brought in my stead. I am
very glad that Professor Van Hise appeared before you and that he
and others have said a good deal of what ought to be said much bet-
ter than I could say it. Since last spring there have been some new
things come up in regard to the relation of rivers and forests, and to
those I will refer somewhat briefly.
The effect of the forests on the streams is concerned mainly with
the effect on the rainfall after it reaches the ground. That rainfall,
after it reaches the ground, is divided into three parts. One part
flows directly from the surface into streams, another part wets the
46 FOBEST LANDS FOB THE PBOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS.
ground and the leaves and whatever may be on the surface and is
evaporated, and the third part percolates into the ground and either
descends until it gets to the ground water and is given out in springs
or part of it is taken up by plants and used by them in building up
their tissues and part of it again is evaporated through their leaves.
The preservation of the flow of the streams depends mainly on keep-
ing the percolation of the water into the ground at the expense of
what flows directly from the surface. That we can reduce, but later,
of course, it percolates into the ground, then the flow will be dimin-
ished and the springs will be held up in the dry season of the year.
That is what the forest does. The forest bed or floor absorbs the
water as it come down and gives it out gradually, and I think a mis-
apprehension, perhaps, exists in regard to the simile which has been
made to a sponge, and in that paper which the chairman had that
mistake is made fundamentally.
The forest floor is not like a sponge or a-n impervious surface. It
does not simply intercept the water which flows down that impervious
surface and filter it as it passes through it and give it out gradually
below. The real sponge, the real reservoir, is the soil underneath
the bed of the forest humus, and this bed holds the water and allows
it to gradually percolate or flow into the soil. A distinction must
be made, and a rather sharp one, between the action of forests where
the land is flat and where the land is steep. Where the land is flat
the most important elements are the evaporation and the percola-
tion; if the land is absolutely flat there would be no tendency for
the water to run off ; but where the ground is steep there the action
of the forest is the most important, and there its action is two-
fold. As I said, it retards the delivery into the the streams of the
water which ultimately reaches those streams; it holds the water
and delivers it gradually to the ground beneath. It is also a great
factor during the winter and spring in retarding snow. The snow
which falls in the forest stays there much longer than the snow which
falls in the open, and it is melted gradually, and therefore is deliv-
ered gradually to the streams and fills them up more gradually than if
it went off all at once. There are other ways besides these agencies of
increasing the percolation. One is cultivation, where the surface of
the ground is plowed up; that increases the percolation and allows
the streams to be fed, to a certain extent, during the growing season,
and on steep slopes, which ought not to be cultivated, or can not be
cultivated, the forest is practically the only agency which is useful
in conserving this flow of the stream. The flow from the forest,
then, is delivered gradually to the streams. It feeds the springs,
keeps up the slow water flow, prevents the water from going off sud-
denly into the streams, and, furthermore, prevents the erosion,
because the soil is not carried away by the flowing water. Therefore
the relation between the forest and the floods is a perfect and neces-
sary one, and the opinion of engineers, scientists, and geologists all
over the world is overwhelmingly in favor of that influence.
As the chairman has undoubtedly seen in the South, if anything
absorbs the flow from a cultivated area the water flowing from the
steep slopes carries down the soil, and the rush of water obstructs the
flow below. Of course, the silt which comes from the mountain is
deposited in the first pool. The water takes up the silt according to
FOEEST LANDS 'FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 47
its velocity and according to the size of the grains of soil. It de-
posits them according as its velocity decreases and it is no longer
able to carry that silt. And so, as it goes down the stream, it erodes
here where its velocity is great and deposits there where its velocity
is small, and so it gradually carries the mass of soil to the sea. It
always carries some down, and although it may take years for silt to
reach the sea from the mountains, it finally reaches there.
The CHAIRMAN. Of course, the silting process takes place in flat
countries as well as in mountain countries. The streams in Kansas,
for example, which, before the country was settled, were clear streams
with rock or gravel bottoms, are now covered with a thick deposit,
3 to 6 feet in the deeper pools, of mud washed in from the surround-
ing farms.
Professor SWAIN. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. We could hardly put the country back into prairie
grass in order to restore the streams, could we?
Professor SWAIN. No, sir; but you could protect the upper parts
of the streams, where the floods arise.
The CHAIRMAN. That is the point I want to make. It is on the
mountain slopes where the floods take their rise.
Professor SWAIN. And if those can be protected the floods will
be diminished. We can not, however, obviate floods. There will
always be floods, and I will explain that presently. In 1898 there
was a report of a committee on floods of the Mississippi River, and
of that committee Senator Nelson was chairman. In the report they
stated that they were unable to find any relation between the cutting
down of the woods on the upper Mississippi River and the floods of
the Mississippi. The explanation is perfectly reasonable. I pre-
sume that committee did not go into any very elaborate study of the
phenomena, as they did not have time to do it, and yet I am perfectly
ready to admit the general truth of that conclusion. The reason is
that that is a flat country, and there could be no relation traced be-
tween the floods and the cutting down of timber. That same report
states that all of the great floods of the Mississippi come from the
Ohio. There you have the thing in a nutshell. The Ohio drains
the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains. I think it might have
been said that the floods come from the upper portions of the Ohio
in the mountain regions. That is the birthplace of the floods, where
they gather, in the steep mountain sides and are carried down to the
streams.
The CHAIRMAN. Does not the watershed increase in area as you
approach the navigable portions of the stream ?
Professor SWAIN. Certainly.
The CHAIRMAN. And is it not likely, therefore, as a matter of fact,
that the greater portion of the water which causes the flood falls upon
that part of the watershed immediately tributary to the navigable
portion, and not on the comparatively restricted area of the upper
tributaries ?
Professor SWAIN. I think not. I think the birthplace of the floods
is in the high mountain slopes, and that the control there will
have a great deal more efficacy than the control anywhere else. In
studying this matter there are great difficulties in tracing their con-
nections, and I would like to dwell upon that just for a minute. The
reason of the difficulty is that we can not isolate the phenomena of
48 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
the forests from other influences which affect the flow. Let me illus-
trate by a very homely and unpoetic illustration. If I wish to find the
effect of tea and coffee on my child, who has never taken tea or coffee,
I do not give tea and coffee together. If I give her tea and coffee
together and there is an effect, I am utterly in the dark ; it may be due
to the coffee and not at all to the tea ; it may be due entirely to the
tea and not to the coffee. It may be due partly to the tea and partly
to the coffee. It may be due to neither separately, but simply to the
fact that the two have come together. The influences which affect
the flow of streams and floods are varied, and the other influences are
more important than forests, for instance, rainfall. There is never
a great flood without a great rainfall. The distribution of that rain-
fall during the year is another very important element.
Take the case, for instance, in countries where the rainfall is prin-
cipally in the form of snow, in the winter and spring. It goes off and
forms a flood in the spring. There is little rainfall during the sum-
mer, and the springs get very dry, and the streams practically are
dry all during the summer. Perhaps the very next year there may be
the same amount of rainfall in the year, but it may be distributed
differently. There may be very little in the spring and winter, but
there may be a large rainfall in the summer. I was looking at a re-
port of a rainfall the other day in which there had been in two con-
secutive years the same rainfall, and yet in one year there was a run-
off of 12 inches and in the next year, the same rainfall, and run-off
with 17 inches. As I say, the influences which are due to the distri-
bution of the rainfall, and so forth, are more important than the
forests, but the forests constitute an influence which can be controlled.
There are just two elements which enter into the problem which can
be controlled. The rainfall can not be controlled; the distribution
of the rainfall through the year can not be controlled. All these
meteorological phenomena, varied as they are, of course are entirely
beyond the control of man. The forests can be controlled, and the
other element which could be controlled is the storage. By forests
and storage together the flow can be regulated to the greatest possible
degree. The storage alone, without ,the control of the forests, would
itself be rather futile, because if the trees are cut down erosion follows
and the reservoirs are more apt to fill up with silt, and in time to lose
their power of storage because they lose their capacity.
President Van Hise has referred to the important study which has
been made the past summer in regard to the rainfall. It is a very
remarkable thing that during the last ten years of the period studied
there were more days of flood than during the first twelve years, and
perhaps a cursory examination would make one come to the conclu-
sion that there had been less floods, therefore, and that cutting down
the trees in the valley had been a fatal influence on the floods. But
when you study the rainfall you will see the explanation, and the
thing that Mr. Leighton has done has been to combine those two as
they have never been combined before. He has taken the number of
rain storms which are sufficient to produce a flood, and he has com-
pared those with the number of days of flood, and the result is per-
lectly definite, as Doctor Van Hise has stated. It shows an increase
of flood in proportion to the days of rainfall, or in proportion to the
number of rain storms, of about 18.75 per cent.
FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 49
The CHAIRMAN. Is that result definite unless you know when the
rains occurred; that is, in what way they came? As you suggested a
little while ago, there might be one year of rainfall that would give
a certain number of floods, and another year of precisely equal rain-
fall that would give a different number of floods, because differently
distributed. m Does Mr. Leighton's report take account of that?
Professor' SWAIN. -It takes some account of that; yes, sir. There
are difficulties in tracing any direct relation, and I think, Mr. Chair-
man, that the proper way to arrive at a conclusion, the way which
appeals to me, is by a study of the elementary influences, a study of
the forest bed. the measurement of the percolation into the soil, and
the actual observation of the way the streams come from the forest
land, and the way they come from the deforested land. Those, I
think, will convince anybody that there must be a relation there
which is definite, and that cutting down the trees has a large effect in
diminishing floods.
I would like to refer briefly to one or two objections which are
sometimes made to that theory. Fifty years ago a French engineer
published a work in which he attempted to show that cutting down
the forests diminished the floods. That had no effect on the French
Government, and evidently was not shared by the government engi-
neers, because the French Government immediately began thereafter
to adopt a forest policy and to expend large sums in the reforesta-
tion of the mountains. Recently, within a few months, an American
engineer, a member of the Corps of the Engineers of the Army, has
published a paper, which the chairman has referred to. in which he
gives almost the identical arguments which were given fifty years ago
by the French engineer. I hope they will be followed by the same
action which was followed in France. One of the arguments made
is that sometimes the forests may increase the flood, as, for instance,
suppose the snow lies late in the forests and there comes a warm rain.
That warm rain carries off the snow and the flood results, and that
flood is larger than would have resulted from that warm rain if the
forests had not retained the snow. That is perfectly clear, but it is
equaly clear that if the forests had not been there that snow would
have gone off in the earlier floods, as Congressman Weeks has sug-
gested, and that those earlier floods would have been largely increased.
The effect of the forest is to distribute the discharge into the stream
in a given amount.
Mr. WEEKS. Do you know any engineer of good standing who
agrees with Colonel Chittenden in his conclusion ?
Professor SWAIN. I have not met with any, sir; and I hope that
the chairman of the committee will read the discussion on Colonel
Chitten den's paper which will appear in the proceedings of the
American society in connection with the paper itself.
The CHAIRMAN. There is one other question more I would like to
ask Mr. Swain, because he has evidently studied this very deeply.
You will remember another argument of Colonel Chittenden is that
the forest will actually diminish the flow of water in a river by rea-
son of absorbing an ordinary rainfall which, if the forests were not
there, would floAv into the stream' and increase its volume, but which,
the forest being there, is absorbed and held and does not get into the
stream in time to do it any good.
72538— AGR— 09 4
50 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Professor SWAIN. That is exactly what we wish to have occur.
We want to have the forest bed absorb the water and thereby give it
out as a benefit.
The CHAIRMAN. His argument is this, that after a long-protracted
drought the streams get no benefit whatever of the small showers that
fall during that interval, as they would if the forests were not there,
but the forest itself is giving out no water, suffering from the general
drought; that the humus and the leaves of the trees themselves take
up this shower and give none of it back to the streams.
Professor SWAIN. The answer to that is, perhaps, another ques-
tion, What happens when there are no showers which fall on those
areas during the summer? We had an example of that in New Eng-
land and over a large section of country this summer. We had a
drought in New England during a period much longer, preventing
the water from running from the extreme headwaters of any of the
streams to the sea. Colonel Chittenden's idea seemed to be that he
admits that the forests keep up the flow of springs, and he says that
because each spring is small you can have all of them dry up without
appreciable effect, and then he goes on to say that the showers will
come on the denuded areas you have on this watershed, and then the
next, and then the next, in such a way as to be properly timed, you
will keep up the low water flow. That will hardly be a safe method
to depend on.
The CHAIRMAN. The drought throughout New England and other
Eastern States this year was more severe than had been known for
one hundred years, practically.
Professor SWAIN. I do not know ; it has been very severe.
The CHAIRMAN. It is not sought to create the impression here that
the conditions which prevailed this year were due solely to the denuda-
tion of the forests?
Professor SWAIN. No; but aggravated by the denudation of the
forests.
Mr. HARVEY. I would like to announce, gentlemen, that as there are
quite a number who are anxious to be heard from, I shall be obliged
to request each gentleman in the future to confine himself within five
minutes, and I shall tap on the table when the five minutes are used
up and give him about half a minute within which to close.
STATEMENT OF MR. W. S. LEE, HYDRAULIC ENGINEER, OF
CHARLOTTE, N. C.
Mr. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I want to confine my remarks to two
questions, which you have asked us to discuss. The first is the flow
of the streams in the Appalachian Mountains, regarding the clearing
of the timber from any particular stream. I have been at work for
several years on different hydraulic problems there, and the first
thing that we do to ascertain the flow is to get some idea of the tim-
bered section that that stream is running through, and you will find
that streams down in North Carolina, upper South Carolina, and
Tennessee will vary in the flow per square mile of run-off — that is,
in cubic feet per second — from 1.2 cubic feet down to 0.28 of a cubic
foot, with practically the same rainfall on the entire area. The
stream that is in the most heavily wooded section furnishes about
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 51
three or four times the amount of water a square mile during the
low-water period, the time that you need water for water power
purposes or for navigation, and you would be surprised to find how
close two streams are and how much they will vary in flow. But
that can be in each case traced absolutely to the amount of cleared
land that you have in the drainage area of that particular stream.
The other point that I wanted to go over slightly was the silt or
sand that is deposited by these streams. I remember very distinctly
about twelve years ago I was on a water-power plant on the Seneca
River, just above the junction of the Seneca and the Tallulah, where
the Savannah River is formed, between North Carolina and Georgia.
The Seneca River was a little to the east, yet went back into the moun-
tains the same as the Tallulah. This river was always muddy, or
carried a great deal of silt and sand. The Tallulah River, that came
into the Savannah, was a clear stream. There was sand and silt all
up the Seneca River. The Tallulah River had very little, if any,
but since that time the Tallulah River is each year gradually becom-
ing muddier and carrying more silt farther up.
The CHAIRMAN. Has that come from the clearing of farm land or
from lumbering operations?
Mr. LEE. That is from both. There is a great deal of lumbering
going on in that immediate section, and this land was only farmed
for two or three years. Where this timber is cut off the ground is very
rich from the deposit of trees, and you can grow a crop for two or
three years very profitably, and then it soon washes away, and there
are plenty of those slopes that are cleared merely for the purpose of
getting two or three crops off them.
The CHAIRMAN. Then there would be a return to the forest ?
Mr. LEE. Yes; they are abandoned and go through a process of
going back to the forest. If they are not too steep they will eventually
reforest themselves. I do not know that I should care to discuss any
other points.
STATEMENT OF MR. D. A. TOMPKINS, OF CHARLOTTE, N. C., PRESI-
DENT OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN ASSOCIATION.
Mr. TOMPKINS. Mr. Chairman, the phase of this subject that I will
undertake to touch upon is the same as Mr. Lee has spoken upon,
but from a little different point of view. I have had the water power
for a company in North Carolina on one of the streams for ten years,
and built a cotton mill to use the water power. I took very great
pains to get what was the preceding high- water mark, in order that
we could put the mill floor above the possibility of water getting
into it, and we made an allowance of 3 feet. Within the period that
this mill has been built there has been a constant denudation of the
forest on account of timbering and other things, and the high- water
mark has been constantly rising until the last flow came within 6
inches of the floor which we had put about 3 feet above the high-
water mark. At the same time, in the interim of the floods, the
water that goes over the dam has diminished certainly one-third,
making wider and wider variation between the water that can be
used all the year for power and the water that comes as a flood. This
is not only applicable in that particular case, but it is applicable in
52 FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
a great many other cases of water powers and in the cases of water
powers that are being developed for general use, aggregating, per-
haps, all told, 200,000 horsepower of water power — powers that are
doing the work of at least 2,000,000 people, and that means to us, on
account of this changing condition which I observed in a practical
way, that there is imminent peril to a large vested interest and to the
vocations of a great many people.
Now, you appropriate $100,000,000 a year to support an army to
defend the people of this country against imminent peril ; you support
a navy, at a cost of $125,000,000. We believe that $5,000,000 is an
exceedingly modest sum to ask for to protect the large vested interests
throughout the eastern part of the United States agains't an immi-
nent peril, which is just as serious as invasion would be. Suppose
Boston was threatened with an invasion that was going to do a great
injury, you would appropriate $50,000,000 inside of two days to re-
lieve Boston of that danger. We are undoubtedly in the presence
of an imminent danger as serious as if Boston was going to be at-
tacked from the sea or by land. We think, also, that it is a practical
question, that you can argue here indefinitely and never reach any
conclusions about a great many phases of the subject that are
naturally going to be worked out by scientific people afterwards, and
not by people in Congress ; whether the water flows from the streams
into one stream or another will be a subject that will have to be
evolved from experience, and if you were to appropriate enough
money to make a beginning, then you would have some experience,
and some experts who could better tell you how to proceed next.
That picture at your window represents a view of forest and stream.
That was one of the conditions attracting people from other countries
to this, our forefathers. President Koosevelt sent some pictures
yesterday to Congress that show the condition a country may be
brought to by neglect. You have all heard, of course, that" when the
hills of Lebanon were forested with cedars, Palestine supported
ten millions of people in opulence. We know that to-day Palestine
supports less than 500,000 people in poverty. There was a time when
in Jerusalem there was a building finer than this one, they say, and
yet what is that building to-day, and its condition was largely brought
about by the physical degeneration of the country. We ask you to
make an appropriation and make a start now. We ask it in absolute
good faith and in the belief that there is an imminent peril, and that
you should as promptly do this as you would if there was an invasion
of the country; and when you make a start you will not only be con-
vinced of the importance of keeping it up, but you will get the skill
and knowledge of the facts to base the project on that ultimately it
will not cost the Government anything, because the rivers will bring
in enough to pay for the thing.
Mr. WEEKS. How far back did you go to get that high-water
mark you speak of?
Mr. TOMPKINS. I went back to the time when people 80 years old
had gotten it, as far back as their memories would carry. We got
the best average result through the knowledge of the oldest inhabit-
ants, and I think we got it pretty nearly right, because we have
observed that the high-water mark has been increasing since. We
measured the low- water flow before we bought the property, and we
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 53
have measured it lately, and it is very seriously diminished. We
know that high water is higher than it ever was before. It is
rapidly coming to the time when we should take hold of this subject,
because a few years will make all the difference in the world. The
diminution and the increase of floods in the drought are separating
themselves in a geometric ratio in just a few years.
Mr. WEEKS. Suppose you were going to build a dam on the stream
to-day, would you build any stronger dam to develop the same
horsepower than you did ten years ago when you built the one you
speak of?
Mr. TOMPKINS. The dam that I did build takes these floods and
just rolls them over the top, and it does not make any difference
about the flood so far as it holds the water; the excess water flows
over the dams. Our trouble is twofold, less water in a dry time and
a filling up of the pond. Our pond is practically filled up there. We
have to depend on the regular flow of water, and the quantity of the
water flowing in in drought is less than it used to be. That is, we
have less water at times than we used to have.
Mr. HASKINS. It fills up with silt and sand ?
Mr. TOMPKINS. Yes, sir; it fills up with silt and sand.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that diminished flow is due to the
fact that your reservoir is filled up?
Mr. TOMPKINS. The diminished flow is not, but if the silt and
sand did not come down, we could store water all night and run it
during the day. That resource has been completely taken away from
us, but the actual flow is less than it used to be. We do not pretend
to know just the best way to proceed about this thing, and we ask
Congress to appoint people who do know how to remedy it and we
will do it promptly.
Mr. HARVEY. The next gentleman we shall hear will be Mr. C. C.
Goodrich, of Connecticut.
STATEMENT OF MR. C. C. GOODRICH, OF CONNECTICUT, GENERAL
MANAGER OF THE NEW YORK AND HARTFORD GENERAL
TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.
Mr. GOODRICH. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I
have been requested by Governor Woodruff to appear at this hear-
ing. I do not know that the Governor expected me to say anything,
because I am not a speaker; I am not used to appearing before a
committee, and yet the chairman this morning asked for informa-
tion on certain points that it did seem to me, perhaps, I could be
of use to him in. First, as to the flow of the Connecticut River, as
observed, and as to the building of the bars and the final disposition
of the sand as it reaches the sea. I have been for forty years engaged
in marine commerce, at the present time handling more than 40 ves-
sels of from 500 to 5,000 tons register. I have observed in all these
years, going back even further than my service as the manager or
vice-president, and I remember the time when our river, forty years
ago. received its high-water season and continued it away along un-
til the middle of June, when the common inquiry was. u How much
snow is there left in the forests in the White Mountains in New
Hampshire and in Vermont? " We could depend in those years
upon operating without difficulty from low water until about the
54 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
15th of June. In those days the Government had not undertaken
the care of its rivers and its waterways as within the last twenty
years. The result was that those who were using the rivers for their
commerce were obliged to have their own dredges for service in sum-
mer, their own lighting system for the various rivers, and their own
range lights to guide across the various bars which are forming be-
tween Hartford, Conn., and Long Island Sound. In that service
we could start our dredges about the 10th of May, in which time the
flow got so that we could reach the bar in about 20 feet, and about
the 1st of July we had the courses cleared out at an expense of about
$58.000, and the rest of the season we could go on with our commerce.
In the last twenty years, and right down to the present time, in an
aggravated way, the length of high-water flow in spring has been
exceedingly shortened. Starting with March, freshet after freshet
comes with an ijnmense waste of water, freshets ranging from 15 to
20 feet follow close upon one another, so that we lose the use of the
water, and by the 20th of May, instead of the 15th of June, we arrive
at a point where a full loaded passenger steamer of 1,500 tons must
wait, must stop, or else instead of dredging in accordance with the
present channel of 150 feet wide, with 9 feet at low water in summer,
we must leave one bar and immediately go to another, where we have
only a 25-foot channel, just enough to drop the keel into it, and then
make another 10 miles, and still another 10 miles, and then put in
another 50 or 60 feet wide at the bottom of the slope, and gradually
in that way we can keep the daily line of passenger steamers that
operate in that river in operation by having every great steamer and
having the Government engineers immediately attack another bar
and keep going. We have been able to navigate very successfully
there, and in that time we have been able to dredge through those
bars, only half the width that the Government project calls for.
If we continued and carried out and spent the rest of the appro-
priation, amounting in those days to about $16,000 for two years,
or about $20,000, out of which the Government received its proportion
for the proportionate expense of the engineering department in
that district, we found we were throwing away the money, that we
could get through with a 70-foot channel, and that we have done right
down to the present year for the last ten years, and I presume we may
continue to get along in that way for a good while to come. In
speaking of the moving of this sand, which I would like to take up
now. for I think, without having statistics that the chairman asked
for, I have forty years of practical experience, and I know that which
is coming and that which has come. I know how the sand has
come through the forest down there, and how it moves ; that the sand
is composed of a clean, white grit, as sharp as diamonds; that it is
heavier than the alluvial soil. At every point from Hartford to
the Sound, at every wide bank, this sand deposits, and that makes the
bar, say, from 300 to 1,600 feet across, so in the three miles we may
have from one to three miles of dredging in each year. As we dredge
those bars, that sand, under the direction of the officers of the Govern-
ment, is deposited in the only place where it can be put, as far out
of the channel as we can put it. When the river carries down silt
from the mountain it brings a deposit, and that deposit is dropped
below this bar, and in the course of the next year it brings up at the
next place, and in the course of a number of years it reaches the
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 55
mouth of the Connecticut River. At that point it is building a shoal
straight off to sea on the east side of the mouth of the river, being
one and one-half miles shoaling water, to as shoal as three feet on
the crest of the bar, and where the buoy guards the outer edge you
immediately drop off to 120 feet. I am now looking to south. Look-
ing to the east, that bar extends five miles to the eastward. The
extensions are going on at the outskirts.
Looking soundward, over between the jetties at the mouth of the
river, we have about 3 miles out the long sand shoals, which takes
that portion and carries it to the west. That is 6 miles long, and
there is a passage between that and the main shore. It lies pretty
nearly in mid sound. That drops off into water from 8 to 12 feet,
but 150 feet abreast of the light-vessel that is placed there to guard
it, called " Cornfield light shoal vessel." It might be thought that
the constant action in washing this sand off to sea must eventually
blockade the mouth of the river. I noticed that the chairman spoke
this morning of the Columbia River. I know that the Connecticut
River, when you have extended this shoal off 1^ miles from shore
and have practically made a dam a mile and a half into the Sound,
you have so confined the easterly and westerly flows of those tides
past the Connecticut River, that from that day forward the rapidity
and force of the current past the eastern buoy and the western spar
on the Cornfield Shoal would have such great rapidity that at least
2£ feet in three years on each tide of water is a mass of moving
smooth sand, rolling over and over, and coming to the surface in
perfect piles; so if the Connecticut River continued to discharge this
great mass forever, there would be no use of farther -building at
this point toward the west. The extension would be to the east and
west, I know that 20 miles to the westward and eastward, as it
moves out of this rapid current, it never gets back toward the Con-
necticut River, but it does line the shore for all those miles with
every southwest storm or southeast storm. It is driven on the shore
until the shore now extends 20 miles to the westward and 30 to the
eastward. There is no alluvial mud in it.
Now, Mr. Chairman, if there is any other matter that I could help
you at all on, or that you would like to ask me, for my experience
is all in marine work, and consequently I do not think I am able to
help you much otherwise, I will be glad to answer any questions. I
will say this, that on that same long sand shoal in thirty-five years
there have been more than 20 vessels wrecked, of which my own
fleet furnished 2.
The CHAIRMAN. Has there been any material change in that time
in the area of cultivated land along the watershed of this river ?
Mr. GOODRICH. I do not think that in the forty years that the cul-
tivated area has increased any. The fact is that the great meadows
there are level, and when a 20-foot freshet floods them they are
greatly productive of fine grass, but I will say that not 20 per cent
of these meadows are cultivated. The country further back is culti-
vated to a greater or less extent, but not so greatly as to foul the dis-
charge in the river. Our water finds its way to the sea, with the
exception of a short time, perhaps a month in a year, in a very clear
and cleanly flow.
Mr. HARVEY. The next speaker will be Mr. McFarland, president
of the American Civic Association.
56 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
STATEMENT OF MR. McFARLAND, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN
CIVIC ASSOCIATION.
Mr. MCFARLAND. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I have no statistics
to present and very little time to take. I speak for the American
Civic Association, which has to do with about 100,000 persons inter-
ested in making a better and more beautiful America. We want
the forests because we need them for their health, their comfort, and
the pleasant part of living. We want them because they are good to
see and good to be in, as well as good to use. We want forests be-
cause they are beautiful as well as useful, because they give us the
rest and peace and pleasure that comes to those who go into the
forests, at the same time furnishing us with the vast resources in com-
mercial life included in the timber industry. We want forests be-
cause they are the one element of our national wastefulness which
we can both have and use. We are here in the new Office Building.
It is made of stone. The stone came from the earth and no more
stone is growing. It is lighted by metal fixtures and glass globes,
all made from the earth, and no more metal and glass is growing.
There is wood in the room and that we ask you to preserve. The
building itself is created from the inexhaustible resources of the earth,
and we ask that in serving beauty, in serving health, and making
pleasant and profitable the lives of citizens, we also conserve these
great national resources which we so greatly need. We want, Mr.
Chairman, that forests shall be had in the East and in the West, so
that the national flag may stay floating on the staff. The flag itself
we can make over again, because the wool will continue to grow on
the backs of the sheep, at least to a certain degree, but after we have
denuded the forests we will have to have in that case iron flag poles.
Taking it as a national question, we believe that we can hold up
the national honor when the flag is floating from wooden poles.
Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the attitude of the gentleman
from North Carolina who discussed the problem is the right one.
You are entering practically upon a national forest policy, of which
this Appalachian and White Mountain bill is but an incident. It is,
it seems to me, worth while to have instituted a national-forest policy
for the national welfare and the national defense, and I submit to
you, with some little knowledge of how the country looks upon this
thing, that you will be supported in any action you take which looks
to the creation of a national-forest policy, as much as to the creation
and continuance of a national-irrigation policy. Vast millions are
spent for national defense and homes. We have the post-office every-
where: we have rural free delivery everywhere: we certainly are not
specially provided with national control of forests everywhere. We
in the East look with some regret also upon the West with its forests,
purely incidental forests, gentlemen, and we hope that there may be
forests in the East. Consider, if you please, that the present forest
condition is an advantageous condition. The forest reserves owned
by the National Government just happened; we never bought that
part of the national domain upon which it did happen that trees
were growing. In the East there is no such condition. We speak for
a wide-spread national-forest policy, of which the present incidental
action is but an item, which will round up into the guarding by the
FOKEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 57
Government — by the Federal Government in the case of the weakness
or the unwillingness of the State — of that resource without which we
can not live, not only for its commercial importance, but for its in-
fluence on our lives, our morals, our health, and the welfare of the
country in which we live.
i
STATEMENT OF MR. C. J. H. WOODBURY, SECRETARY OF THE
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COTTON MANUFACTURERS.
Mr. WOODBTJRY. Mr. Chairman, at the last hearing I appeared be-
fore you with a committee of our association, which includes all of
the principal cotton mills from the Atlantic States, excepting Florida,
and also Alabama and Mississippi. These twelve thousand and odd
men in executive positions in the cotton mills, operate over 20,000,000
spindles, with a capital, with the subsidiary bleachers and dye works,
of something like $750,000,000. They are viewing with apprehension
this terrible peril of the waste by flood, and they instructed me to
come here and express their sincere wish that you would take some
action along the line of these hearings, of which you have had many
particulars, and therefore on account of the shortness of the time I
will omit going into those particulars, stating that these cotton manu-
facturers in the several States have done all that they could .in the
matter of the State reserves, town reserves, and some corporations
are planting great numbers of trees, two of them 30,000 apiece to my
knowledge, on the lands which they happen to control on their water-
sheds, and that is all I have to oner, on account of the shortness of
the time. The feeling is in favor of this project on the part of these
manufacturers, whose work has been held up by the freshets and
droughts, which have also shut off not merely the operation of the
manufacturing but probably its capital, and also that of the thou-
sands and thousands of the help which they employ. The question
is regarded as an exceedingly serious one, and one that is growing in
regard to what I believe to be the greatest single industry in this
country.
STATEMENT OF MR. A. W. BUTLER, OF ROCKLAND, ME., REPRE-
SENTING GOVERNOR WILLIAM T. COBB.
Mr. BUTLER. I come here at the request of Governor Cobb, as he
was detained by official business in -Maine. I know that the governor
is much interested in this measure. I find that there is a large con-
stituency in Maine that are interested in it and believe in immediate
action, so far as it is possible or so far as it may be possible for imme-
diate favorable consideration. We not only feel interested for these
particular localities, but for the general effect upon our States, in
which we believe there should be a wider an.d larger supervision of
the forests and the general resources. I have talked with two men
to-day from Maine who are interested and engaged in the lumber
business in Maine, and they expressed to me very earnestly their de-
sire and wish that this measure should be adopted, and that no fur-
ther delay than was possible to take immediate action should be had,
because our physical conditions are changing. Our forests are being
cut off and our water supply diminished. It is my own view *nd my
earnest wish, and I think I represent a large constituency, that yoi»
will take favorable action upon this subject.
58 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
STATEMENT OF DR. GEORGE L. GAY, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERI-
CAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.
Doctor GAY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I
have been asked to appear here as the representative of the American
Medical Association, the largest medical organization in the country.
There are three of that association here, Doctor Jacobi, of New York,
Doctor Mussey, of Philadelphia, and myself from Boston. Doctor
Jacohi is at the New Willard attending the conservation commission
having its meetings there.
Governor Guild asked me to speak to you for a moment as to the
results of the low streams upon the health of the community. If there
is a doctor on the committee, and I hope there is, for there ought to
be a doctor on every committee that has anything to do with public
health, he knows very well, if he has lived in the country, that there
is more sickness when the streams are low than there is when the
streams are high. There is one disease that is particularly a water-
borne disease, and that is typhoid fever. I hope you have all had it,
gentlemen, because if you have, you will not have it again. If you
have not, you are in daily risk of getting it. It is carried in water
more than it is carried in any other possible way, and while this is
not the time or the occasion for the committee to say anything about
pollution of streams, yet this Congress will never do its duty to the
people of this country until they prohibit the pollution of water
resources. Why the inhabitants of one state should be obliged to
drink the excreta of another state, the typhoid fever poison or any
other poison of another state, passes our comprehension.
The low stream, as I say, is a constant source of danger. We have
30,000 deaths from typhoid fever in this country every year. We
have more than 200,000 cases of typhoid fever in the country every
year. A case of typhoid fever that gets well in two months is a for-
tunate case. That means 400,000 months of lost time, supposing they
were all laboring people, wage earners, which of course they are not.
Anybody who is fond of figures can carry out that computation to his
satisfaction. It is one of the most widespread diseases. There are
only one or two that beat it — consumption and pneumonia — and it
is a preventable disease. There are many diseases that are not pre-
ventable and we are not to blame for them, but when we have a pre-
ventable disease it is our duty to. do all we can to prevent it, and
keeping our streams full of water is one of the methods of preven-
tion, and the other very important method of prevention I hope will
come before Congress before many years. I thank you gentlemen for
your attention.
Mr. HARVEY. Mr. Chairman, we will endeavor to make our word
good, and on behalf of all of the interests that are here represented, it
gives me great pleasure to express our appreciation of the great cour-
tesy and consideration that you gentlemen have given us in the
patient hearing and the patient manner in which you have listened
to what he have all had to say. The knowledge which you have ob-
tained from your study of this question and its merits has impressed
all of us who have been here to-day.
The ^questions that have been asked by your distinguished self as
chairman and the other members of your committee have all been
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 59
questions of the most peninent nature, some of which should have
been answered in a more pertinent way than they have been an-
swered ; and the only reason, perhaps, that they were not answered as
conclusively or as convincingly as they should have been may have
been because the questions have been asked of the wrong man, and
some of us feel that when we are asked a question on a subject with
which we are not perfectly familiar we ought to be frank enough to
say we are not familiar with that subject and that somebody else
ought to be asked that question, and therefore not jeopardize a case,
the real merits of which we are most anxious to uphold. We have
with us a large number of people who would like to have been heard.
We have the president of the Orange Judd Agricultural Publishing
Company; Ralph W. Pope, secretary of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers; Herbert Nj^oick; Mr. E. A. Start, secretary of
the Massachusetts Forestry Association; and Mr. F. W. Rane, state
forester of Massachusetts. I would like to have the stenographer to
take their names as being among those present who would like to have
been presented to your committee ; and in thanking you, we sincerely
hope — in fact, we feel confident — that nothing we can say can further
impress you gentlemen with the importance and significance of what
we are asking, and if there is anything that we can do to help you to
find a way, we would like to do it, and we sincerely hope you will find
a way.
The CHAIRMAN. The committee feels that it is under obligations to
you, to Governor Guild, and to the other governors and gentlemen
who have appeared here to-day, for the information that has been
brought before us. We hope you realize that it is one thing to notice
a desirable object to be gained, and quite another thing to assume
the responsibility of determining exactly the means through which
that object shall be reached. I realize myself that those who have
been for so many years advocating this measure may feel justified in
a degree of resentment, if I might use so strong a term, at the delays
that have resulted.
Mr. HARVEY. If I may interrupt you, Mr. Chairman, t would
rather say that I think there is no feeling represented here by anyone
of resentment ; it is rather one of sorrow that it has not been possible
to take this action.
The CHAIRMAN. I felt as if I were using a little stronger word
than the occasion required, but the right one did not come to my
mind. The idea I wish to convey to your mind, however, and to the
minds of the other gentlemen here, is that this committee appreciates
the responsibility that rests upon it, and is earnestly and honestly
and patriotically trying to do its duty in the premises, and I wish to
repeat the expression of my thanks to you and those who have been
here for the help you have 'given us.
Mr. HARVEY. It gives me great pleasure to state sincerely that I
believe every one who has appeared before you honestly believes that
the committee is honest and sincere and anxious to do what can be
done, if it can find a way to do it.
(Thereupon, at 4 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned.)
60 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
HOUSE or REPRESENTATIVES,
January 28, 1909.
At an executive session of the committee held on this date a motion
prevailed that all after the enacting clause of S. 4825 be stricken out
and the following (known as the " Weeks bill ") be substituted:
AN ACT For acquiring national forests in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and
White Mountains.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in, Congress assembled, That the consent of the Congress of
the United States is hereby given to each of the several States of the Union to
enter into any agreement or compact, not iu conflict with any law of the United
States, with any other State or States, for the purpose of conserving the forests
and the water supply of the States entering into such agreement or compact.
SEC. 2. That the sum of one hundred thousand dollars is hereby appropriated
and made available until expended, out of any moneys in the National Treasury
not otherwise appropriated, to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to cooperate
with any State or group of States, when requested to do so, in the protection
from fire of the forested watersheds of navigable streams, and the Secretary
of Agriculture is hereby authorized, and on such conditions as he deems wise,
to stipulate and agree with any State or group of States to cooperate in the
organization and maintenance of a system of fire protection on any private or
state forest lands within such State or States and situated upon the watershed
of a navigable river : Provided, That no such stipulation or agreement shall
be made with any State which has not provided by law for a system of forest-
fire protection : Provided further, That in no case shall the amount expended in
any State exceed in any fiscal year the amount appropriated by that State for
the same purpose during the same fiscal year.
SEC. 3. That the Secretary of Agriculture, for the further protection of the
watersheds of said navigable streams, may, in his discretion, and he is hereby
authorized, on such conditions as he deems wise, to stipulate and agree to
administer and protect for a definite term of years any private forest lands
situated upon any such watershed whereon lands may be permanently reserved,
held, and administered as national forest lands; but such stipulation or agree-
ment shall provide that the owner of such private lands shall cut and remove
the timber thereon only under such rules and regulations, to be expressed in the
stipulation or agreement, as will provide for the protection of the forest in the
aid of navigation: Provided, That in no case shall the United States be liable
for any damage resulting from fire or any other cause.
SEC. 4. That from the receipts accruing from the sale or disposal of any
products or the use of lands or resources from public lands, now or hereafter to
be set aside as national forests, that have been or may hereafter be turned into
the Treasury of the United States and which are not otherwise appropriated,
there is hereby appropriated for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen
hundred and nine, the sum of one million dollars, and for each fiscal year there-
after a sum not to exceed two million dollars for use in the examination, survey,
and acquirement of lands located on the headwaters of navigable streams or
those which are being or which may be developed for navigable purposes:
Provided, That the provisions of this section shall expire by limitation on the
thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and nineteen.
SEC. 5. That a commission, to be known as the "National Forest Reservation
Commission," consisting of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Interior,
the Secretary of Agriculture, and one member of the, Senate, to be selected by
the President of the Senate, and one member of the House of Representatives,
to be selected by the Speaker, is hereby created and authorized to consider and
pass upon such lands as may be recommended for purchase as provided in sec-
tion six of this act, and to fix the price or prices at which such lands may be
purchased, and no purchases shall be made of any lands until such lands have
been duly approved for purchase by said commission: Provided, That the mem-
bers of the commission herein created shall serve as such only during their in-
cumbency in their respective official positions; and any vacancy on the com-
mission shall be filled in the manner as the original appointment.
SEC. 6. That the commission hereby appointed shall, through its president,
annually report to Congress, not later than the first Monday in December, the
FOREST LANDS FOB, THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 61
operations and expenditures of the commission, in detail, during the preceding
fiscal ye;ir.
SEC. 7. That the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby authorized and directed
to examine, locate, and recommend for purchase such lands as in his judgment
may be necessary to the regulation of the flow of navigable streams, and to
report to the National Forest Reservation Commission the results of such exam-
inations: Provided, That before any lands are purchased by the National Forest
Reservation Commission said lands shall be examined by the Geological Sur-
vey and a report made to the Secretary of Agriculture, showing that the control
of such lands will promote or protect the navigation of streams on whose
watersheds they lie.
SEC. S. That the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby authorized to purchase,
in the name of the United States, such lauds as have been approved for pur-
chase by the National Forest Reservation Commission at the price or prices
fixed by said commission: Provided, That no deed or other instrument of con-
veyance shall be accepted or approved by the Secretary of Agriculture under
this act until the legislature of the State in which the land lies shall have con-
sented to the acquisition of such land by the United States for the purpose of
preserving the navigability of navigable streams.
SEC. 9. That the Secretary of Agriculture may do all things necessary to
secure the safe title in the United States to the lands to be acquired under this
act; but no payment shall be made for any such lands until the title shall be
satisfactory to the Attorney-General and shall be vested in the United States.
SEC. 10. That such acquisition may in any case be conditioned upon the ex-
ception and reservation to the owner, from whom title passes to the United
States, of the minerals and of the merchantable timber, or either or any part
of them, within or upon such lands at the date of the conveyance; but in every
case such exception and reservation, and the time within which such timber
shall be removed, and the rules and regulations under which the cutting and
removal of such timber and the mining and removal of such minerals shall be
done shall be expressed in the written instrument of conveyance, and thereafter
the mining, cutting, and removal of the minerals and timber so excepted and
reserved shall be done only under and in obedience to the rules and regulations
so expressed.
SEC. 11. That whereas small areas of land chiefly valuable for agriculture
may of necessity or by inadvertence be included in tracts acquired under this
act, the Secretary of Agriculture may, in his discretion, and he is hereby author-
ized, upon application or otherwise, to examine and ascertain the location and
extent of such areas as in his opinion may be occupied for agricultural purposes
without injury to the forests or to stream flow and which are not needed for
public purposes, and may list and describe the same by metes and bounds, or
otherwise, and offer them for sale as homesteads at their true value, to be fixed
by him, to actual settlers, in tracts not exceeding eighty acres in area, under
such joint rules and regulations as the Secretary of Agriculture and the Sec-
retary of the Interior may prescribe ; and in case of such sale the jurisdiction
over the land sold shall, ipso facto, revert to the State in which the lands sold
lie. And no right, title, interest, or claim in or to any lands acquired under
this act, or the waters thereon, or the products, resources, or use thereof after
such lauds shall have been so acquired, shall be initiated or perfected, except
as in this section provided.
SEC. 12. That, subject to the provisions of the last preceding section, the lands
acquired under this act shall be permanently reserved, held, and administered
as national forest lands under the provisions of section twenty-four of the act
approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety -one (volume twenty-six,
Statutes at Large, page eleven hundred and three), and acts supplemental to.
and amendatory thereof. And the Secretary of Agriculture may from time to
time divide the lands acquired under this act into such specific national forests
and so designate the same as he may deem best for administrative purposes.
SEC. 13. That the jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, over persons upon the
lands acquired under this act shall not be affected or changed by their perma-
nent reservation and administration as national forest lands, except so far as
the punishment of offenses against the United States is concerned, the intent
and meaning of this section being that the State wherein such land is situated
shall not, by reason of such reservation and administration, lose its jurisdiction
nor the inhabitants thereof their rights and privileges as citizens or be absolved
from their duties as citizens of the State.
62 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
SEC. 14. That twenty-five per centum of all moneys received during any fiscal
year from each national forest into which the lands acquired under this act
may from time to time be divided shall be paid, at the end of such year, by the
Secretary of the Treasury to the State in which such national forest is situated,
to be expended as the state legislature may prescribe for the benefit of the
public schools and public roads of the county or counties in which such national
forest is situated : Provided, That when any national forest is in more than one
State or county the distributive share to each from the proceeds of such forest
shall be proportional to its area therein : Provided further, That there shall not
be paid to any State for any county an amount equal to more than 40 per cen-
tum of the total income of such county from all other sources.
SEC. 15. That a sum sufficient to pay the necessary expenses of the commis-
sion and its members, not to exceed an annual expenditure of twenty-five thou-
sand dollars, is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not
otherwise appropriated. Said appropriation shall be immediately available,
and shall be paid out on the audit and order of the president of the said com-
mission, which audit and order shall be conclusive and binding upon all depart-
ments as to the correctness of the accounts of said commission.
Amend the title so as to read " An act to enable any State to co-
operate with any other State or States, or with the United States,
for the protection of the watersheds of navigable streams, and to
appoint a commission for the acquisition of lands for the purpose of
conserving the navigability of navigable rivers."
Thereupon, by vote of the committee, it was ordered that Mr. Weeks
and Mr. Lever be requested to report the bill to the House.
It was further ordered that the paper upon " Forests and reser-
voirs in relation to stream flow with particular reference to navigable
rivers," read before the American Society of Civil Engineers, by
Lieut. Col. H. M. Chittenden, of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army,
be incorporated in these hearings, together with the comments of
Dr. George F. Swain thereon, and a letter from Colonel Chittenden
to the chairman of the committee in reply to Doctor Swain's com-
ments; and also the majority and minority reports on the bill S.
4825.
The documents referred to appear as an appendix to this volume.
APPENDIX.
FORESTS AND RESERVOIRS IN THEIR RELATION TO STREAM FLOW WITH PARTICULAR
REFERENCE TO NAVIGABLE RIVERS.
[By H. M. CMttenden, M. Am. Soc. C. E.]
The following paper is presented at this time with the purpose of eliciting
from the society membership the results of observation and experience touch-
ing the important matters of which it treats. They are vital features of one
of the chief living questions before the public to-day, and an expression of views
by men accustomed to look at things from a practical standpoint can not fail to
be of great value to our legislators upon whom the ultimate responsibility for
action must rest.
While the author's views traverse to some extent currently accepted theories,
they are based upon long observation and study and are what seem to be
unavoidable conclusions therefrom ; but he is committed to no theory as such
and his mind is entirely open to conviction upon any point in which his opinions
may be shown to be erroneous. His sympathies are wholly on the side of the
present movenfent for the conservation of our natural resources, and, so far as
this paper takes issue with certain tendencies of that movement, it is only for
the purpose of inquiring whether such tendencies are not really inimical to the
cause to which they pertain.
With this preliminary statement, the author will take up the first part of his
paper, viz, the influence of forests upon stream flow.
FORESTS AND STREAM FLOW.
The commonly accepted opinion is that forests have a beneficial influence on
stream flow :
(1) By storing the waters from rain and melting snow in the bed of humus
that develops under forest cover, preventing their rapid rush to the streams
and paying them out gradually afterwards, thus acting as true reservoirs in
equalizing the run-off.
(2) By retarding the snow melting in the spring and prolonging the run-off
from that source.
(3) By increasing precipitation.
(4) By preventing erosion of the soil on steep slopes and thereby protecting
water courses, canals, reservoirs, and similar work from accumulations of silt.
There are many subsidiary influences, but, broadly stated, the above proposi-
tions cover the ground. They were first given general currency nearly forty
years ago through the writings of Sir Gustav Wex, chief engineer on the im-
provement of the Danube, whose treatise was translated into English by the
late General Weitzel, of the Corps of Engineers. Wex's theories were stoutly
resisted at the time by many European engineers, and still find only a limited
acceptance in the profession,0 though in the popular mind they have gained
ground, and in the United States are now accepted practically without question.
To establish by definite proof the truth or falsity of these propositions is an ex-
tremely difficult task. One would not think so, indeed, to judge from the cheerful
confidence with which the popular thought accepts them ; but it is nevertheless
so. The elements of the problem are so many and conflicting, the necessary
evidence is so hard to get, and comparative records are of such recent date, that
precise demonstration is scarcely possible. The popular belief is based upon a
fact and an assumption, forming together a basis for a conclusion. The fact is
"Almost simultaneously with the publication of Wex's treatise, a similar work
was published in France by M. F. Vall£e, taking exactly the opposite view of the
question.
63
64 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
that forests in the eastern portion of the United States have disappeared to a
large extent within the past century. The assumption is that floods and low
wafers in the same region are more frequent and severe than before the forests
were cleared away. The conclusion is that these assumed conditions must be
due to the disappearance of the forests. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is the argu-
mentative process relied upon, and little effort is made to consider whether
there may not be some other and more satisfactory explanation. The author
will attempt to analyze the problem from a theoretical standpoint, and will then
cite existing records so far as these are sufficiently long continued to be worth
anything. He will consider, first, the effect of the forests where stream flow
results from rain alone, and, next, where it results in part from melting snow.
Effect of forests upon the run-off from rainfall. — The first of the above proposi-
tions— the retentive action of the forest bed — may be accepted at once as strictly
triu1 for average conditions. It is not true for extreme conditions — great floods
and excessive low waters — the conditions that determine the character and cost
of river control. Consider an inclined-plane surface, practically impervious to
water, with a layer of sand covering some small portion of it, and let a uniform
spray of water be applied to the entire surface. Assume that the temperature
and rate of evaporation are relatively low. As soon as the spray begins water
commences to flow from the uncovered surface, but not for a time from that
covered by the sand. After a while it begins to trickle from the sand, increasing
in volume until the sand is thoroughly saturated, after which it flows off in as
great quantity per unit area as from the uncovered portion. If the spray is
stopped the water immediately ceases to flow from the uncovered area, but
continues in diminishing quantity from the covered area until it finally ceases
altogether ; but not all the water that fell on this area has run away. The sand
has retained some portion of it and given it off in evaporation, so that the total
run-off per unit area is somewhat less than on the uncovered portion. If the
shower be long-continued and the rate of evaporation very low, the difference of
total run-off per unit area from the two surfaces will be very slight.
Suppose now that the temperature and rate of evaporation are high and that
the spray works intermittently. If the showers are small in volume and the
intervals between them long, the sand may retain nearly or quite all of the
individual showers and give them off in evaporation, so that there \\ill be no
run-off whatever.
Between these two extreme conditions the covered area will exert a greater
or smaller regulative effect upon the run-off. The retentive power of the sand
will be less as the slope of the surface upon which it rests increases, or it will
be greatest when the surface is nearly horizontal and least when it is nearly
vertical.0
0 Since the above was written the author has noticed, in the report of the
hearing on House resolution 208 before the Committee on the Judiciary, that
Gifford Pinchot, Associate American Society of Civil Engineers, Chief of the
Forest Service, used an illustration very similar to that given above, except
that he failed to carry it to its logical conclusion. Addressing the committee
February 27, 1908, he said : " I have in my hand here a photograph of a denuded
hillside. After the forest has been removed rain falls on that hillside and runs
off rapidly, as the water I drop upon the photograph does now, and disappears
instantly. [Illustrating.) If, on the other hand, I place a forest cover on the
hillside that is exactly analogous in texture and effect with this piece of blot-
ting paper and drop the water slowly upon it, we would find that, instead of
running off slowly at the bottom, the water is held. [Illustrating with blotting
paper.] Part of it runs off, but as soon as the. absorbent quality of the paper or
the forest floor has time to take effect the water is kept and drips gradually for
a considerable length of time off the hill into the stream. This is an exact illus-
tration of the way in which the forest controls the stream flow on that hill-
side."
Mr. Pinchot should have completed his illustration. He should have contin-
ued to sprinkle the paper long enough and heavily enough to have saturated the
paper completely, in order to show that the water would then flow from the
paper as rapidly as from the uncovered area; and he should then have ex-
plained that this condition represents what always happens in the forest in
times of great flood. Then he should have sprinkled the paper intermittently in
small quantities, and at such long intervals that the warm air of the room
would evaporate all of the absorbed water, and that none whatever would flow
away. He should then have explained that this condition represents what
always takes place in the forest in tirues of great drought.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 65
Now, in nature this ideal illustration is never fully exemplified in the cleared
land and the forest. There is nearly everywhere a marked retentive capacity in
the bare soil. In newly plowed ground it is probably greater than in the forest.
Moreover, certain crops, like heavy grass or grain, obstruct the flow of water
almost as much as the forest cover. On the other hand, the furrows of culti-
vated fields, drainage ditches, roads, and particularly the pavements and roofs
of towns, greatly accelerate the run-off; so that, while the full contrast of the
ideal example does not exist in nature, the principle of the illustration applies
perfectly. That is, there are times when the percentage of retention in the
forest bed is 0, and there are other times when it is 100; or, there are times
when so much water comes that the forest bed can hold none of it, and there
are times when so little comes that it holds it all. Between these extremes
there are periods when it holds more or less and gives up less or more and exer-
cises a corresponding influence upon the run-off. There is another important
condition not exemplified in the illustration, and that is that the forest areas
are scattered everywhere, the ground has an infinite variety of slope, the show-
ers never fall uniformly over an entire watershed, and the final result in the
total run-off is the summation of thousands of tributary results.
It is true, therefore, as popularly understood, that in periods of ordinary
rainfall, with sufficient intervals for the forest bed to dry out somewhat, forests
do exert a regulative effect upon run-off. They modify freshets and torrents
and prolong the run-off after storms have passed, and thus realize in greater or
less perfection the commonly accepted theory.
This result utterly fails, however, in those periods of long-continued, wide-
spread, and heavy precipitation, which alone cause great floods in the large
rivers. At such times the forest bed becomes completely saturated, its storage
capacity exhausted, and it has no more power to restrain floods than the open
country itself. Moreover, the fact that the forest bed has retained a portion of
earlier rainfall and is yielding it up later to the streams, produces a condition
that may be worse than it would be in a country cleared of forests. Really
great floods in large rivers are always, as is well known, the result of combina-
tions from the various tributaries. It is when the floods from these tributaries
arrive simultaneously at a common point that calamitous results follow. Any
cause which facilitates such combinations is, therefore, a source of danger.
Now, unquestionably, in a heavily wooded watershed forests do have a tendency
in this direction. When a period of heavy storms occurs, spreading over a great
area, continually increasing in intensity, the forests, by retaining some portion
of the earlier showers and paying them out afterwards, do produce a general
high condition of the river which may greatly aggravate a sudden flood arising
later from some portion of the watershed. That the forest does promote tribu-
tary combinations there would seem to be no question, and that it may therefore
aggravate flood conditions necessarily follows. It is not contended that this
increase is ever very great, but it is contended that forests never diminish great
floods and that they probably do increase them somewhat. The forests are
virtually automatic reservoirs, not subject to intelligent control, and act just as
the system of reservoirs once proposed by the French Government for the con-
trol of floods in the River Rhone would have acted, if built. These reservoirs
were to have open outlets, not capable of being closed, which were intended to
restrain only a portion of the flow. A careful study of their operation in cer-
tain recorded floods showed that they would actwally have produced combina-
tions more dangerous than would have occurred without them.
Consider now periods of extreme drought and grant that as a general rule,
springs and little streams dry up more completely than when forests covered
the country, although this difference is very greatly exaggerated in the pop-
ular mind.0 At first thought one would conclude that, since the springs and
streams make up the rivers, these also ought now to show a smaller low-water
flow than formerly. This, however, is not the case. The difference between
a The term "as a general rule," is used, for it is by no means absolute. In
particular the drainage of low swamp lands leads off into the streams, in dry
weather, waters that formerly remained or passed off in evaporation, and in
such cases even the low-water How is greater than it used to be. In lSl)f> the
author saw an example of this on the Scioto River near the outlet of the great
Scioto swamp, which had recently been drained. A small mill was able to
operate during the low-water season more regularly than formerly. Tile drain-
age, now so widely used, has the same tendency.
7253S— AGE— 09 5
66 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
the former low-water flow of a spring or rivulet and what it is now is rela-
tively an insignificant quantity. Most of such water sources yield but a small
fraction of a cubic foot per second. Whether these small quantities are a trifle
more or less cuts very little figure in the aggregate; and so it counts but little
In the flow of a great river whether some of its extreme sources lose a portion
of a volume that is already inappreciable. When the summer showers come,
however, there is a marked difference. At such times the forests not only hold
the water back — they often swallow it completely. Small showers that make
a perceptible run-off in the open are often practically all absorbed in the leaves
of the trees. Heavier showers, that make freshets in the open, are largely
absorbed in the leaves and forest bed and pass off in evaporation ; so that,
contrary to the general view, the evaporation from the forest is greater at
such times than in the open country and the run-off from summer precipitation
is less. A single shower may produce a sufficiently greater run-off in a de-
forested area to more than offset the diminished low-water flow for several
weeks.0 Now, on most of the smaller streams quantity of flow is a more impor-
tant matter than natural uniformity of flow, particularly in the summer time. The
day of the small mill, which was so dependent upon such uniformity, is past.
The modern water power invariably seeks uniformity by artificial regulation,
and the ups and downs of its sources of supply are abolished in its storage.
Therefore it does not matter nearly as much that the run-off of the small
streams be uniform as that it yield a good flow of water ; and if forests dimin-
ish the total low-water supply, this fact more than offsets the gain in uniform-
ity. Likewise the great rivers swallow up and equalize the small irregularities
of their headwaters and actually experience a somewhat larger low-water flow
than if their watersheds were still thickly forested. Thus, while forests may
decrease somewhat the extreme range between maximum and minimum run-off
on very small watersheds, they do not do so on great ones, which are combi-
nations of very small ones. At the same time it seems certain that forests
decrease somewhat the total run-off from watersheds, small or great.6
Influence of forests upon snow melting. — The second proposition — that for-
ests have a beneficial effect upon the run-off from snow melting — is quite as
firmly fixed in the popular belief as that just considered, but has even less
foundation in fact. It is a relation that can be definitely traced, and it can
be demonstrated that the effect of forests upon the run-off from snow is invari-
ably to increase its intensity. This results from two causes, one affecting the
falling of the snow and the other its melting.
In the first place, forests break the wind, prevent the formation of drifts,
and distribute the snow in an even blanket over the ground. In the open coun-
try, the snow is largely heaped into drifts, their size depending upon the con-
figuration of the ground, the presence of wind-breaks, and the prevalence and
force of the wind. These drifts form admirable reservoirs and in the high
mountains are the most perfect known. Forests prevent their formation
entirely.
The period of snow melting begins in the open country much earlier than in
the forests. At first the melting is due mainly to the direct action of the sun's
rays before there is sufficient warmth in the general atmosphere to produce any
effect. The thinly covered areas melt off first and the streams experience a
diurnal rise and fall following the warmth of day and the frost of night.
Nothing like a flood ever arises from such melting.
Under forest cover this action is interfered with more or less, depending upon
the density of the shade. Even after the ground in the open is entirely bare,
except under the drifts, the forest areas may still be covered with an unbroken
layer of snow. It is generally, though erroneously, considered that this delay
Is beneficial, by carrying farther into the summer the release of the winter pre-
0 So far as the author is aware, Col. T. P. Roberts, of Pittsburg, Pa., was
the first to call attention to this characteristic of stream flow.
6 This subject was ably discussed by Mr. llaphael Zon, of the Forest Service,
Department of Agriculture, in Transactions, Am. Soc. C. E.f Vol. LIX, pp.
494-495. He states, among other things, that " the quantity of water available
for stream flow from forested watersheds, all other conditions being equal,
Is less than from nonforested watersheds;" that "the forest soil receives
least precipitation, next conies meadow land, and lastly tilled land:"
that " in the forest, only the upper layer of the soil is moister than in the open,
the lower layers being always drier." This discussion is well worth perusal.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 67
cipitation and giving it more time to soak into the ground; but in fact this
benefit does not result. The water from the first melting of the snow blanket
does not sink into the ground but into itself. Snow is like a sponge. A panful
will shrink to one-fourth of its volume, or less, before any free water appears.
The author has seen an 8-foot covering of snow dwindle to 2 feet, with the
ground beneath is still comparatively dry.
The forest shade thus holds the snow, which gradually becomes saturated
from its own melting, until the heat and warm rains of late spring or early
summer arrive, the soft air everywhere pervading the forest depths and finding
a maximum exposure of surface to the melting influences. A cubic yard of
snow, which in a great drift might stand 27 feet deep with a square foot of
exposure, may here lie with a depth of 1 foot and 27 square feet of exposure.
The result is that when the final melting begins the whole body of snow dis-
appears very rapidly, rushing from every direction into the streams, swelling
them to their limits and often causing disastrous freshets. The active melting
lasts but a short time, and there is little opportunity for the water to soak into
the ground. The delay in melting, caused by the forest shade, has simply
operated to concentrate it into a shorter period and increase the intensity of the
resulting freshet. It comes so fast that the greater portion of it can not be
utilized at the time and is lost altogether unless intercepted by reservoirs.
In the open country, on the other hand, the drifts last for weeks after the
snow has entirely disappeared from the forest, and continue to yield a supply
of water far into the summer. The period of active melting in the open may
have lasted four mouths, that in the forest scarcely as many weeks. In the
northwest corner of Wyoming and contiguous portions of the adjoining States
lies an elevated region of probably 20,000 square miles, which is the source of
nearly all the great river systems of the West. It is a very remarkable region
in this respect. Its average altitude is about 7,500 feet, and it is in large part
covered with a dense evergreen forest. At the very summit of this elevated
region is that singular section now visited annually by thousands of tourists —
the Yellowstone Park. The opening of the tourist season in spring occurs just
about the time of active snow melting, and the most onerous and difficult task
of those in charge of the road system of the park is to get the roads into con-
dition for the first travel. This frequently has to be done while the snow still
lies deep on the ground. It was the repeated execution of this task that first
drew the author's attention to the fact that, as a general rule, the floods of this
region are forest floods, and that the same conditions of precipitation which
force the forest streams out of their banks produce only moderate effects in
the open. The traditional "June rise " comes mainly from the mountain forests.
A photograph, taken about the middle of June in a year of heavy snowfall
and only two days before the tourist season opened, shows an east and west
road through a dense forest of lodgepole pine at an altitude of 8,200 feet. It
shows very effectively the deep, even blanket of snow everywhere covering the
ground, except along a narrow strip at the roots of the trees on the north side
of the road, where the sun had access through the opening in the tree tops
caused by the 30-foot clearing for the roadway. Another, taken practically at
the same time, shows one of the great drifts in the open country, which it was
impossible to avoid in locating the road.
At this time a period of very warm weather had set in, with frequent rains.
Severe floods followed, which did great injury to the roads and bridges, not
only in the mountains, but for a considerable distance below. Within two
weeks the snow had practically disappeared in the forests, but in the open
country the drifts, like that in the photograph, continued until the middle of
July, giving forth a continuous supply of water.
A most illuminating article, and one which everyone interested in the subject
should read, was published in Science for April 10, 1896. It gives the results
of observations in the mountains of Nevada for over twenty-five years, during
which " extensive tracts of timber " were cut off " to the very ground " and new
growths had been well started. It was found that springs which were active
after the land was cleared dried up when the new forest growth developed;
" that the water supply from the mountains is greater and more permanent
now than it was before the timber was cut off; " that freshets were no more
" frequent or violent than before the trees were cut off," and that " spring
floods were less frequent." The greatly increased loss due to evaporation in
the forest was pointed out. This results partly from the vast extent of surface
on the ground exposed to the air and partly from exposure on the leaves and
branches of the trees.
68 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
" The foliage on this class of trees being as heavy in winter as in summer,
the branches catch an immense amount of the falling snow and hold it up in
mid-air for both sun and air to work upon; and only those who have had
experience of the absorbing power of the dry mountain air can form any idea
of the loss from that source." Moreover "the trees absorb from the soil quite
as much water as would be evaporated by the action of the sun in the absence
of the shade."
The writer states that " the strongest force at work to save our rivers is the
drifting winds which heap up the snow in great banks; and in this the trees
are a constant obstacle." He declares that "close observers, after long yoars
of study, have been led to believe that if there is any difference in the flow of
streams and the size of springs before and after the trees are cut from above
them, the balance is in the favor of the open country." a
In the current literature upon this subject one invariably encounters the
same fallacious assumption, that because the forests delay melting their action
is therefore beneficial. The fact is entirely overlooked that delay means con-
centration and greater intensity of run-off, while the open country prolongs the
melting and gives a more even distribution. If the true action of forests in
this respect, however, is rarely recognized by public writers, it is recognized,
though perhaps unconsciously, by those who are benefited by it. The monthly
reports of the Weather Bureau in the Rocky Mountain region are instructive
reading in this connection. The following are a few extracts from those sent
in to the central office of the western Montana district at. Helena :
"Where there is no timber to break the force of the winds solid drifts of
considerable depth have collected." * " * "The snowfall has been very
light and the drifts are not large or solid enough to furnish an adequate flow
of water in the streams." * * * " In some sections the winter's snowfall
has been the lightest for many years, and as there is little likelihood that the
later snows will form solid drifts, it is practically certain that the flow of
water in most streams will be inadequate for irrigation and mining purposes."
These extracts, which could be multiplied indefinitely, show how well the
practical ranchman understands the value of snowdrifts. It has always been
a mystery to the author that writers will persist in statements like the' follow-
ing, which appears in one of the ablest addresses at the recent conservation
conference in Washington:
"The possibility of irrigation depends largely on the preservation of the
forest cover of the mountains, which catches and holds the melting snows, and
thus forms the great storage reservoirs of nature."
The forests destroy the reservoirs and the flow would be more uniform, pro-
longed, and plentiful if they were not there.
It will doubtless be urged that while the foregoing conclusions may hold for
an elevated and densely wooded region, they will not hold for a lower altitude,
warmer climate, and different kind of forest. In reply it may be said that in
proportion as the conditions described prevail, they apply everywhere. In
deciduous forests where the foliage is absent during seasons of snowfall and
melting, the winds have greater play in winter and the sunlight in spring, and
there is, of course, less difference between the forests and the open country: but
while the difference is less it is not obliterated altogether, and in hilly regions,
like the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, it exists in full force.' The
author Is very familiar with the region of western New York — having been
reared on a farm nearly on the divide between the waters of the Ohio and Lake
Erie — a beautifully wooded country, deciduous growths prevailing, and one of
the snowiest regions in the United States. While there is less drifting in the
open, and more in the woods than in high mountains, still it !s strictly true
that the open-country drifts outlast the forest snows just as the latter outlast
the thin snows in the open.
°The author recalls only a single other writer who has set forth this matter
In accordance with the facts, and that was an anonymous correspondent in a
recent issue of the Pacific Sportsman. His view of the case is summarized in
rather terse language as follows: "Trees in the mountains make floods in the
spring." "Snow in the timber melts too fast. The timber keeps it from drift-
Ing." "The agency which maintains the river Is the snow in the huge drifts."
"That (the drift) is your reservoir that feeds the living streams of summer
time." " The timber has nothing to do with the water supply, but Is a result
of the water supply."
FOEEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 69
A striking example of the action of forests on snow melting may be seen in
the mountains of the Pacific coast. Here are the densest forests in the world,
the deepest beds of humus, and the most perfect reservoir effect so long as it
is in action. Yet in this very region, particularly around Puget Sound, are to
be found some of the most torrential streams in the country. This fact is
largely due to the distribution of snowfall caused by the forests. Conditions
like the following are constantly developing. Heavy snowstorms sweep over
the forest-covered mountains. The snow can not drift, for the dense woods
break the wind. A great deal of it does not reach the ground at all, but hangs
on the branches and undergrowth all the way from the highest tree tops down.
This covering is often so dense as to prevent cruising operations altogether,
because the cruisers can not see the timber through the impenetrable screen of
snow. Of an 18-inch fall, perhaps 12 inches is on the trees and the rest spread
evenly on the ground. To show what now happens, let an illustration be drawn
from the opposite process of drying clothes. When the housewife has finished
her washing and wishes to dry the clothes, she does not set them out in a
basket, where it would take weeks for them to dry, but spreads them upon the
ground or hangs them on a line so that the sun and air can reach them on all
sides. So these forests increase, by a thousandfold, the exposed area of the
snow over what it would be if heaped in nature's clothes baskets (the great
drifts), and give it the maximum possible exposure to the melting influences
whenever these shall arrive. As a general rule these snowstorms are followed
by warm southerly winds and rains — the rains frequently heavy in themselves —
and rain and snow join hands, two storms in one, and rush down to the ocean
in tremendous freshets and Hoods. The Skagit Iliver, the largest in Washington
except the Columbia, and a very considerable stream, has been known to rise
1 foot per hour for sixteen hours, and this where the stream has a fall of 4 feet
to the mile, and carries off its floods very rapidly. A photograph taken on
another stream with only 480 square miles of watershed above it, shows the
terrific power of these streams that come down from the most densely wooded
and perfectly protected watershed in existence. The great flood of 1906 in this
section was a perfect demonstration, not only of the vast intensifying effect of
forests upon floods due to snow melting, but of the utter helplessness of the
forest bed, when saturated with long rains, to restrain floods.
The same effect was very manifest in the great flood of 1907 in the valley of the
Sacrameuto River, California. The tributaries on the east side come down from
the densely wooded slopes of the Sierras; those on the west side from the bare
or sparsely wooded slopes of the Coast Range. If the forest theory be true,
these smooth western slopes should send down a greater flow for the same pre-
cipitation than the eastern slope. Exactly the reverse seems to have been the
case. For the period, March 17-26, the precipitation on the Puta Creek water-
shed, on the west side (805 square miles), averaged 22.7 inches. The maximum
resulting run-off per second per square mile for one day was 39.1 cubic feet.
Directly across the valley on the Sierra slope the precipitation, on the American
River watershed (2,000 square miles), averaged 14.6 inches for the same period,
and the maximum daily discharge was 48.7 cubic feet per second per square
mile. Considering the fact that unit run-off for the same conditions is always
less the greater the watershed, this result is quite remarkable. It is undoubt-
edly due to the action of the Sierra forests on snow melting, and again illus-
trates the inability of forests to exercise any restraining influence upon great
floods.0
During the spring of 1908 occurred a record-breaking flood in western Mon-
tana, nearly all the streams on both sides of the Continental Divide going far
over their banks. As might have been predicted, this occurrence was promptly
cited as another example of the effect that a forest-barren country has upon
floods. Nevertheless it is as certain as anything of this kind can be, that if the
country affected by this extraordinary downpour (in some places breaking all
previous records) had been thickly forested, and the ground still covered, as it
would have been, with a solid layer of saturated snow, the flood would have
a In the paper, The Flood of March, 1907, in the Sacramento and San Joaquin
River Basins, California, by Messrs. Clapp, Murphy, and Martin, published inx
Proceedings American Society of Civil Engineers for February, 1908, the author'
say : " In the Sierras the greater part of the precipitation is normally in the form
of snow, and the magnitude of floods depends largely on the rate of melting. A
heavy warm rain on deep, freshly fallen snow produces a maximum run-off."
70 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
far exceeded in magnitude and destructiveness that which actually took place.
Wherever forests existed in the higher altitudes they did have this effect.0
Having now considered the influence of forests upon stream flow from a
theoretical standpoint, let the records themselves be examined as far as they
are available. These records in the United States, unfortunately, are not so
useful as might be wished, because of their brevity. No continuous records on
any of our streams run back for more than eighty years, and most of them less
than half as far. This is far short of the two hundred years considered by
certain European engineers who investigated Wex's theories as the minimum
period " necessary in order to draw a reliable conclusion " upon this subject. It
does indeed seem absurd to take present-day records, as is constantly done, and
draw conclusions one way or the other as to comparisons with the past, of
which records are entirely wanting ; but such as they are, a few of these records
are given in Table J. They include in most cases both high and low water,
although the low-water records can not, in the nature of the case, be of very
much value. Works of channel improvement on most of the streams have prob-
ably affected somewhat the low-water stages for the same dischai-ge, while, as
is well known, a given stage, even in a natural stream, does not mean the same
discharge at different times.6 It is really the discharge of the streams rather
than the stage that forms the correct basis for comparison : but data for dis-
charge are almost wholly wanting.
An examination of these records shows how utterly impossible it is to find
anything in them to support the current theory of forest influence. They prove
conclusively that there has been no marked change since the settlement of the
country began, and that such change as there has been is on the side of higher
high waters and lower low waters before the forests were cut off. What the
record would be if we could go back two hundred years can not be said, but it
may safely be conjectured that it would show both floods and low waters that
would equal or surpass any modern record. It is the experience of every engi-
neer who has the opportunity to observe the action and study the history of
great rivers to find everywhere evidence of the occurrence of higher waters than
any of which he has positive record. The upbuilding of bottom lands, the sur-
vival of old water marks, and many other indications show that, great as are
modern floods, those of the past were greater still. In the very nature of the
case, it is not possible to find similar evidence of former low waters, because
such evidence is wiped out by every succeeding high water; but whoever will
take the trouble to study records of early expeditions on our rivers, when barges,
keel boats, and similar craft were used, will conclude that extreme low water
is not a modern development by any means. Measurements of the Monongahela
River, at Brownsville, in 1838 and 1856, low-water years, gave discharges of 75
and 23 cubic feet per second, respectively. It is quite certain that the river has
uot fallen so low in late years. At Pittsburg in 1S95 (the driest sesisou in
recent years) it fell to 160 feet.
0 In the Weather Bureau report, Montana section for June, 1908, it is stated
that " the rainfall was phenomenally heavy over most of this district, and, com-
bined with the water from the rapidly melting snow in the high mountains,
caused unprecedented floods in nearly all streams."
6 During the past twenty years the low-water stage of the Mississippi at St.
Paul has been materially modified by reservoir action.
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
71
TABLE 1. — Gauge records of certain rivers of the United States — Highest and
lowest stages for each year.
MISSISSIPPI.
Year.
St. Paul.
St. Louis.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
1785
»40 6
1826
?33.7
36.4
27.0
27 2
1828
1838 . . .
1843
1844
41.3
1845
32.4
25.0
27.4
1846
1849
1851
36.5
28.0
30.0
37.1
27 4
1852
1853
1855
18"i6 1
1858
37.0
""6~6
1.3
3.5
0.0
1.2
1.2
6.6
1.2
1.0
4.7
5.2
2.8
2.4
4.6
2.8
2.3
5.0
7.0
5.6
3.4
2.7
7.6
2.8
4.5
3.0
2.0
1.4
0.9
3.2
2.5
2.8
3.0
1.0
-0.2
0.2
-0.5
IS
0.3
-1.0
-2.5
-2.0
-1.0
0.6
-0.1
-0.3
3.0
1860
1861
25.5
31.5
18.0
20.3
26.8
26.8
28.2
24.1
29.2
26.2
21.8
23.0
25.5
18.4
30.0
31.8
26.5
25.7
21.2
25.5
33.6
32.0
34.8
28.1
27.1
27.0
20.6
29.4
24.6
20.5
23.7
86.0
41.6
23.3
23.4
27.7
30.9
27.2
25.7
23.5
22.5
26.8
38.0
33.6
30.2
26.2
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
2.2
3.0
2.0
2.8
1867
1868
16.1
1870
1871
1872
7 7
1.9
2.4
3.0
2.1
1.9
1.8
0.6
0.9
1.7
3.3
2.9
1.5
1.8
1.9
1.2
0.8
2.4
0.8
0.6
0.1
1.0
0.6
0.2
0.2
0.9
2.3
2.8
2.4
0.7
1.2
1.1
2.5
2.6
2.0
4.9
1.3
1873
16.4
11.6
18.0
11.0
7.7
6.7
10.8
15.3
19.7
13.3
12.5
10.3
7.4
8.2
9.6
14.4
4.6
7.0
6.4
12.6
14.7
11.8
4.6
10.7
18.0
10.7
11.0
6.6
7.5
7.5
13.5
9.9
14.8
13.3
13.6
1874
1875
1876
1877.
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1881
1885
18F6
1887
1888
1889 ,
1890 .
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906 .. ...
1907
L'annee des grandes eaux.
72
FOKEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
TABLE 1. — Gauge records of certain rivers of the United States — Highest and
lowest stages for each year — Continued.
Year.
Pittsburg.
Cincinnati.
Louisville.*
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
1810 ...
32.0
29 0
1813
1816
33.0
34.0
1832 . . .
64.2
40.8
1840
26.9
25.0
26.0
23.0
30.9
31.9
31.9
18.0
19.6
21.4
26.0
22.0
29.7
30.9
30.0
16.0
18.6
31.4
15.4
22.6
20.6
19.6
18.0
19.0
20.6
25.6
22.4
25.0
26.0
25.0
24.6
20.0
22.0
28.0
21.9
1846
1847
63.6
1848
1851
20.3
1.5
1852
1853 ..
1865
2.1
0.3
0.0
0.5
1.1
2.8
1.1
0.3
0.1
1.0
1.4
0.4
0.0
0.0
0.7
1.3
1-.2
1.6
1.6
1.1
0.4
0.2
0.7
0.0
0.1
0.3
0.6
0.6
0.1
0.3
1.0
0.3
2.0
0.0
0.2
1.2
1.9
1.3
1.5
2.0
1.2
2.0
1.7
2.2
2.4
1.6
0.8
1.1
0.0
1.7
1.0
0.0
0.0
1856
1.1
1857
1858
43.1
65.5
49.2
49.4
67.3
42.7
45.1
66.2
42.5
65.7
48.2
48.7
65.2
40.5
41.7
44.4
47.9
65.3
51.7
63.7
41.3
42.7
63.1
60.6
68.6
66.3
71.0
4ti.O
65.7
56.2
39.9
38.2
59.2
57.3
43.7
54.9
85.6
48.4
47.8
61.2
61.4
57.4
40.0
58.7
60.9
63.1
45.9
48.2
50.2
65.2
2.5
3.3
5.3
5.1
2.3
2.5
3.1
5.7
4.7
3.0
5.1
6.3
3.8
2.7
3.0
3.7
2.3
4.2
6.2
3.2
4.3
2.5
3.7
1.9
6.1
3.6
2.7
2.5
3.3
2.7
5.2
5.2
5.7
4.4
3.4
3.6
3.1
2.3
5.5
3.1
4.5
3.4
3.2
4.2
3.9
4.5
3.3
6.5
7.1
7.0
19.1
33.8
1.5
2.0
1859
1860
1861
186''
18(3
1864
1865
1866
18.6
37.6
22.3
24.3
2.8
1.8
3.0
2.8
1867
18fi8
18T.9 .
1870
1871
1872 . .
21.0
18.3
22.4
30.3
32.5
29.9
15.7
19.6
30 0
22.5
37.4
43.8
46.7
22.2
32.7
32.5
16.1
13.8
35.3
32.4
21.9
28.8
12.8
20.7
22.4
35.3
36.3
32.8
15.4
33.2
24.8
28.7
22.9
22.0
26.4
41.2
2.0
2.3
1.8
2.7
3.7
2.2
2.9
2.2
2.8
1.7
4.7
3.2
2.0
2.9
2.4
3! 6
3.6
3.6
2.8
2.1
2.0
2.2
1.8
8.9
2.4
3.1
2.2
2.0
2.8
2.8
2.8
2.0
3.1
8.1
3.4
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878 j
1879
1880
1881
188-2
18M
34.4
23.0
22.8
22.0
26.0
24.0
24.3
31.3
23.0
24.0
23.2
25.8
23.0
29.5
28.9
22.0
27.7
27.5
32.4
28.9
30.0
29.0
18.5
85.5
1885 .
1886
1887
1888.
1889
1890
1891 .
1892
1»93
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1000
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
o Upper gauge.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
73
TABLE 1. — Gauge records of certain rivers of the United States — Highest and
lowest stages for each year — Continued.
TENNESSEE.
Year.
Chattanooga.
Florence.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
1867
58.6
31 1
1871
0.0
-0.8
-0.5
0.0
0.4
-0.6
0.0
-0.8
-0.5
0.1
0.0
1.2
0.4
0.3
0.6
0.5
0.6
0.7
1.2
1.7
1.0
0.8
1.1
—0.1
0.0
0.1
-0.5
0.4
-0.1
0.1
0.8
-0.4
-0.5
-0.5
O.O
1.5
1872
16.4
22.9
26.0
29.4
19.8
. 19.4
13.6
21.5
24.5
17.4
29.6
23.3
25.2
17.8
28.1
17.5
20.8
19.7
23.3
22.2
24.0
21.4
17.7
17.5
20.0
3>.2
13.8
25.2
19.5
18.9
21.7
18.8
17.2
16.7
16.7
1873
1874
0.7
2.2
1.0
1.2
0.9
0.2
1.0
0.0
1.7
0.0
0.2
0.7
1.2
1.2
1.8
2.1
2.0
1.2
1.1
1.6
0.7
0.7
1.1
0.4
1.6
0.8
1.0
2.1
1.2
0.6
0.1
1.2
3.2
1875
1876
54.0
81.1
28.7
19.2
38.0
38.3
22.4
40.2
38.2
42.8
30.4
52.2
27.3
27.0
29.6
42.5
38.9
37.9
33.4
25.5
32.1
40.5
37.9
24.6
40.0
24.3
37.4
40.8
31.8
22.1
22.4
33.3
1877
1878 . . .
1879
1X80
1881
18H2
1883
18M
1885
1886
1X87
1888 ..... . .
1889
1S90
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1><98
1899
1900
1901
1902
3903.
1904
1905
1906
Yea-.
Kansas Cit .
Year.
Kansas City.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
1844
o"ll 0
1891
23.1
24.9
18.1
20.1
16.9
19.2
22.8
21.5
23.3
17.8
19.4
23.2
35.0
25.2
23.0
19.7
24.0
30.5
2.5
1.5
3.1
4.3
3.3
2.8
2.0
4.0
5.2
4.2
3.7
3.5
3.5
2.1
2.0
2.3
4.1
3.7
1873
19.3
16.2
17.8
18.0
22.2
19.8
19.2
lfi.7
26.3
19.2
23.8
717.2
19.1
.15.8
20.2
20.4
13.9
17.2
2.0
1.5
1.8
2.0
3.8
3.5
3.2
?2.0
3.0
1.2
?5.0
?3.0
3.8
0.2
1.8
4.7
3.2
0.2
1892
1874
1X93
1S75
1876
1894
1895
1877
1X96
1878
1579
1897
1898
1899
1880
1881
1900
1882
1901
1902
1883
1884
1903
1885
1904
1886
1905
1X87
1906
1888 ...
1907
1889
1890
1908
a Approximately.
74
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
TABLE 1. — Gauge records of certain rivers of the United States — Highest and
lowest stages for each year — Continued.
CONNECTICUT.
Year.
Springfield.
Year.
Springfield.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
1801
21.0
20.4
22.2
22.0
20.4
13.0
14.2
15.0
17.5
15.0
17.0
16.5
18.5
15.8
10.8
11.5
10.9
14.6
16.0
13.3
16.0
1887
17.0
17.7
11.3
11.7
14.3
13.8
18.2
10.4
20.2
20.2
15.3
15.6
16.2
17.0
19.8
19.3
17.4
15.3
17.6
15.1
15.5
2.1
2.2
3.2
2.8
2.8
3.0
2.1
2.6
3.4
3.5
8.8
3.8
3.6
3.6
3.6
3.1
3.1
3.1
3.6
3.0
3.3
1843
1888
1854
1889
1862
1890
1869
1.H91
1871
0.10
1.10
0.6
1.0
0.8
0.6
1.2
1.2
1.6
1.0
1.7
1.6
1 8
2.2
2.4
1.6
1892
1872
1873
1893
1894
1874
1895
1875
1876
1896
1897
1898
1877
1878
1879
1899
1900
1901
1880
1881
1882
1902
1903
1904
1883
1884
1885
1905
1906
1886
1907
The point should be fully recognized that these records are valueless for
establishing either side of the forestry argument unless they clearly indicate
a new tendency in river flow. It is not enough to cite a few isolated cases. In a
period of, say, two hundred years, there must be a record year for high and one
for low water. Is there any reason why it might not occur this year as well as
earlier? There must be clear evidence of permanent change before any con-
clusion can be legitimately drawn. In two instances such a tendency may
possibly be claimed, the Ohio at Fittsburg and the Connecticut at Holyoke,
which show, in the past few years, a greater frequency of high waters than
for some years previously.0 To whatever extent this may be true, it is certainly
not due to deforestation. The change in the forested areas on the water-sheds
of either of these streams has been relatively very slight in the past twenty
years. The great inroad into the timber of the upper Ohio took place many
years ago. Since that time many cleared areas have grown up to timber while
new areas have been cut. The change one way or the other, in recent years,
compared with the total area, is altogether insignificant. The Connecticut
watershed above Holyoke has a greater forested area than it had forty years
ago. This is due to the abandonment of former farms which, in many instances,
have grown up to timber. It is doubtful if the recent cutting in the White
Mountains offsets this, and, so far as snow melting is concerned, what cutting
there has been is certainly in favor of uniformity of flow.6
0 In the. period of thirty-four years from 1874, the Ohio River at Pittsburg
rose above 15 feet on the gauge 148 times. In the first half of this period, 68
of these freshets occurred and 80 in the second half. The mean for the first
half was 19.3 feet and 20.2 feet for the second half. The mean of the lowest
waters of the first half was 0.3 foot and 1.0 feet for the second half. In Transac-
tions, American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LVIII, p. 31, is a twenty -year
volumetric record of the Connecticut, which indicates somewhat higher high
waters during the last half of the period. But in this case, as at Pittsburg,
higher low waters are also indicated. In fact, in both cases, the greater run-
off in the later period was clearly due to greater precipitation.
6 I have seen in the last few years abandoned farms (abandoned because of
their unprofitableness) on the western slopes of the Allegheny Mountains,
which are almost impenetrable forests of thrifty trees suitable for making
mine posts and telegraph poles. There are, of course, large. areas subject to fires
at intervals of a few years, but that they are subject to such recurrent fires Is
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 75
The records of some American rivers have been given. It is, of course, in
Europe that one would expect to find more definite data, because of the longer
periods through which records have been kept. The histories of several of these
streams have been examined without finding any confirmation whatever of the
forestry theory. The floods on the river Seine, for example, show greater
heights in the sixteenth century than in the nineteenth. The most exhaustive
investigation of the records of European rivers, however, is that of the Danube,
the great river of central Europe, recently made by Ernst Lauda, chief of the
hydrographic bureau of the Austrian Government. The years 1897 and 1899
brought destructive floods to the valley of the Danube, that of 1899 being
particularly severe. M. Lauda prepared an exhaustive report upon this flood,
published in 1900, accompanied by elaborate maps and tables and a searching
analysis of the climatic and other conditions. In his "concluding remarks,"
M. Lauda traces the history of the Danube floods for eight hundred years,
including in all 125 floods. His conclusions are that floods were formerly just
as frequent and as high as they are in recent times, and that the progressive
deforestation of the country has had no effect in increasing them. In fact, the
records of the flood of 1899, which was a summer flood, produced almost
entirely by rain, showed that it was severest on those very parts of the water-
shed that were most heavily forested.
At the Tenth International Congress of Navigation, held at Milan in 1905,
one of the four questions appointed for discussion was the very one here under
consideration. Papers were presented by representatives from France, Ger-
many, Italy, Austria, and Russia. While all the writers heartily favored forest
culture, the opinion was practically unanimous that forests exert no appreciable
influence upon the extremes of flow in rivers. It appears, therefore, that
European experience does not support the currently accepted theory.
So much for the evidence supplied by the records in this country and abroad.
The constantly reiterated statement that floods are increasing in fre-
quency and intensity, as compared with former times, has nothing to support
it. There are, it is true, periods when floods are more frequent than at others,
and hasty conclusions are always drawn at such times; but, taking the records
year after year for considerable periods, no change worth considering is dis-
coverable. The explanation of these periods of high water, like the one now
prevailing, must, of course, be sought in precipitation. That is where floods
come from, and it is very strange that those who are looking so eagerly for a
cause of these floods .lump at an indirect cause and leave the direct one entirely
untouched. In the records of precipitation, wherever they exist, will be found
a full and complete explanation of every one of the floods that have seemed
unusually frequent and severe in recent years. A few examples will be cited :
The great Kaw River flood of 1903, which wrought such havoc in Kansas
City, was caused by a wholly exceptional rainfall over nearly all the water-
shed of that stream. In the first three weeks of May, 1903, more than the
normal amount (4.5 inches) for the entire month fell. This was followed in
the next five days by 3.4 inches, and upon this was piled 4.7 inches in the suc-
ceeding five days, by which time the flood had crested.
In the flood of 1906 in western Washington, which did enormous damage and
stopped railway traffic'for upward of two weeks, the crest of the flood occurred
about the 15th of the month. The month of October had been very wet, and the
ground and forest storage was exhausted. In the first half of November, 25
per cent more rain fell than in the normal for the entire month, and of this
about one-half came on the 13th, 14th, and 15th.
In the flood season of 1905, on the watershed of the upper Mississippi, there
fell in the month .of April above Pokegama Falls 2.55 inches; in M-uy, 4.95
inches ; in June, 8.03 inches, and in July, 6.88 inches ; a total of 22.41 inches.
The normal for the entire year is 26.5 inches.
proof of their rapid production of fuel which means twigs and leaves in great
abundance. (Col. Thomas P. Roberts, Pittsburg, Pa.)
The forest area in Vermont is probably 10 per cent greater than forty years
ago. Of course the quality of the forest is inferior, but that has no effect on
the watershed. (Arthur M. Vaughan, state forester.)
Farms in the Connecticut Valley are among the richest in the State (New
Hampshire) and have been less abandoned than elsewhere. There has been,
however, a goodly acreage, very probably amounting to 25 per cent, which was
cleared land in 1850, and which at the present time has reverted to forest,
much of it excellent white-pine forest. (Philip W. Ayres, forester.)
76 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
In the record-breaking flood of 1907 in the Sacramento Valley 88 per cent of
the normal for the month of March (based on twenty-one years' observation)
fell in three days (17-19), and on one day the precipitation ranged from 5 to
8 inches at the different stations.
In the extraordinary flood of May and June, 1908, in western Montana, the
precipitation for May," at four selected stations, was 6.5 inches and for June
4.2 inches. The greater portion of this fell late in May and early in June.
The normal for May is 2.6 inches and for June 2.3 inches.
Similar conditions prevail in every great flood, and the true explanation is
found in them and not at all in the presence or absence of forests on the water-
sheds. Whether the forests are in any way responsible for the precipitation
itself and so, indirectly, for the floods, brings up the third of the foregoing
general propositions, viz, that forests do increase precipitation. However
strong may be the popular belief in this theory, there is nothing in the records
of rainfall to give it substantial support. The author has had occasion, in
connection with his official work, to compare the rainfall records in the north-
ern half of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, often with this
particular point in mind, and he has never found anything to indicate a change.
So far as he has examined European records the same result holds, and he
believes it to be true the world over, except where climatic changes have re-
sulted from causes entirely disconnected with the operations of man in chang-
ing the face of nature. In fact, the claim that forests increase precipitation
(about 10 per cent, according to Mr. Pinchot), leads to some contradictory
results in the forestry argument. Coincident with our recent high waters,
which are attributed so largely to deforestation, there has been an increase in
precipitation, where there should, apparently, have been a decrease.0 It is
evident that where one rule applies the other fails. So, likewise, it is held
that forests are necessary to protect mountain slopes because of the greater
precipitation prevailing there; yet the forests are said to increase this precipi-
tation materially.
There is really very little, theoretically, to support the claim that forests
insure precipitation. It is said that the cooler status of forest arens condenses
moisture and induces precipitation ; but if tliis were so in midsummer, when
the least precpitation falls, how about the rest of the year when no such dif-
ference exists, but the reverse, if anything? Take, for example, the great for-
ests around the source of the Yellowstone. During the period when the bulk
of the precipitation falls the temperature of the forests can not differ materially
from the outside, and it is impossible to believe that the forest exercises much
influence upon the snowfall.
The fact that these high areas are generally wooded is frequently cited to
prove that forests produce the higher rates of precipitation which also prevail
there. Rut would it not be more reasonable to say that the forests flourish
there because of the higher precipitation, and that the latter is due to the ele-
vated situation and consequent lower temperature? Is not this, in fact, the rea-
son why precipitation is nearly always greater upon the hills than upon the
neighboring lowland? The mountains are nature's wine press by which she
extracts from an unwilling atmosphere the elixir of life for the hillsides and
the valleys below, and she does this whether the forests have been cut away
or not.
In one respect, and a very important one, forests diminish precipitation, and
that is in the deposition of dew. Dew is essentially an open-country phenomenon,
where the radiation of heat from the earth's surface is unobstructed. Clouds
or high cover of any kind, and also wind, interfere with this process and prevent
the dew from gathering. It collects in full strength on low -shrubbery, to a less
degree on small trees, as in orchards, and penetrates for short distances under
forest cover. In the heart of the native forest of full-grown timber, however,
°As a step in the crescendo of gloomy forebodings upon this subject, that
have filled the periodicals during the past twelve months, the following from
the September Scrap Book is the very latest : " When our forests are gone the
streams will dry up, the rivers will cease to run, the rain will fall no more, and
America will be a desert." Considering how large a percentage of our forests
has already disappeared, the extraordinary rains in all parts of the United
States during the past year are not exactly in line with this dismal prophecy.
If one were to judge from the records of the past few years only, he must
conclude that deforestation is increasing rainfall.
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 77
dew is practically unknown. The quantity deposited in the open country in
a single night is quite large under favorable conditions, leaving the effect on
shrubbery and on the ground of a considerable shower. As it gathers in greater
or smaller quantities on every clear, still night in the eastern sections of the
country, except in the colder season of the year, the total quantity must be
quite large.0
One authority holds that dew does not come entirely from the air, but in part
from the ground. It is said that water which in the daytime passes from the
ground and plants into the air is prevented from doing this at night, because
the air can not receive it, and therefore it gathers in visible form on the ground
and vegetation ; but if this were true, it really makes no difference in the benefit
which comes from the dew. Whether the low temperature due to radiation
causes a deposit of moisture from the air or prevents the air from absorbing
moisture which it otherwise would, the result, so far as the ground and vegeta-
tion are concerned, is practically the same.
This may be as good a place as any to note one important characteristic of
precipitation, and that is its tendency to move in cycles. It is well known that
dry years often follow each other for long periods with great regularity, and
that these are succeeded by wet periods. Take the region of the upper Missis-
sippi reservoirs where the normal precipitation, based upon twenty-one years' ob-
servation, is 27.1 inches; in the ten years 18SG-1895 this normal was exceeded
only once; in the succeeding ten years the record fell appreciably below it only
once. Omitting these two years, the mean for the two periods of nine years
was 24.7 and 30 inches, respectively, an average yearly difference of nearly one-
tifth of the normal. Following the well-known law that the percentage of run-
off increases and diminishes with the precipitation, the disparity between the
run-offs for the two periods was greater still.
This phenomenon is also admirably illustrated in the rise and fall of the levels
of the Great Lakes, for these immense storage reservoirs not only absorb and
distribute annual variations of run-off, but equalize to a large degree the varia-
tions from year to year. During the period of the eighties there wns a general
rise in the lake levels, except Superior, and many people ascribed this fact to de-
forestation, which allowed the water to find its way more quickly into the Lakes.
During the nineties there was a period of general subsidence, occasioning con-
siderable anxiety, and it was frequently asserted at that time that this was due
to deforestation, which was drying up the sreams. For some years now the
Lakes have been rising, Ontario being the highest in forty years; and with
another wet year the levels will almost reach record heights.
The long record of the Danube floods already referred to is another example.
Almost invariably high floods would follow each other for several years in
close succession, and then would come long intervals of ordinary high waters.
These periodic changes are not, of course, due at all to the presence or absence
of forests, for they occur just the same whether forest conditions remain un-
changed or not. It is an order of .nature not at all understood, but nevertheless
fully established as a fact. Just now we are in an era of high precipitation
and consequently of high waters. There is a disposition to " view with alarm "
these exaggerated conditions. Rarely does one stop to think how far better it
is to the country to have these wet periods, even with all their floods, than the
dry periods that will surely follow. A single dry year may cause more loss to
the country through the shrinkage of crops than the floods of an entire cycle of
wet years.
Related to the subject of precipitation is that of evaporation as affecting the
quantity of water that remains upon the ground. Generally speaking, the sur-
face evaporation in summer should be greater in the open than in the forest
because of the more direct action of the sun and wind : but in the height of sum-
mer the forests arrest precipitation to such an extent in the leaves and humus
that more of it escapes through evaporation than in the open. The effect of
aThe author has never seen any data as to the actual quantities of dew de-
posited in different localities and conditions, and hopes that the discussion of
this paper may bring some to light. He has, however, vivid recollections on
the subject when, as a lad on a dairy farm, it was his unlucky lot to go bare-
footed after the cows every morning without waiting to see whether the sun
was going to shine or not. He knows from experience how near zero the dew
point can get. and how wet dew is; and also that the warmest place in the
world at such times is where a cow has lain all night, and next to that the
dry precincts of the tall woods.
78 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
forests upon evaporation through the medium of their leaves finds its counter-
part in the similar action of the growing crops that overspread deforested areas.
As already pointed out, the forests of the mountains increase the evaporation
from snow very materially.
Where the balance lies among all these conflicting influences affecting precipi-
tation and evaporation it is impossible to say, and when the records are ex-
amined it must be admitted that they afford no answer. So far as the re-
searches of science have yet determined, the presence or absence of forests cuts
no figure in climatic conditions. These depend upon causes of far greater magni-
tude and are influenced, if at all, only to an insignificant degree by the operations
of those who occupy the planet.
The fourth proposition of the forestry argument is that forests are necessary
to prevent erosion on steep slopes and the consequent silting of reservoirs and
watercourses below. Here again there is the same deficiency of evidence to
support the theory that has characterized the three propositions already con-
sidered. The author has been unable to find anything to confirm it. In his
observations, embracing pretty nearly all varieties of timber laud in the northern
two-thirds of the United States, he has still to see a single example where the
mere cutting off of forest trees leads to an extensive erosion of the soil. Almost
invariably, and it may be said always except in very unusual conditions, a soil
that will sustain a heavy forest growth will immediately put forth, wjien the
forest is cut down (or even burned down), a new growth, generally in part
different from the first, but forming an equally effective cover to the soil. The
only approach to an exception to this rule that he has observed is in some of
the high mountain forests where the soil is extremely thin and weak and the
action of nature in producing vegetable growth is slow. In the forest areas of
the East, the growth that follows tree cutting — consising not only of new trees,
but of briars and small brush of every description — accumulates very rapidly
and forms a more effective mat against erosion than the original forest itself
and equally effective in storing water. Such low growths have also a better
effect upon snow melting, because they give both wind and sun freer play.
Certainly the ground in a forest under culture, with the debris raked up, is
more easily eroded than that of a slashing or second-growth area, or even good
meadow or pasture. A forest soil unprotected by forest debris is almost as
erosible as a field under culture.
The increased erosion of the soil, of which so much is heard, does not result
from forest cutting, but from cultivation, using that term in its broad sense
to include all of man's operations for the occupancy and utilization of the
ground from which the forests have been removed. It is the " breaking of the
soil " that leads to its erosion by the elements. Roads and trails are one of
the great sources of erosion in hilly countries, but plowing and tilling are the
principal causes. The question is not one of forests in the first instance, but
of how far the cultivation and occupancy of the soil can be dispensed with.
Even on steep mountain slopes, where erosion and ruin have resulted, the
effect is often due to the clumsy and injudicious work of the husbandman who
uses no judgment of cause and effect in the way he exposes the soil to the force
of the storms. The successful cultivation of hillsides in every quarter of the
globe is an everlasting refutation of the argument that forests are necessary to
protect the face of the earth wherever cultivation is practicable. Some classes
of cultivated vegetation, like the well-knit turf of meadow or pasture, are a
better protection against erosion thau any ordinary forest cover. That there
are sections of the country where erosion of the soil is much more rapid than
in others under similar conditions is perfectly true. This is especially the case
with certain districts in the Southern States, and very likely forest protection
is there better than any other; but it is still true that the problem of control
of soil erosion on cleared lauds is essentially a problem in cultivation. It is
not so much the absence of the forest as it is the cutting of roads and ditches,
the upturning of the soil, and the various kindred operations of man that
quicken the run-off and increase the surface soil wash.
The oft-repeated assertion that, owing to the cutting off of forests, our rivers
are shoaling up more than formerly may be challenged absolutely. There is
nothing in our river history to support it except in a few instances, like the
Yuba Kiver in California, where extensive hydraulic or similar operations have
produced vast changes. It is exceedingly doubtful if it can be established by
any evidence worthy of the name that the streams of the Mississippi basin are
more obstructed by sand bars than formerly. The author's observation of
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 79
upward of twenty years and inquiries from many sources fail to disclose any
such evidence. It would not, indeed, be surprising if some such result were
noticeable, for it would naturally seem that the cultivation of the soil has
facilitated to some degree the wash into the streams. If this is the case,
however, the rivers do not show it. They have a way of distributing their
burdens so as to meet their necessities and, except in rare cases, they do not
shoal appreciably more than formerly.^
The distinction between erosion actually resulting from cultivation and that
assumed to result from timber cutting is important to keep in mind, for it
fixes the burden of responsibility where it belongs. It shows that this erosion
or soil wash can be reduced only by the elimination or control of cultivation,
and the question at once becomes that of the extent to which such control or
elimination is practicable. For example, it is insisted that the suggested reser-
voir system of the Ohio, to be referred to later on, will be absolutely dependent
for its integrity and permanence upon keeping the watersheds above them
covered with forests. But it is understood not to be the policy to include in
the proposed forest reserves any lands that are fitted for agriculture.6 As
elsewhere pointed out, that portion of these areas which is not reduced to
cultivation will not be subject to erosion more than at present by the mere fact
of cutting off the timber, for the natural growth on logged-off lands is just
as good a protection as the forests themselves. If the agricultural tracts are
still to be left open for occupancy, the source of sediment remains uncurbed
and the whole argument for forest reserves, on the ground of protecting the
reservoirs from sedimentation, falls to the ground.
Some reference should be made to the real significance of- the alarming re-
ports which have been put forth concerning the washing of our soils into the
sea. Over and over during the past year has the statement appeared that
1,000,000,000 tons of our soil is annually carried by our rivers into the ocean.
This figure itself is quite conservative, but the conclusions drawn from it are
not at all so. Taking the results of silt observations on the Mississippi River
and its tributaries for 1879 and applying the Missouri rate to all western
streams outside the Mississippi basin and the Ohio rate to all eastern streams
outside the same basin, a total of about 1,100,000,000 tons is indicated. But
1879 was a low-water year in the Mississippi basin and the quantity for average
years may probably be 1,500,000,000 tons and for extreme years 2,000,000,000
tons.
Let us look these prodigious quantities squarely in the face and see what
they mean. Where does this enormous volume of soil come from? Is it, as
one might infer from published references to the subject from our cultivated
fields — an annual toll laid upon the precious fertility of our agricultural lands?
Not at all. Only a very small proportion comes from this source. Possibly
half of the total quantity of sediment goes down by the Mississippi. All
authorities agree that the greater portion of this comes from the Missouri.
From computations which the author has nfade he believes that fully two-
thirds of it conies from that source. The observations of 3879 indicate that
five times as much sediment comes from that stream as from the Ohio.
But where does the Missouri get it? Almost entirely from the most useless
areas of land with which any country was ever afflicted. The barren Bad
Lands are the principal source. Much comes from the mountains; much from
the sand hills; very little, relatively, from cultivated areas. Of the balance
of the soil wash of the United States, by far the greater portion comes from
°The absurd length to which this erosion argument has been carried is well
illustrated by the remark made in a recent address by one of the officials of the
Forestry Service: " This energy (of running water) is expended in rolling along
stones and gravel to finally build up the mouths or beds of the great rivers.
Next year there will be a bill introduced in Congress providing a forest reserve
in the Appalachian Mountains, so that the rocks from these mountains will be
kept from the Mississippi River!"
6 Among references to the intention not to absorb agricultural lands in the
areas conserved by the reservoirs is the following from A. F. Horton, Assoc. M.
Am. Soc. C. E., in Engineering News, June 11, 1908: "The reader should not
lose sight of the fact that the conserved area is not rendered unfit for cultiva-
tion or other use, but that only a small portion of the conserved area (that
covered by the reservoir) is so utilized that its value for cultivation is de-
stroyed."
80 FOEEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
other similar sections of the West, where the streams carry enormous loads
of sediment. The entire Colorado system is even more distinguished in this
respect than is the Missouri. The same is true of the Kio Grande, the Pecos,
and the upper courses of the Arkansas and lied. Even the streams of the
Great Interior Basin are heavy silt hearers, and the same is true of many of
the streams of the Pacific coast. The streams flowing into Puget Sound are
heavily laden with silt at certain portions of the year, and the great Columbia
bar is impressive evidence of the vast burden of sediment which that mighty
river has carried to the sea. Nearly all of the annual load carried by these
streams is entirely unaffected by anything which man has done. It is the
regular natural carving down of the hills and building up of the valleys and
estuaries below.
The eastern streams are clear and sediment-free compared with those of the
West; but even in these a large portion of their sediment is eroded from the
gorges and canyons of the hills and mountains, which will continue to wash
away as long as the rivers flow. This particular class of erosion, on both
eastern and western rivers, is far less objectionable than one is led in these
later days to believe. Has it not from the beginning been one of the most
beneficent operations of nature? Are not the richest lands in the world — the
river bottoms and deltas— built up in this wayV To a very great extent
the irrigated lands of the West are composed entirely of the debris from the
mountains and the bad lands. Even to-day this tribute from the highlands
is of great value. The periodic enrichment of the Ohio bottom lands and
similar tracts in hundreds of other places is of the highest economic impor-
tance. The soil-laden waters of irrigation in -the spring, though sometimes
injurious to the growing crop for the time being, are on the whole extremely
beneficial. The damage from sediment is not in its injury to the lands ordina-
rily, but to ditches, canals, reservoirs, and similar works. On the whole it is,
and always has been, a benefit to the lowlands. Even that portion carried
out to sea builds up deltas and surely, though slowly, extends the habitable
area of the globe. IS'ot alone in the resources of water and timber, but, in
the perpetual renewal of soil as well, has the valley said to the mountains
throughout the world's history: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from
whence cometh my help."
Sediment of this character, except when accompanied by alkaline salts or
other similar ingredients, is not injurious to domestic supply. The water of the
Missouri Itiver is one of the healthiest drinking waters in the world in spite
of the fact that it rs one of the muddiest."
The proportion of soil wash that comes from cultivated fields is really very
small compared with the enormous total that the rivers carry away. Heavy
rains undoubtedly wash farm soils a great deal, but this erosion is in large part
a transfer from one spot to another and not an absolute loss. The history of
the old Ohio Canal reservoirs indicates very little filling in the sixty-six years
that they have been In existence. According to the chief engineer of the Ohio
state board of public works. It is scarcely appreciable in some of the reservoirs,
and in none does it amount to as much as 0 inches, or one two-huudredths of an
inch per year from the tributary watershed. Yet these reservoirs are sur-
rounded by rich agricultural lands. The silt observations on the Ohio in 1S79
indicate only a little more than one six -hundred ths of au inch over the entire
watershed; but this, it is true, was a year of light rains.
It Is readily seen that the formidable danger of which so much has been
written of late becomes quite harmless as to quantity when it comes down to
the Individual farm. The harm is probably not so much in the quantity of soil
actually lost as in the fact that the soil may be leeched of some of its more
important ingredients. The evil is one which can be controlled only by better
methods of farming, whereby the surface waters will be restrained from eroding
the soil; but even these measures have their adverse side, for when heavy rains
prevail for a long time it is more important to the farmer to get the water off
bis land than it is to save a little soil. Most of the soil will stop on lower
ground and not be wholly lost, but if the water is not gotten rid of the crop
niav be ruined.
°The late J. B. Johnson, M. Am. Soc. C. E., used to say, in extolling the vir-
tues of Missouri Kiver water, that it was the most perfectly filtered water in the
world; with this difference, however, that in the ordinary case water is run
through the filter, but here the filter is run through the water.
FOBEST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 81
The caving of the banks of our great rivers is constantly cited as an example
of soil loss on an enormous scale, and it is asserted that this condition is worse
now than formerly. The Mississippi and Missouri rivers, practically alike in
this respect, are the two most prominent examples. The author will consider
briefly the case of the Missouri because he has had a long and intimate acquaint-
ance with that stream from its mouth to its source.
It may be stated by way of refutation that the actual condition of this stream
to-day is better thau before settlement began in its valley, except that possibly
the low-water flow is slightly diminished to meet the demands for irrigation.
The stream is not "constantly becoming more and more savage," as a recent
writer asserts. On the other hand, its natural savagery is much restrained.
Probably 100 miles of its banks are protected ; snags and drift heaps are largely
removed; considerable bottom land has been reclaimed and turned to indus-
trial use; floods are no greater than they used to be, and navigation is safer
and easier. Navigation has ceased, not because the river has deteriorated, as is
commonly asserted, but because the natural difficulties peculiar to this stream
are so great and so hard to overcome that boats can not live and do business
-at the same rates at which railroads transport freight.
That the river is a most destructive one to the bottom lands along its course
is only too true; but the character of its destructive work is generally misun-
derstood. The writer just quoted states that the river carries away annually
8,000 acres of bottom land within the limits of the State of Missouri alone.
The total acreage of these lands is about 640,000. If this statement were true,
more than the entire area would have been carried away since the voyage of
Lewis and Clark, and if the process had been continuous since Columbus dis-
covered America the river to-day would be flowing in its original channel in
the solid rock, 75 to 90 feet below the present surface. As a matter of fact,
there is more soil in the valley to-day than there was at the date of either of
these 'events. Taking an average for a considerable period, none of the bottom
land is lost. It has always been slowly rising through accretion. The bank
caving is only a transfer from one point of the shore to another. For every
•dissolving bank there is a nascent bar. Where steamboats ran last year wil-
lows may be growing this, and next year the farmer may be planting his corn.
The havoc wrought concerns the individual owner, but not the valley bottom
itself. The cruel losses attract attention ; the unobtrusive gains do not ; but the
account always balances itself. The' harm done is first to the individual whose
possessions are swept away, and second to the community through paralysis of
development, depreciation of values, and the holding back of this natural garden
spot from becoming what it ought to be. The evil is a very real one, and the
author has long endeavored, though without success, to secure provision in the
river and harbor bill for its amelioration.0 Great as the evil is, however, it is
not at all in the nature of an actual loss of land to the valley.
It must be clear from the foregoing that the bottom lands of the Missouri add
nothing whatever to the total quantity of sediment that passes out of the mouth
of the stream, for these bottoms have been increasing rather than diminishing
in quantity. Likewise, the Mississippi bottoms contribute nothing to the volume
of sediment that is carried into the Gulf of Mexico. It all comes from the
uplands, far and near, but principally from the more remote and hilly regions.
This load is in the nature of through traffic. The local freight picked up from
a caving bank is mostly discharged at the next station. It follows, therefore,
that if the banks of these streams were revetted from the Gulf to Pittsburg, the
Falls of St. Anthony, and the mouth of the Yellowstone, the quantity of sedi-
ment passing into the Gulf would not be diminished a particle. Such revetment
would nevertheless be of the very highest value, if it could be made to hold, for
it would give permanence to the banks, security to riparian property, and would
largely prevent bar building by training the river into a regular channel and
relieving it of everything except its through load of sediment.
The bank-caving problem of these valleys is unaffected in any appreciable
degree by the influence of forests or culnvation on the watersheds, and can not
be solved or materially assisted by any practicable changes in these conditions.
The problem is strictly a local one, and the remedy must be a local one. Even
if it were possible to bring the waters down from the uplands perfectly clear, it
is not at all certain that the effect upon the bottom lands would not be injurious
rather than beneficial ; for then the caving soil, instead of being quickly depos-
0 Transactions American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LIV, p. 336.
72538— AGB— 09 6
82 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
ited again, would in part be carried out to sea, and the bottom lands, unless
protected, would be gradually eaten away.
In addition to the four main propositions discussed above, a few subordinate
features of the question will now be considered.
A feature of the Forestry Service which is generally overlooked is the possible
effect of culture upon the bed of humus, so much relied upon in these discussions
to prove the restraining action of forests upon run-off. Mr. Piuchot, in his
statement to the Judiciary Committee, said :
" The effect of a forest on a steep slope is to cover that slope with leaves,
rotten and half rotten sticks, and other mechanical obstructions, which prevent
the water from running below as rapidly as it would otherwise."
It is understood that the forest policy is to keep this litter cleared up as a
measure of fire protection, and one frequently sees in articles on forestry photo-
graphs of the typical forest culture in which the ground is thoroughly cleaned
up. The result must be to diminish proportionately the retentive action of the
forest bed and to increase its liability to erosion. In the light of the foregoing
discussion fire protection is of much greater importance than the retentive effect
of the forest bed on the run-off. The remarkable degree to which the forest bed
will dry out in prolonged drought, making it one vast tinder box, supports this
conclusion, and is another proof of the extreme desiccating effect of forest
growth upon the soil.
It often escapes attention, except with those who are in the woods a great
deal, that the water establishes little channels through the debris where the
latter is of long accumulation and somewhat permanent in character. Such
debris does not in reality offer so great an obstruction to flow as one would
suppose, and as would be the case if its condition underwent frequent change.
The statement is constantly met that forests are very efficacious in the pro-
tection of river banks from undermining and steep slopes from sliding. . The
exact reverse is the case. As every river engineer knows nothing is more disas-
trous to a river bank on an alluvial stream than heavy trees. This is due partly
to the great weight, but in large part to the swaying effect- of the wind and the
enormous leverage of the long trunks which pry up the ground and facilitate
the tendency to undermining. One of the regular policies of river control is to
cut down these trees for a distance back from the edge of the bank wherever
complications with private ownership do not prevent. Snags and driftwood in
the channels have always been among the most serious obstacles to navigation
on streams flowing between forest-covered banks. Likewise where railroad or
highway grading cuts the skin of unstable mountain slopes, the presence of
large trees immediately above tends powerfully to loosen the ground and cause
it to slide ; and in such cases it is necessary to cut down the timber. Far better
than forest trees on river banks are thick growths of willow, alder, or any of
the smn Her close-growing shrubs; and on side hill slopes either such shrubbery
or a good turf.0
In the current discussion a great deal is made of the fact that mountain
slopes are "quick spilling," the deduction being that they therefore are more
productive of floods. This is quite contrary to the fact. It is perfectly true
that more rain falls on the hills than on the lowlands, that a greater percentage
of rainfall runs off from steep than from flat slopes, and that it runs off more
rapidly; but it does not follow at all that these conditions produce greater
floods. A mountain stream carries off the water within its banks a great deal
faster and more safely than a similar stream in the lowlands. The banks are
almost always stable and the bottoms rocky or composed of heavy gravel or
•lowlders; in fact, floods do less harm on such streams than on any others. In
the lowland, where the streams have smaller slopes and unstable banks, much
smaller run-off produces greater floods and more destruction. Moreover; nature
to a large degree adapts streams to the work required of them. The channels
0 The following testimony before the JJoard of Consulting Engineers, Panama
Canal, is to the point (Report, p. 329) :
Question by Mr. Welcker : Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask if Mr. Dauchy
thinks that vegetation prevents the sliding?
Mr. DAUCHY. My experience has been the reverse ; I have stopped sliding hills
• by cutting off the vegetation. The weight of the timber on a sliding slope aids
materially to assist the sliding.
Mr. WELCKER. Does not the vegetation diminish it?
Mr. DAUCHY. If you could get a grass-covered slope it would help to diminish it.
FOKEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 83
of the tributaries of the Ohio have been carved out through long ages to carry
in safety the average flood flow. Area for area of watershed, their cross-sections
are much larger than those of streams in climates of less rainfall. The normal
section of the Ohio at Wheeling is over 2 square feet for every square mile of
watershed, while that of the Kaw River at Kansas City is less than one-third
square foot per square mile. It is therefore wholly erroneous to conclude that
the streams of these mountains are more subject to over-bank freshets than
those of the lowlands or that the freshets themselves are more destructive.
Considering the conditions growing out of settlement the reverse is unquestion-
ably the case. '
There is one other consideration of prime importance in this forestry argu-
ment, and that is the fact that no possible development of forestry can increase
the present percentage of forest-covered areas. At least as much ground as is
now devoted to agricultural purposes must continue to be so used. The utmost
admissible expansion of national forests will never require a greater area than
is now occupied by forests and second growth or logged-off lauds, which, so far
as run-off and erosion are concerned, are just as effective as the virgin forest
itself, and more effective than will be the groomed forest of the. new regime.
There may be a shifting of areas devoted to forests, but possible expansion,
compared with the present area, is so small that its influence upon the great
rivers, even admitting the full force of the forestry argument, would be wholly
inappreciable.
The fact just dwelt upon should make us thankful that the forestry theory as
to the stream flow is not correct. Whatever the value of forests we can not
have them everywhere, and by far the greater portions already cleared away
must always remain deforested. If this fact of deforestation has brought with
it in greater degree than of old the calamities of high and low waters, then,
indeed, we are in an unfortunate case. But it has not done so. Nature has
decreed no such penalty for the subjugation of the wilderness, and on the whole
these natural visitations are less frequent and less extensive than they were
before the white man cut away the forests.
In summarizing below the foregoing argument, the author would be particu-
larly careful to guard against sweeping assertions in any of his conclusions.
He well understands how little the subject is capable of precise demonstration.
Snow, for example, does not always fall, even in the open country, under the
influence of the wind, or it may fall in a wet condition that keeps it from
drifting. Altitude comes in with its lower temperature and modifies the general
result. There is a vast difference between a northern and a southern exposure
even with the same slope and topographical conditions. Precipitation scarcely
ever occurs twice alike on the same watershed. The combination of flow from
tributaries is never the same in any two floods, and there is an endless variety
of conditions that must qualify our rules and make us cautious in making
claims in a matter of this kind. The author objects solely to the contrary
course pursued by many forestry advocates — to the extreme claims that forests
exert a regulating influence upon stream flow in times of great floods or
extreme low water in our larger rivers. These claims stand to-day absolutely
uuproven. The difference _between past and present conditions is not great.
One influence offsets another with such nicety that the change, if there is any,
is hard to find. The " delicate balance " maintained by nature where man has
not cut away the forests is replaced by other balances equally delicate and
efficacious in the drainage of lands, the growing of crops, and the deposition of
dew.
In the following seven propositions the author sums up the arguments pre-
sented in the foregoing pages:
(1) The bed of humus and debris that develops under forest cover retains
precipitation during the summer season, or moderately dry periods at any time
of the year, more effectively than do the soil and crops of deforested areas
similarly situated. It acts as a reservoir moderating the run-off from showers
and mitigating the severity of freshets, and promotes uniformity of flow at
such periods.
(2) The above action fails altogether in periods of prolonged and heavy
precipitation, which alone produce great general floods. At such times the
forest bed becomes thoroughly saturated, and water falling upon it flows off
as readily as from the bare soil. Moreover, the forest storage, not being under
control, flows out in swollen streams, and may, and often does, bring the ac-
cumulated waters of a series of storms in one part of the watershed upon those
of another which may occur several days later ; so that, not only does the forest
84 FOBEST LANDS FOB THE PEOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS.
at such times exert no restraining effect upon floods, but, by virtue of its un-
controlled reservoir action, may actually intensify them.
(3) In periods of extreme summer heat forests operate to dimmish the
run-off, because they absorb almost completely and give off in evaporation
ordinary showers which, in the open country, produce a considerable temporary
increase in the streams; and therefore, while small springs and rivulets may
dry up more than formerly, this is not true of the larger rivers.
(4) The effect of forests upon the run-off resulting from snow melting is to
concentrate it into brief periods and thereby increase the severity of freshets.
This results (a) from the prevention of the formation of drifts, and (&) from
the prevention of snow melting by sun action in the spring, and the retention
of the snow blanket until the arrival of hot weather.
(5) Soil erosion does not result from forest cutting in itself, but from cultiva-
tion, using that term in a broad sense. The question of preventing such
erosion or soil wash is altogether one of dispensing with cultivation or properly
controlling it The natural growth which always follows the destruction of a
forest is fully as effective in preventing erosion, and even in retaining run-off,
as the natural forest.
(6) As a general proposition climate, and particularly precipitation, have
not been appreciably modified by the progress of settlement and the consequent
clearing of land, and there is no sufficient reason, theoretically, why such a
result should ensue.
(7) The percentage of annual run-off to rainfall has been slightly increased
by deforestation and cultivation.
If the foregoing propositions are correct they enforce two very important
conclusions — one relating to the regulation of our rivers and the other to
forestry.
It follows that no aid is to be expected in the control or utilization of our
rivers, either for flood prevention, navigation, or water power, by any prac-
ticable application of forestry. Remember always that it is the extreme of
flow, not the medium condition, that controls the cost of river regulation. It
is the floods and low waters that measure the cost. Any scheme of control
that is not based upon these Is worthless. This proposition need scarcely be
urged upon the experienced engineer. For himself he would never place any
real reliance upon forestry. Called in consultation, for example, in the problem
of protecting the city of Pittsburg from floods, he would be bound to take as
his measure of the problem the highest recorded flood on the river with a
good factor of safety on that, and then figure out by what methods — artificial
reservoirs, levees, raising of grades, or clearing the river channel of artificial
obstructions — he would obtain the desired relief. He would not dare, as the
physician in the case, to advise his patient that he could dispense with or
lessen in any degree the application of the remedies proposed, nor save one
dollar of the cost, by anything that might be done in reforesting the watershed'
of the rivers themselves.0
In like manner no engineer could honestly advise lowering in height by a
single inch the levees of the Mississippi, because of any possible application of
forestry to the watershed of that stream. And again he could not advise that
forestry development would lessen in any degree the cost of improving the rivers
for low-water navigation. Engineers fully understand their responsibility in
these matters. But great engineering projects can not be carried out without
money, and the people will not give the money unless convinced of the necessity
and wisdom of the plan proposed. So long as there is apparently some easier
and simpler plan, some panacea, no matter how nebulous or unproven, that
offers a way out without the expenditure of so much cold cash, they will be
backward in voting money, and the counsel of the engineer will be of no avail,
0 Possibly the author is too positive in this opinion. He finds that, in one case
at least, the city of Williamsport, Pa., reputable engineers have advised refor-
estation of mountain slopes as a protection against floods. The statement of
" an eminent authority " was cited with approval to the effect that " four-fifths
of the precipitation is detained by the surface of the ground" under forest
Cftver. But here, as in all these assumptions, the rule applies only to the
average condition. The point is overlooked that in periods of heavy precipita-
tion the retentive capacity of the forest bed becomes exhausted. If the city of
Williamsport is relying upon this advice it is certainly laying up for itself a
season of repentance.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 85
Hence the complete divorcement of forestry from any connection with river
regulation — so far, at least, as its effect upon the cost of such regulation is con-
cerned— will be a distinct and positive gain to the latter.
In the second place, forestry will be left to work out its own salvation without
any reference to the rivers. Will not its cause be promoted by this divorce-
ment? At first thought it may seem that thereby one great argument for for-
estry is lost ; but no argument can be of value in the long run that is not based
upon truth, and the disappointment that is certain to result in the fulfill-
ment of these hopes will do more harm than good. Forestry does not need any
such support. It stands on a basis of its own, too broad and too sure to require
any extraneous aid. What is this basis? The reply may be given in the beau-
tifully appropriate phrase that occurs in the act of Congress creating the first of
our national parks, " the benefit and enjoyment of the people." In the matter
of benefits, forests are necessary, because they produce the most important
material of construction known to man ; even iron can not be excepted. From
the lead pencil to the mast of a ship, from the infant's top to spacious temples
and palaces, it enters into nearly every requirement of human existence. A
large portion of the structures for human habitation are built of it. The land
transportation of the world is closely dependent upon it, for if it were not for
the railroad tie scarcely a car could run. It is only when one stops to think a
little upon the unlimited adaptability of wood to human needs that its trans-
cendant importance is borne in upon him.
In the matter of enjoyment, no other work of nature has done more for the
uplifting and ennobling of the mind than these " first temples " of God. It
requires no argument to enforce this assertion, particularly with him who has
been reared in close companionship with the woods. Sad, indeed, will be the
day, if it ever comes, when the people are deprived of this source of healthful
pleasure for which no adequate substitute can ever be found.
And yet this supremely important resource in human happiness is strictly
limited, and the visible supply is fast disappearing. Statistics fix the date,
almost as confidently as an astronomer predicts an eclipse, when the doomsday
of its 'final disappearance will come unless something is done to prevent. Most
fortunately this material, unlike copper or iron or stone, is a vegetable product
capable of self-renewal, and the supply can be kept up forever. This is what
gives it extreme importance to forestry. It requires no dubious support from
any other source. It fully justifies the splendid work that the Forestry Service
is doing and demonstrates the wisdom of the farsighted men who are laying the
foundation of our future national forests.
Let us now inquire if it will not be to the advantage of this great work to be
absolutely independent of any connection with waterway development. Will it
not be better in every way for forestry if it is promoted solely on the basis of
producing trees for human use and enjoyment, and not at all for any supposed
influence upon flow of streams? Is it really a wise move, so far as forestry is
concerned, to single out the rugged and inaccessible mountains as localities
where our future supply of timber must come from? The availability of for-
ests to human needs depends very largely upon the situation in which they
grow. Few people understand the exceeding importance of this matter. The
converting of a forest tree into form for use involves two distinct processes, the
conversion of the tree into lumber or other product and its transportation to the
place of consumption. The cost of logging operations is immensely increased by
the roughness of the ground. In our western forests, for example, it requires a
higher grade of skill, commanding higher wages, to " lay " a tree on a steep hill-
side than on even ground. The losses from breakage in falling are much higher,
and the difficulty and expense of getting the logs out much greater. In fa'ct, the
increase of cost runs all the way from $1 to $10 per 1,000, depending upon the
situation. Engineering News stated the case very forcibly in regard to the
Appalachian forests (though it did not have this particular thought in mind)
when it said, in a recent issue, that " the cutting off of forests on the remote
mountain slopes has only become possible with the high price of lumber that has
prevailed for ten years past." This increase of cost represents the perpetual
tax that the public must pay for timber from these regions as compared with
that from the lowlands. And a great deal of it can never be gotten out at all.
The poet's " gem of purest ray serene " was not more lost to human needs than
are tens of thousands of noble trees in the rugged fastnesses of our mountains,
east and west. Benefit? To convert them into lumber will cost more than they
are worth. Enjoyment? Only the solitary hunter or mountaineer ever sees
them. These are not the places to rear up forests for the good of the people.
86 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Consider the question of transportation and take Chicago as being practically
on the meridian through the center of population of the country. The rate on
fir from the Cascades to Chicago is 55 cents per 100. or $16.50 per 1,000 feet
h. in. The average rate from the Appalachian forests is about 18 cents, or
about $9 per 1.000 for green oak. By a proper distribution of our forests these
rates on the average ought to be brought within 10 cents per 100. In logging
nnd transportation together, the country will tax itself on the average not less
than $10 per 1 000 for whatever supply it derives from these mountain forests
as compared with what it might receive from forests more favorably located.
If it were not for the erroneous assumption that forests have a regulative
effect upon the flow of our navigable rivers, would not the policy in regard to
the acquisition of hinds for forest reserves be quite different from that now
proposed? If Congress were to vote, say, $10,000,000 at the next session to
commence the establishment of national forests by purchase, would it not be
far better spent in lands where the pine, oak, cherry, and ash used to grow,
in locations convenient for access by the people and in every way better adapted
to their needs? States, counties, or other agencies should be required to meet
half the original cost. Even if the total cost to the Government were several
times what equal areas in the mountains cost, it would be far more economical
in the long run. There is an abundance of land in nearly all the States, suit-
able for the purpose, that can be had at not excessive cost. In New England,
for example, would not the development of forests in the lowlands, where in
many places former cultivation has been abandoned, be far better than to buy
up the difficult slopes of the White Mountains? Let there be a national forest
in every county of the United States where it is practicable to create one. Let
its location be carefully chosen so that its product may be manufactured and
shipped with the smallest cost to the people, and serving also not only as a
pleasure ground but as a stimulus to similar work by .private agencies.
It will be urged that these mountain lands are worth more for forestry than
for agriculture. Very true; but that would not justify their purchase if the
same money would produce a better result elsewhere. " Never buy wh,at you
do not want because it is cheap." Again, it may be said that here is our only
remaining timber supply in the East, and it must be saved. Except in some
possible economy by the more judicious cutting under government control, it is
not apparent how a forest tree that has attained its growth is going to render
any greater good to humanity by being saved for the next generation than by
being cut for this. There is a general sentiment current in these later years
that if timber is cut off by private agencies it is wasted; but does it not find
Its way into common use just the same? Not as completely, perhaps, but still
substantially the same. Take the combination of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Com-
pany, considered entirely apart from its economic and ethical aspects as a great
trust or corporation, and solely as a preserver of our forests. With its system
of fire control, its policy of holding its timber for high prices, is it not really
conserving the timber for future use? To speak of such timber as being '' lost"
to the people, " wasted," and its acquisition as a " looting of our heritage," is
as disingenuous as it is untrue. Will its lumber cost the consumer a cent more
per thousand than if it were from a government reserve? It is a wholly gratui-
tous assumption that our timber is going to be " wasted " unless it is ^placed
under government control. The thing of prime importance is to get new forests
started. In the thirty to fifty years that our present supply will last new for-
ests should be brought into existence all over the country. This is far more
important than to buy the virgin timber of the Appalachians.
Moreover, it seems now to be considered that the virgin lands have already
risen too high in price to be purchased by the Government, and that it is only
the second-growth lands that can be economically acquired.0 Be that as it may,
It is certain that the acquisition of such of these lands as are desirable for the
strict purposes of timber production will be greatly facilitated by disabusing the
minds of the owners of the impression so diligently fostered of late that the very
salvation of the country depends upon their selling out to the Government. Can
anyone doubt that the present course will add vastly to the purchase price?
Still another argument that may be urged is that only by linking the forests
with the rivers in a way to establish their utility in maintaining navigation can
the constitutional objection to the acquisition of these lands be overcome. But
0 Report of Secretary of Agriculture on Southern Appalachian and White
Mountain watershed, December, 1907, pp. 8, 30, 35.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 87
does this apply to mountain forests more than to any others? It is incontest-
ably true that whatever restraining effect forests have upon run-off is greater
upon the lowlands than upon steep mountain sides. This legal feature of the
question will be referred to further on.
EESERVOIBS IN THEIR RELATION TO STREAM FLOW.
Under this heading artificial reservoirs alone are included. Natural reser-
voirs of various kinds exist nearly everywhere and exert a profound influence
upon stream flow. The ground is the most important of these, absorbing on the
average probably one-third of the total rainfall. Natural lakes are great regu-
lators, the St. Lawrence system being the most perfect example. Forests are
effective reservoirs at certain seasons. Swamps and low-lying grounds along
river courses, like the great flood basins of the Sacramento and the Mississippi,
are, in their natural state, enormous reservoirs which greatly reduce the flood
flow of the river channels. Snowdrifts, particularly the great drifts of the
mountains, are splendid reservoirs. The streams themselves have immense
storage capacity ; for example, the Mississippi within levees stores at least
2,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of water from Cairo to the Gulf, between extreme
high and low water stages. All these reservoirs and many of less importance
are ever active in regulating the flow of streams. Without them precipitation
would flow off as fast as it arrives and our greatest floods would be magnified
many times.
Here we are considering only those reservoirs constructed by man to sup-
plement and extend the regulating effect of nature's reservoirs. If the conclu-
sions reached in the first section of this paper are correct, forests can not be
relied upon in any degree to help solve the problems of high and low water.
Present conditions must be met by purely artificial means, since man has so far
discovered no way of controlling the climatic conditions which govern precipita-
tion. He can not " stay the bottles of heaven " in times of flood, nor open them
in seasons of drought. He must take the water after it reaches the earth and
deal with it the best he can.
The artificial reservoir is intended to attack this problem at its source. It
catches and holds back the water in the near vicinity of its deposition, instead
of waiting until it gathers into the rivers and then building huge bulwarks to
contain it there in times of flood. It saves the stored-up supply and gives it out
in the low-water season, thereby helping navigation, instead of dredging and
otherwise treating the water courses to increase the low-water depth. It cor-
rects one of the greatest deficiencies of nature by abolishing inequalities of
stream flow and converting waste into utility. Theoretically, it is the perfect
plan. It has always appealed to the imagination of laymen and professional
alike. It has often been resorted to, and the number of reservoirs in the world
is very great and constantly increasing. Hitherto they have been mainly used
for power, municipal supply, irrigation, and for navigation in canals. In very
few instances have they been applied to improve the navigation of large natural
water courses, and in none, so far as the author is aware, for the exclusive pur-
pose of preventing floods.
The question arises, AVhy are they not regularly applied to these last-
mentioned purposes? The answer may at once be given that in the general case
the cost is greater than the benefits to be received. This element of cost arises
mainly from the absence of good sites (including dam sites as well as holding
basins) and also, to considerable extent, from an interference with the purely
artificial conditions growing out of the settlement of the country.
The best reservoir site is a natural lake. Such a site is already covered with
water, and original conditions are not materially changed. Evaporation is not
much increased by the necessary enlargement. Smaller and safer dams accom-
plish a given storage than for the average dry site. The question of public
health involved in uncovering large areas for reservoir beds in the heated por-
tion of the year is less serious. Everything makes these sites the most advan-
tageous that can be found, and it may be laid down as a rule that the public
good requires the utilization of every such site to the fullest possible extent.0
°An interesting feature of these natural reservoirs may be noted. A natural
lake, wholly uncontrolled at its outlet, may have a more effective control of the
outflow than an artificial reservoir of equal superficial area when full, though
of far greater capacity between high and low water. The outflow from a lake
can be increased only by storing simultaneously a quantity of water measured
88 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Except in a few cases, dry sites are deficient in these advantages. Greater
areas of land have to be condemned, and larger and costlier dams are required,
with vastly greater danger in case of accident. Really good sites are not a&
abundant as one might wish, and the problem of developing storage on such
sites is beset with difficulties of many kinds that greatly increase the cost.
In 189T the author made a careful study of this question of flood control by
means of reservoirs, in connection with an official investigation of the advisa-
bility of building reservoirs in the arid regions. His view of the difficulties in
the way of any general application of such a system is quite fully stated in his
report,0 and the following extracts are directly in point :
" It is the cost, not the physical difficulties, which stands in the way. It
may be stated that as a general rule a sufficient amount of storage can he arti-
ficially created in the valley of any stream to rob its floods of their destructive
character ; but it is equally true that the benefits to be gained will not ordinarily
justify the cost. The reason for this is plain. Floods are only occasional calamities
at worst. Probably on the majority of streams destructive floods do not occur,
on the average, oftener than once in five years. Every reservoir built for the
purpose of flood protection alone would mean the dedication of so much land to-
a condition of permanent overflow in order that three or four times as much might
be redeemed from occasional overflow. One acre permanently inundated to
rescue 3 or 4 acres from inundation of a few weeks once in three or four
years, and this at a great cost, could not be considered a wise proceeding, no
matter how practicable it might be from engineering considerations alone. The
cost, coupled with the loss of so much land to industrial uses, would be far
greater than that of levees or other methods of flood protection. * * * The
construction of reservoirs for flood protection is not, therefore, to be expected,
except where the reservoirs are to serve some other purpose as well."
The above conclusions are still as applicable as they were when written. The
subject has been given renewed prominence quite recently in connection with
the Ohio River floods, but, before considering this particular application, atten-
tion will be given to certain reservoir systems that have been proposed else-
where, and particularly to one already built and put in operation by the Gov-
ernment and which will be referred to frequently in the following pages. This
is the system at the headwaters of the Mississippi — the largest artificial reser-
voir system in the world.
The project of converting the more important of the numerous lakes around
the sources of the Mississippi and its tributaries into storage reservoirs as an
aid to navigation was originally proposed by Gen. G. K. Warren, and was first
put into definite shape by Colonel Farquhar, of the Corps of Engineers. The
plan then embraced a large number of lakes in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but
only five sites have actually been improved. The dams were first built of
timber cribs, but have recently been rebuilt in concrete. The combined storage
is about 93,000,000,000 cubic feet. It is about twice the mean annual run-off
from the watershed, and the system is probably the only one, except the Great
Lakes, which equalizes periodic as well as annual fluctuations of flow. That is,
it carries over the surplus from wet years to help out in dry years, and its utility
Is, therefore, of the most comprehensive character. The cost of the five reser-
voirs is remarkably low, although it is not now possible to tell the exact cost of
the present structures on account of the mixture of old and new work ; but it
probably does not exceed $750,000, including a lock in the Sandy Lake dam.
This is only $8 per 1,000,000 cubic feet, or 35 cents per acre-foot on the basis
by a rise in the surface equal to that in the outlet necessary to give the in-
creased flow. But if the artificial reservoir has reached the limit of its allow-
able filling, the outflow must be made equal to the inflow. If this limit is
reached before or at the time of maximum run-off, then a quantity equal to
this run-off must be let out of the reservoir. This contingency can never happen
in a natural lake. The turning point where outflow and inflow balance each
other is aiways after the crest of the flood has passed — in fact at the time when
the diminishing inflow and increasing outflow balance each other and the lake
ceases to rise. In the case of the Yellowstone Lake (140 square miles), for
example, this rise, in average seasons of snow melting, continues from ten days
to three weeks after the inflow has reached its maximum, and surrounding
streams have subsided materially before the Yellowstone River (at the lake out-
let) ceases to rise.
0 House Document No. 141, Fifty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 46.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 89
of total capacity. It would be about twice this on the basis of the mean annual
run-off from the watersheds.
A large portion of the original project has been abandoned because public
sentiment did not support its continuance. The author has always regretted
this backward step, as he believes in developing to the fullest extent the excep-
tional opportunities here offered for the storage of water. The available res-
ervoir sites which could be cheaply improved in Minnesota and Wisconsin are
sufficient to control, absolutely the floods of the Mississippi within the danger
line for a long distance below St. Paul and to improve the navigation of the
upper river very materially, while their value for industrial purposes is almost
beyond estimate.
In spite of the great and obvious advantages of this system, it has not yet
received the popular approval that might be expected of it. In fact, about
three years ago there arose a widespread sentiment in the community around
the reservoirs that the system was, on the whole, injurious, that its disadvan-
tages far offset its advantages, and a strong movement was organized to have
it abolished altogether. For the purpose of investigating this matter a board
of engineers was appointed, of which the author was a member. The board
found that there was a general belief among the people below the dams that
they actually increased the floods, while the people above complained bitterly
of the back waters caused throughout that low country by filling the reservoirs
so full. The water powers immediately below the dams complained that they
were not getting even the normal flow of the stream, which was the case.
Navigation interests below St. Paul have always been lukewarm in regard to
the beneficial effects of the reservoirs, and the board was able to find only one-
steamboat captain who would make a positive statement that the boating inter-
ests derived any particular benefit from them.
Some curious results developed in this investigation. It was found thaV
great as the reservoirs are, conditions may arise in times of excessive precipi-
tation that will compel them to discharge a greater quantity of water than
would flow from the lakes in their natural condition. That is, they might
actually operate to increase the floods if they should fill to their limit during
a period of excessive precipitation. This very contingency nearly happened in
the season of 1905.
In like manner, during the period of lowest water, viz, in midwinter, the
reservoir gates are closed down to about 400 cubic feet per second, and the
great water powers, like those at the Falls of St. Anthony, are even worse off
than in a state of nature; but this drawback is not so great as might be
thought, because the powers are able to utilize most of the storage when it
comes during the period of navigation.
Such are some of the complications and drawbacks which are encountered
in this reservoir system and which will surely be met in a system built up
under less favorable natural conditions.
Nevertheless, the board found that the system was in itself a very great
benefit and that the lack of appreciation of its advantages was for the most
part due to ignorance of what they actually were. At the public hearing the-
opposition fell to pieces by the mere force of a better understanding, and it is
safe to say that the system will never be abandoned, but will be extended along
the lines of the original project.0
The United States Geological Survey has recently proposed quite an exten-
sive reservoir system for the Sacramento basin, similar in principle, though
smaller in extent, to that of the proposed Ohio system. The flood problem of
the Sacramento River is the most difficult in the United States in proportion to
its magnitude. In fact, it seems as if it will prove impossible to convey the-
extreme floods of that river to the sea without extensive overflow of the bottom
lands along its course. The proposition to control the floods to some extent by
means of reservoirs was elaborately set forth in the paper by Messrs. Clapp,
Murphy, and Martin, previously referred to. The subject had already been
considered by the commission of engineers appointed by the State of California
in 1904 to devise a plan of flood relief. The commission reported that, while-
any help from such a source must, of course, be welcome in solving the prob-
lem, it was very doubtful if such aid would be of sufficient importance to
a The report of this board contains exhaustive data upon the system and its-
operation. It may be seen in the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for
1906, p. 1443. (Appendix AA published separately in pamphlet form.)
DO FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
justify giving it much weight." In discussing the paper above referred to, the
author stated that, while he had never visited the sites in question, it was his
opinion that, as to most of them, it would not be possible to realize over one-
fourth to one-third of the benefits claimed, and he based his opinion on the
published records of the flood of 1907, which was the greatest in the history
of the river. George L. Dillman, member American Society of Civil Engineers,
in discussing the paper, flatly pronounced the whole scheme impracticable, and
gave his reasons in detail for this conclusion.21 Among thenx, he cited in one case
the great value of the lands to be flooded by the reservoirs, which he claimed
were altogether more important for agriculture than for any diminution of flood-
ing which the storage might cause in the valley below. In another case he cited
the difficulty, which always suggests itself to an engineer in considering the sub-
ject, of timing the operations of the reservoirs so as to combine their effects to
the best advantage, and particularly in keeping them empty in periods of pro-
longed precipitation, so that their capacity may be available at the critical mo-
ment. Other obstacles were pointed out, and the whole discussion presents
^another instance of the practical difficulties that stand in the way of any com-
prehensive reservoir scheme for controlling floods.
In 1903 the great flood of the Kaw River brought up the reservoir question
again. Ex-Senator Burton, of Kansas, advocated the plan very urgently,
stating in a speech at Kansas City that he " would have tens of thousands of
reservoirs, beginning at the headwaters of the stream and coming right down."
A board of engineer officers was appointed to investigate the practicability of
providing against future disasters such as this flood had caused. The reservoir
idea had made so deep an impression upon the public mind that a specific con-
sideration of that feature of the problem was requested. In its report c the
board found adversely to the scheme, on the ground that its great cost, con-
servatively estimated at $11,000,000, and the annual loss from the withdrawal
of the necessary lands from occupancy, conservatively estimated at nearly
$600,000, would not be justified on the ground of flood protection alone. Owing
to the character of the country, this last consideration was particularly strong.
The only real justification of so extensive a system in a country so largely
devoted to agriculture would be its use in irrigation and power, and, if it be-
came necessary for these purposes, doubtless a portion of it would be built.
The most elaborate study of this subject ever undertaken until very recently
•was made by the French Government, to determine whether reservoirs could
be utilized to prevent the recurrence of such great disasters as the floods of
1856 in the valleys of the Rhone and other streams. A full resume of these
studies is given in the author's report, already referred to, on " Reservoir Sites in
the Arid Regions." The conclusion was the same that has been 'reached in every
similar investigation. An interesting feature of the system then considered
was that the reservoirs were to have sluices permanently open, so that it would
not be possible to close them entirely. They would operate, it was expected, to
hold back a definite percentage of flood discharge — enough to keep the floods
below the dams within safe limits. They would thus act automatically, just as
forests are supposed to do. This was all right so far as the individual tributaries
were concerned, but it was found, when the possible effect upon tributary com-
bination in the main stream was considered, that by holding back earlier por-
tions of freshets and prolonging their run-off, they might actually swell the
combination in the lower courses of the main stream.
Similar studies have frequently been made in all the principal countries of
Europe, and in none of them, so far as the author is aware, has such a project
•on a large scale ever been undertaken or even favorably considered.
Coming now to the Ohio River, the immense importance of that stream as a
factor in the floods of the Mississippi makes the regulation of its flow a matter
of greater moment than that of any other stream. The project of controlling
the run-off of its watershed by means of reservoirs was urged very forcibly
more than sixty years ago by Col. Charles Ellet. The subject has often been
considered since, both in private and official investigations. The conclusion has
invariably been that, great as the benefits of such a system would be if in exist-
ence, the cost of bringing it into existence would be out of all proportion to
such benefits.
"Report Commissioner of Public Works, State of California, for 1905.
& Proceedings American Society Civil Engineers, May, 1908, p. 464.
c Senate Document 160, Fifty-eighth Congress, second session, pp. 14-17.
FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 91
The scheme has recently been revived in a more attractive form, with data
not hitherto available, and at a time when a period of heavy floods and much
loss therefrom has turned public attention strongly upon the subject. More-
over, it comes supported by a comparatively new element in its favor — the vast
expansion of water-power development made possible by the electric trans-
mission of energy. The new presentation of the project is by M. O. Leighton,
Assoc. M. Am. Soc. C. E., Chief Hydrographer, United States Geological Survey,
,and is understood to bear the approval of both the Interior and Agricultural
Departments.0 Mr. Leighton does not claim that his presentation is at all final
or complete, but is rather a " statement of possibilities " which he believes are
sufficiently promising to justify the Government in giving the scheme thorough
investigation before further extensive steps are taken on present lines in the
matter of flood control and channel improvement in the main rivers of the basin.
Although an estimate of cost is submitted and certain conclusions are based
thereon, it is stated that the data are too meager to give much confidence therein.
Subject to these qualifications, the system, as set forth in Mr. Leighton's paper,
embraces reservoirs on nearly all the tributaries of the Ohio; the total cost is
estimated at .$125,000,000; the income from resulting water power at $20 per
horsepower, and a certain computed lowering of flood heights on the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers, and a corresponding increase in low stages, are given. The
full details of the scheme are set forth in quite elaborate form. So far as the
present criticism is concerned, the practicability of finding the necessary sites
will be accepted, and only the estimate of costs and revenues and the deductions
.as to benefits will be called into question.
In their effect upon floods, admitting that all the reservoirs proposed can be
built, the result must fall short of the claims put forth. If built at all, they
must be built, as will be shown later, primarily for power development. It will
never be possible, until science can forecast the weather more perfectly than it
is yet able to do, to regulate reservoirs for the maximum benefit of both pur-
poses. This consideration is sometimes made light of, but nevertheless it is one
of real importance. For industrial purposes the reservoirs should be full be-
fore the rainy season ends; for flood protection they should be so far empty
that they may be able to hold back any flood-producing storm that is likely to
•come. While, doubtless, in a majority of years a middle course could be pur-
sued that would not involve much risk on the flood side of the question nor
much loss on the power side, yet there would surely come exceptional seasons —
the seasons of flood-producing rains or the seasons of great drought — when the
reservoirs would be caught too full on the one hand or too empty on the other.
Their full calculated capacity would not then be available for either purpose,
and it is difficult to conclude that this would not happen frequently. In partic-
ular, if the reservoirs are really operated to prevent floods, it must often happen
that dry weather will find them only partially filled, and that their full capac-
ity will not be available either for power or navigation. This would not apply,
of course, to a reservoir great enough to store all the run-off from its watershed
in the greatest known flood, unless considerable storage were left over from
previous years — as is often done in the upper Mississippi reservoirs. Mr.
Leighton's estimates are based upon the mean discharge of the streams, which
is, of course, greatly exceeded, possibly doubled, in very wet years. In any case
it would seem to be necessary to hold ample capacity in the reservoirs as late
as the end of March each year to provide for possible emergencies; but if this
is done there will be many years when the reservoirs will not fill.
An important consideration in the use of the reservoirs for flood control is
that of a proper combination of their outflow. To anyone who will try to figure
out how this can be accomplished over a watershed of such vast extent, with
storms arriving at different times in the various portions, with no way of telling
when, where, or with what intensity they will arrive, with the varying dis-
tances of the different reservoirs from those points where flood control is par-
ticularly important, the problem seems almost impossible — that is, impossible to
realize the full effect based upon the aggregate capacity of the system. It is
understood that Mr. Leighton has endeavored to do this, but it would be inter-
esting to see the application to some of the great floods that might be designated.
°The author has seen the description of the proposed system only as pub-
lished in Engineering News, May 7, 1908. He has had some correspondence
with Mr. Leighton, and is under great obligation to him for a complete set of
topographic sheets showing the various reservoir sites.
92 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
For example, in the flood of 1907, which reached its maximum at Cincinnati and
Pittsburg about the same time, no amount of holding back of the storm water
on the upper Ohio at that time would have helped the situation at Cincinnati
at all.
Another important consideration in the effect of these reservoirs, as they
would have to be operated to prevent floods, is the great change that takes place
in a flood wave as it propagates itself down stream. The author is unable to
tell from Mr. Leighton's paper to what extent he has considered it. The paper
itself seems to indicate that the discharge held back by a particular reservoir
produces a corresponding volumetric effect (not gauge effect, of course) at all
points below, after making a due allowance of time for the transmission of the
wave. This would be an erroneous conclusion. For example, a wave that
might rise at Pittsburg from 100,000 cubic feet per second to 150,000 a day later
and to 200,000 the next day, and then fall at a corresponding rate, would not
at any point below produce a maximum increase of 100,000 second- feet ; and the
farther away the point considered the less would be the increase. At Cairo,
nearly 1,000 miles below, the same wave would take a much longer time in pass-
ing, probably not less than a week, and the maximum increase would probably
not be more than 25,000 second-feet. This is merely a general illustraflon, for
exact data on the subject are not available. The problem is of such complexity
that nothing but the results of long experience could establish a rule as to what
might be expected in any given case; but it can be stated with certainty that
the diminution of discharge at any considerable distance below the reservoirs
for a given time would never, be as great as the amount held back by the reser-
voirs in the same length of time, and that the quicker and the higher the flood
the smaller the relative effect at all points below. Tt is only when such wave
elimination merges into a constant quantity, continuing for a considerable time,
that the full effect of a reservoir would be experienced at any point below.
This, in fact, is what would actually happen in the contrary case of the low-
water season when the reservoir discharge is kept up for a long time.
Still another feature in the high-water effect of such reservoirs is the demand
for water for power at all times. If there should ever result any really general
use for all this water, as is predicted, then the consumption for power would
make a considerable river in itself. Now, this much can not be shut off in any
case. Street cars and shops must run and houses must be lighted, whether the
flood is ruining the lowlands or not. An example of this occurred in 1905 on
the upper Mississippi, where the outflow from the upper dams was cut down to
a minimum to reduce the flood in the valley at Aitkin, which was then being
overflowed by the river. The mill at Grand Rapids, just below the reservoirs,
made a strenuous protest, and even threatened legal proceedings to compel the
release of the full normal flow of the river.
Considering all the foregoing features of the operation of the proposed sys-
tem, even if every reservoir were built with the full estimated capacity, it
would be extremely fortunate if 75 per cent of the predicted results, either in
flood protection or in aid of navigation, could be realized.
It is in the matter of cost, however, that the weak point of Mr. Leighton's
•system appears. Judged by any reasonable .standard, his estimates are hope-
lessly wide of the mark. The method itself of getting at a basis of cost is inad-
missible. For example, in determining a unit of cost for that class of reser-
voirs which embrace the greater portion of the total storage, the figures for nine
reservoirs are taken, counting as one the whole upper Mississippi1 system. Only
the Mississippi system has been built ; two others are under construction and six
are merely projected. In accordance with almost universal experience, and espe-
cially in view of the great advance in prices of all kinds since these estimates
were prepared, it must be expected that these works, if ever built, will cost
from 25 to 50 per cent more than the estimates. Three of the projected dams
are of the relatively cheap rock-fill construction, which would be inapplicable
to most of the Ohio dams from considerations of safety.
The controlling element, however, in the unit estimate is the Mississippi
system, whose capacity is nearly one-third of the whole group considered and
whose unit cost is only about one-seventh of the average cost of the others.
The use of the Mississippi reservoirs in any way as a basis of estimate for the
Ohio system is wholly inadmissible, because of the dissimilarity of sites. The
Ohio sites, with one exception, are dry sites — totally different from the lakes
of Minnesota. Even the latter reservoirs could not now be built for three
times what they have actually cost the Government. The flowage lands em-
braced about 80,000 acres, which were nearly all reserved while yet belonging
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 93
to the Government. A few recent purchases of additional lauds found necessary,
and the experience now being met in acquiring the flowage rights for a reser-
voir at Gull Lake, show that if these lands were to be bought to-day they would
cost from $10 to $25 per acre. The right of way alone would now cost twice as
much as the dams.
Compare any one of these structures — Leech Lake, for example — with a
representative masonry dam like the Cheesman dam on the South Fork of the
South Platte River above Denver, Colo. The author is familiar with both
sites and once submitted a plan and estimate for a structure on the Cheesman
site almost exactly like the one built. Lake Cheesman is a more favorable site
than most of those on the Ohio system, for, although its capacity is not as
great as some, the dam site is exceptionally advantageous, one of the most per-
fect in nature — a very narrow gorge in solid granite, with a natural spillway
already provided. In several of the Ohio sites entire towns will have to be
removed, important railroads will have to be relocated, a few mineral proper-
ties will be destroyed, and, in nearly all, road systems will be seriously dis-
arranged. None of these conditions were encountered to anything like the same
extent in the Cheesman site. Undoubtedly its unit cost, which is estimated at
about $250 per 1,000,000 cubic feet, was as low as can be possibly realized on the
Ohio system as a whole. Compare this with less than $5 for Leech Lake or $8
for the whole Mississippi system.
A recent example of projected storage is that presented by the late George
Rafter, M. Am. Soc. C. E., for the Genesee River near Portage, N. Y. Owing
to the moderate height of dam (apparently less than 150 feet) and the large
capacity of reservoir (15,000,000,000 cubic feet), this is believed to compare
favorably as to unit cost with the Ohio system. The estimate was $216 per
1,000,000 cubic feet. If it were to be built under the present conditions of the
market, it would doubtless cost $250. It is understood that later investigations
have shown that Mr. Rafter's estimate is only one-half large enough.
In 1895 the author made an extensive examination of storage possibilities
in Ohio, near the divide between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, for the purpose
of providing a water supply for certain projected canals. He prepared estimates
for two sites on the head waters of the Cnyahoga, for one site at the head of
the Scioto, and for one at the head of the Great Miami. The estimates were
based upon actual surveys and are given in detail in the report upon the sub-
ject.0 The type of construction was not expensive. The total capacity was
11,000,000,000 cubic feet and the unit cost $300. To-day it would be at least
$350.
Most of the proposed sites for the Ohio reservoirs are not advantageous sites
The topography of the country is unfavorable. The sites are not compact
basins, like those occupied by lakes or ponds or mountain meadows, but are,
for the most part, trunk valleys with numerous tributaries, nearly all of them
quite narrow. They may be roughly compared to the form of the hand with the
fingers outspread, the dam occupying the position of the wrist. The ends of the
fingers are frequently many miles from each other and from the dam. Numer-
ous villages occupy the valleys. The road systems of the local communities
traverse them. The disadvantage that will result to public travel by forcing
it out of these natural routes over the hills and around the ends of the fingers
will be very great. The lands lying between the fingers, in some instances, will
be so far cut off from convenient access that their value will be much impaired,
and damages will have to be paid on that account. In several instances the
necessary changes in railroad alignment in the hilly country will be extremely
costly, if not impracticable. A great many cemeteries will have to be removed,
which means not only the cost of removal, but extensive purchase of lands out-
side. Such drawbacks are, of course, encountered in all similar work, but they
are excessive in these sites. They are mentioned solely from their relation to
the question of cost. No one can examine the maps of these sites and not be
convinced that the cost of right of way and damages alone will considerably
exceed Mr. Leighton's estimate of the entire cost of the system.
An element affecting cost is that of safety. Owing to the situation of many
of these proposed reservoirs the results of failure of the dams would be so
appalling that no chances can be taken. The structures can be made safe, of
course (except against earthquakes), but it will cost money. Nothing short of
the highest type of construction — masonry for all the larger dams — can be con-
sidered. Mr. Leighton has cited certain dams upon the integrity of which great
0 House Document 278, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, pp. 78, 83, 86.
94 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
interests depend as evidence of the confidence of engineers in these structures,
but if he will apply their costs, particularly those of important structures in
Europe, 'to his proposed system the money value of safety will mount up to a
prodigious figure."
A feature of this question of safety often overlooked is the depreciation of
the market value of property, due to its location below a dam, where failure
of the dam would mean a disaster of great magnitude. However safe the struc-
ture may be many people would not purchase property below it, and its market
would be correspondingly diminished. While such loss can hardly be made a
subject for damages, it is a real loss to the owners.
These reservoirs being built for flood protection, the sluices must be very
large, so that at times they can be discharged practically as fast as the water
runs in. This will be necessary during periods of prolonged precipitation in
order to keep the reservoirs from filling too full before the danger is past.
This detail of construction will add largely to the cost.
Taking everything into consideration on the most liberal basis, it is evident
that this system can not be built for less than $250 per 1,000,000 cubic feet.
The probable increase in the value of property to be condemned before the
system could be built and the present scale of prices of labor and material
make this figure a minimum. This would swell the cost of the whole system
to over four times Mr. Leighton's estimate, or over half a billion dollars.*
This is not all, however. It appears that the complete development of the
reservoir system as proposed will take from industrial use probably 1,500,000
acres of land, including the lands actually overflowed, the margins subject to
damages, and sites for the dams and various structures appurtenant thereto.
These lands will be in large part, by the very fact that they lie in valleys
suitable for storage grounds, the best lands in the localities. Sooner or later
they are bound to come into agricultural use, and with proper cultivation their
annual net-revenue value will be at least $5. per acre. If utilized for forest
culture they ought to yield 500 feet board measure of lumber and 1 cord of wood
annually per acre. The value of the land for this purpose ought to be as great
as the figures just given. It thus appears that the occupancy of these lands for
reservoir purposes will take from the community an annual product of at least
$7,500,000 worth, and probably more.
The reservoirs will store about 2,150,000,000,000 cubic feet of water. Assume
that this can all be utilized for water power, with the average head of 200 feet,
giving theoretically about 1,000,000 horsepower per year, or 1,280,000 horse-
power at 80 per cent efficiency. At $5 per horsepower (the bnsis for this figure
will presently be considered), the revenue from water power will be $6,400,000,
which falls short of the loss resulting from withholding the sites from pro-
ductive use.0
° The recent failure of the Hauser Lake Dam, on the Missouri River, near
Helena, Mont., is a good illustration of how the unexpected may happen. Here
was a dam built of steel and concrete, two materials whose properties are thor-
oughly understood. The case was one which " ordinary engineering " might be
expected to hsindle successfully. The public had reason to feel confidence in the
structure. Yet " it fell, and great was the fall thereof," not only in the total
wreckage of the dam, but in the losses caused along the valley below.
The accident affords also another illustration of the omnivorous claims put
forward in these days in the supposed interests of forestry. The disaster was
promptly cited as an example of the havoc wrought by floods in a country with-
out forests. The normal flood discharge of the Missouri at this point is 20,000
cubic feet per second ; for 1907 it was 26,000 cubic feet ; the maximum on record
is about 50,000 cubic feet. At the time of the accident the discharge was about
7,000 cubic feet.
6 Recent examinations of certain sites, embracing nearly 70 per cent of the
proposed Monongahela storage, indicate that the whole Ohio system will cost
at lenst a billion dollars, and possibly a billion and a half.
c The sanitary feature has not been considered, although it is one of some
importance. The laying bare of large areas of reservoir bottoms in the heated
portion of the year is objectionable, but it is not a matter affecting the element
of cost. Neither is much stress here laid upon the danger to the reservoirs from
silting up. This is not a region of heavy silt movement. In most of the reser-
voirs the process will be very slow, and we may safely leave to distant genera-
tions the task of dealing with this problem whenever it reaches an acute stage.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 95-
Viewed in the light of the foregoing exposition, the weakness of the reser-
voir scheme as a measure of flood control or for improving navigation is at
once apparent. The question is, Will the ends justify the means? If the ends
sought could be attained in no other way possibly they might; but they can be,
and for a small fraction of the reservoir cost. Consider the estimate already
given of $500,000,000. Take $40,000,000 and reinforce the entire levee system
of the Mississippi. That will make it impregnable — as safe as any of the pro-
posed reservoir dams. Take $60,000,000 and revet the banks of the Mississippi
wherever necessary from Cairo to the Gulf.0 The reservoir project does not
touch this important matter at all. Devote whatever sum is necessary to the
protection of the bottom lands of the Ohio basin. Give Cincinnati and Pitts-
burg each $10,000,000 to assist in local changes necessary for complete flood
protection. Devote a sum to navigation such as our engineers have never
dared dream of, and the Government will still save more than Mr. Leighton's
estimate of the whole cost of the reservoir system. The more closely this reser-
voir proposition is scrutinized as a scheme for flood prevention the more im-
practicable it appears. It is only a trade-off at best. It is giving up to per-
petual overflow valuable lands to save others from occasional and even rare
overflow for short periods. Now if at less cost these low lands can be better
protected by other means, thus leaving both the valley lands and reservoir sites
open to productive use, how much better it will be.
If the author were to venture a criticism on Mr. Leighton's attitude in this
matter, it would be that he has not fully appreciated his responsibility in bring-
ing forward again this old proposition without fuller consideration of its organic
defects. This is well illustrated in the opening paragraph of his paper, in
which he says :
" This report will be confined to a statement of possibilities. There will be
no attempt to prescribe methods for treatment of each local modifying condi-
tion that will be encountered in the prosecution of the plan here proposed.
Such features are merely collateral, and their proper disposition is a matter of
ordinary engineering."
This is a complete reversal of his obligation in the matter. The "possibili-
ties " of reservoir control have long been recognized. The logic of the plan is
well understood. It has always appealed to the popular mind. In particular,
reservoir control of the Ohio floods has been advocated for more than sixty
years, and its possibilities have often been investigated. The plan has been
uniformly rejected on one ground, viz, that as a scheme for flood control and
navigation improvement its benefits would not justify its cost. It is, therefore,
incumbent upon whoever revives the scheme to come well fortified upon this
particular feature. He must give some study to the treatment of " local mod-
ifying conditions." It makes a difference whether he can go to a great natural
lake like Winnibigoshish and store 40,000,000,000 cubic feet of water for a mere
trifle, or whether he must evict whole villages, disturb railroads and highways,
absorb valuable lands, and possibly subject communities to serious risk. These
are the questions upon which the success or failure of the scheme depends. Yet
Mr. Leighton brushes them aside, as it were, with a wave of the hand, as
" merely collateral " features, matters of " ordinary engineering " only. Here
is the weak point of his project. Weighed in the balance of practical accom-
plishment, either for flood control or navigation, it will be found utterly want-
ing, and the development of the system, as has always been held, will have to
be based primarily and mainly on its value for industrial use. For the same
reasons that the development of a great reservoir system in the far West is
justified by its industrial value — its use for irrigation — so a reservoir system
for the Ohio, or any other rivers, except in a few unusual cases, must depend
primarily upon its industrial value— the development of power.
In pursuing his criticism further, the author would not be understood to be
" knocking," as current slang goes, the feature of the reservoir system just
mentioned, because, in his judgment, there is no one thing in the present move-
ment for the conservation of our natural resources that is more important than
storing the flood waters of our streams for power development. It stands in
the same category with the preservation and extension of our forests. It stands
on even a surer basis, for man, either willfully or through neglect, can destroy
the forests, but he can never diminish in the smallest degree the power of run-
ning water. It is a great solar engine, perennial and perpetual in its action.
a Report Mississippi River Commission, 1896, p. 3457.
96 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
It requires no aid from man in its production. All he has to do is to utilize
it. Providentially, electricity has unfolded its power to transmit this energy
over great distances, and has thus made practicable a development which would
otherwise have been impracticable. In time water power will replace coal and
oil and will become" the one great source of power, unless discoveries are made
which are not now foreseen. The author thoroughly believes in developing this
power through public agencies and preserving it from private ownership and
control. His present criticism is directed not at all at the principle involved,
but at the extravagant expectations now being fostered as to the possible rev-
enue which the Government may derive from such development.
The quantity of power estimated in the publications of the Geological Survey
and the Agricultural Department are based upon an assumption that most
engineers will question, viz, that 90 per cent of the fall of our rivers can be
utilized in effective head upon water wheels. This is too great a figure. The
most thoroughly developed river in the United States, namely, the Merrimac,
in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, develops only TO per cent of the total
head. Taking all the streams into consideration, it seems hardly possible that
more than 50 per cent of the fall can be utilized. When the fall of a river is
uniform, even if quite steep, the cost of long canals or high dams necessary
to concentrate it at one point often prohibits development altogether. From
altitudes of 3,000 feet the Missouri and Yellowstone, for example, descend to
the sea with a total energy of possibly 5,000,000 horsepower, yet comparatively
little of this can be developed advantageously. It is only in those places where
nature has helped out by concentrating the fall at cataracts or rapids that
water-power development is commercially profitable. At low dams, such as
are ordinarily built at lock sites, the head is often nearly all obliterated during
high water. How far storage may affect these drawbacks can not be said, but
it should of course help a great deal. The official estimates of flow for non-
regulated streams are based on two weeks' average lowest flow. This may
probably be extended materially with reservoir aid or supplementary steam
power. Possibly the total estimated horsepower may ultimately be realized.0
When it comes to the royalty which the Government may receive for these
water powers, if developed by private interests, the price of $20 per horsepower,
adopted by the Geological Survey and the Agricultural Department, is wholly
out of the question under present conditions. Possibly the author does not
understand what the figure is intended to embrace. From Mr. Leighton's articles
the inference has been drawn that wherever the work of the Government ren-
ders power available which was not available before, either by building dams,
as at lock sites, and thus creating a head, or by storing water which might
supply powers below with more than they would have without, the value of the
power thus rendered available should return to the Government $20 per horse-
power per annum — an " exceedingly low price," as Mr. Leighton puts it.6
It is not understood that the Government is to build the power plants, but
that this is to be done by the interests availing themselves of the privilege.
Estimates of undeveloped water powers on many streams of the Atlantic slope
by the Geological Survey leave one to infer that these powers are considered
worth at least $20 per horsepower to the Government even without dams or
reservoir aid. While the statements are not clear as to what is actually meant,
the various references to resources to be derived by the Government from these
powers lead to the above conclusion. It would be of advantage in considering
questions involving these published estimates, if the basis for this $20 price or
royalty could be made more specific.
Under present conditions, or such as can be reasonably foreseen, no such
royalty is possible except in extraordinarily favorable circumstances. Efforts
a There has recently been invented a device called a " fall increaser," an adap-
tation of the Venturi meter, by Clemens Herschel. M. Am. Soc. C. E., which
promises to utilize the extra flow of streams in time of flood water and low
heads to increase and maintain the head upon the wheels. If this invention
proves a success, as seems probable, it will be an immense gain to all water
powers of low head subject to large fluctuation, as would doubtless be the case
in very many of those under consideration.
6 On the Youghiogheny alone, where it is proposed to install a slack-water
system comprising three locks and dams, at an expense of $600,000, proper de-
velopment of storage will insure the production of a minimum of 4,100 horse-
power, the value of which, reckoned on the exceedingly low price of $20 per
horsepower year, would produce a total income of $82,000.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
97
which have been made to derive a satisfactory revenue from existing powers
do not justify any such prospect. The many and various practical difficulties
in exploiting these powers are rarely appreciated by those who have not en-
countered them in actual experience. The cost of water-power development
is restricted to narrow limits, if it is to compete with coal. An engineer of
high standing, whose life work has been connected with water-power develop-
ment, says:
" I am advised that, with good coal at $2 per ton in this territory, the cost
of fuel per horsepower per annum (300 days of 24 hours each) is less than
$8 for producer gas engines and for steam power about $12.50 in large size
equipments. In many localities coal will cost even less than $2 per ton, allow-
ing thus a still wider margin. If we now consider the usual and unavoidable
handicaps and incumbrances to all water-power installations, such as floods, low
water, ice flow, back water, etc.. we have conditions which will make it a
serious study for any power consumer to determine if the balance is not con-
siderably against water power in that particular territory, at this time, from a
purely commercial standpoint. At any rate it must be obvious that no such
rate as $20 per annum per horsepower can be paid to the Government by any
power user for the right to draw the water only, and besides this, stand the
expense of installing and operating the water plant."
Another hydraulic engineer of national reputation says :
" I think that as a general proposition the suggestion that all water powers
to which the Government consents should pay royalties, and especially where
the parties own their riparian rights, would tend to defeat the development of
most water powers and would certainly very much curtail the number of water-
power developments. I am impressed with these conclusions because of the
present difficulties in financing good water-power propositions."
In Power, May 19, 1908, is an article by Henry Docker Jackson, in which a
critical comparison is made between steam and water power. In this article
occur the following tabulated estimates of cost of installation and of annual
operation, based upon a (theoretical) installation of 1,000 horsepower. The
costs are averages of a number of different plants :
PLANT COST.
Building and works
Engines boiler, etc
Turbines and generators
Transmission lines, etc., 20 miles
810,000
i 48,000
I 15,000 | 17,000
j 40,000
I 73,000 134,000
FIXED CHARGES.
S3, 650
6,160
600
3,400
770
1,500
3,650
1,460
650
86,700
.'...
3,800
500
2,680
3,500
2,680
Fuel £° 50 per ton
Water
21,840
21.84
19,860
19.86
COST PER HORSEPOWER YEAR.
100 per cent load factor
75 per cent load factor . .
50 per cent load factor . .
88 per
cent.
Water,
95 per
cent.
$24.82 820.90
39.92 ! 32.00
54.60 i 45.00
72538— AGR-
98 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
From the last part of these tables, it is very evident that a royalty of $20 per
horsepower would turn the scale wholly in favor of steam under all conditions
of load. In fact, it is reasonably certain that $5 per horsepower per annum
would be an outside figure, and even this would often be prohibitory. The situa-
tion will not necessarily be improved by the growing demand for power, but
rather by the diminishing supply and increased cost of fuel. So long as coal
can be had for anything like present rates no very great charge can be realized
from water power wherever fuel is readily available. Under present conditions
$120 per horsepower may be considered as an average limit for first cost of a
water-power plant, if it is to compete with steam. A charge of $20 per horse-
power per annum would be equivalent to doubling this first cost.0
A variable element in the cost of water-power development is the distance
from plant to market, or the length of the transmission line. When this is very
great, as in numerous plants in the mountain districts of the West, it makes a
large addition to cost of installation and must correspondingly reduce the roy-
alty that could be paid for the power itself.
An interesting example of what the Forestry Service has been able to do in
this line with unimproved water powers is that of a recent permit for the devel-
opment of a large power in the Cascade Mountains within the forest reserve.
The beneficiary of the privilege is required to pay annually for " conservation "
10 cents per 1,000 kilowatt hours — equivalent to G5 cents per horsepower per year
continuous running. The right is retained by the Government to increase this
charge 25 per cent every five years for a period of forty years, after which the
whole arrangement may be readjusted. The maximum charge at the end of the
forty years will, therefore, not exceed $4 per horsepower.
The only way in which a rental of $20 per horsepower can be obtained with
any degree of certainty, and that in only a small proportion of the localities for
many years to come, is for the Government to build the plants. It is admitted
that this suggestion will grate harshly on many ears because of its newness and
its departure from the established ideas. But a little consideration will show
it to be not only the best way for both private and public interests, but really
the only practicable way. This may be illustrated by a concrete example :
The Government has just completed a survey and adopted a project for the
construction of what is known as the Lake Washington Canal in the city of
Seattle. It is a canal to connect Lakes Union and Washington with Puget
Sound. The discharge from the tributary watershed which will flow through
the canal averages about 1,500 cubic feet per second. The mean fall at the
lock site is about 15 feet. The theoretical energy is about 2,500 horsepower,
but owing to the tidal fluctuation and variations of flow with the seasons
(which can not be wholly eliminated on 'account of the necessity of limiting
fluctuations of level in the lakes to about 3 feet, and also to the requirements
for canal power, lockage, and leakage), it was thought that about only 1,000
horsepower could be depended upon with certainty for outside use. As this
poVer is located in the heart of a great city, it seemed as if it ought to be
turned to good account in helping bear the cost of maintaining the canal.
Efforts to obtain tentative propositions for developing this power were, how-
ever, wholly fruitless. The plan was then considered of having the Government
build the plant and lease it to consumers of power. On this basis a tentative
offer was obtained from a responsible consumer to take the plant, operate it,
keep up all repairs and pay the Government $18 per horsepower year. Prob-
ably by the time the canal is completed, a figure of $25 can be obtained, and as
more than 1,000 horsepower will probably be developed, it is likely that the
Government will receive upward of $30,000 per year for this power — enough to
pay the entire cost of operating the canal. The extra cost to the project of
adopting the power-plant feature is $220,000, so that the revenue will be nearly
14 per cent upon the expenditure.
In recommending this plan to the department, it was pointed out that the
true advantage of the Government, even apart from the revenue expected,
favored its adoption. It simplified the whole relation between the Government
aMr. Leighton cites the falls of the Ohio as an example of an opportunity to
develop 110,000 horsepower by aid of his proposed reservoir reguhition. This,
he states, at $20 per horsepower, is 3 per cent interest on $73,000,000. To any-
one familiar with the physical conditions involved in the development of this
power it will appear extremely doubtful if any company could guarantee to
deliver continuously this amount of power, even with the full aid of reservoir
regulation, and pay any royalty whatever.
FOKEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 99
and the consumer. If private interests were to build the plant, they would
jicquire vested rights which would always stand in the way of future control
mid lead to complications if it should become necessary to terminate the
arrangement. With the plant in the possession of 4;he Government and the
users standing simply in the relation of lessees for a limited period, without
great initial expense on their part, and with freedom on the part of the Gov-
ernment to control the arrangement without the complication of private owner-
ship, the whole plan would stand on a simple, practical, business basis. This
view prevailed with the department and is now before Congress for adoption,
being possibly a departure in this line.
The principle involved in this case should be given general application. In
addition to avoiding complications with private ownership, there are other im-
portant considerations. When a power is developed or a reservoir built, it
should be so planned from the start as to bring out its full possibilities. A
private company can rarely do this. Generally its scheme does not require it,
nor its resources permit ; but a site once occupied by an inferior work may be
perpetually barred from complete development. Moreover, in any such work,
the Government can derive a greater benefit than any private individual or
association. A private company must build for the immediate future; it can
not wait long for dividends and it can generally realize only on such applica-
tion of the power as is possible in the immediate vicinity. The Government,
on the other hand, derives all the benefits which come from the stored water
anywhere on its course from the reservoir to sea. These benefits arise from
all the powers through which the water flows; from the improvement of navi-
gation and the prevention of floods and from every other use to which the
water can be put. Furthermore, the Government is building for all time,
while the individual builds only for the present and near future. The case is
similar to that of landlord and tenant. A tenant can not afford to make im-
provements on the farm because it is not his and he may remain on it only
a short time. The most he can do is to get out of the farm what he can in
its actual condition. The owner, on the other hand, can put in improvements
which yield him no immediate return because he holds the property long
enough to realize upon them. So it is with the Government; it can wait for
realization upon its improvements much longer than a private company. In
forestry, for example, no individual can afford to wait from three to ten gen-
erations for a crop. Only the Government or a great railroad corporation can
do this. Likewise, in building great reservoirs, no private company can build
for the distant future. It is only the landlord that can make such far-reaching
improvements upon his estate.
Wherever, therefore, there arises any real demand for power development at
the site of any government work, as a lock and dam, the judicious course would
seem to be for the Government to prepare a comprehensive plan for development
capable of being carried out progressively as the market for power may justify.
Let it then build the plant as fast as needed and lease it to private agencies
under suitable restrictions. Likewise, when the building of a reservoir prom-
ises to be of obvious utflity, and the conditions are such as to make it properly a
subject of government adoption, let the Government build it, utilizing the water
in its own plants below and collecting a revenue from private plants that may
use it. Whenever at the time of construction there is a direct return in sight
of 2 or 3 per cent, it should be considered justifiable from a Government point
of view. The certain enhancement ia the future value of such utilities and the
incidental advantages in flood protection and navigation make this a conserva-
tive proposition.
That difficulties will be encountered in deriving the full return from its work
to which the Government would be entitled can not be denied. This would be
the case, particularly wherever it is a question of compelling existing power
plants to pay for the extra water they might receive through government
storage. This question came up before the Mississippi Reservoir Board in
regard to the powers at St. Anthonys Falls which derive such benefit from the
reservoirs. The board remarked as follows on the subject:
" It may be urged that if the incidental benefits of the reservoirs to the water-
power interests are so great, these interests should be required to contribute
something to the maintenance of the system. There would doubtless be a will-
ingness to do this if a satisfactory method could be found. But there is no
practicable method of enforcing any charge upon the use of this water. Where
water is taken in a separate channel from above a dam or lock and conducted
to a mill, it is a simple thing to measure it and to cut it off if it is not paid for.
100 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
But when it must be let into a natural stream, where it mingles with the run-off
from below, it is impossible to determine what proportion of stored water the
mill may be using or to enforce its nonuse if not paid for. But, if such an
arrangement is not practicable, that fact does not constitute an argument
against the reservoir system. So long as t£e reservoirs are performing the
service for which they were created, every additional benefit derived from them
is only an additional argument in their favor."
These disadvantages will adjust themselves in time.
Such, in the opinion of the author, must be the basis of any great reservoir
system in our country— industrial use. Even in the uniquely favorable condi-
tions at the headwaters of the Mississippi, no one can doubt that the real pur-
pose being served is that of mill power, whatever the theory upon which the
reservoirs were built. The great system of the far West is being built for
irrigation, power, and domestic supply. So on the Ohio and other eastern
streams, the system must rest upon an industrial basis and expand only as
industrial demands justify. The innovation involved in building reservoirs
with public funds for these uses is admitted; but it is no greater than it was
ten years ago to build them for irrigation. When the author was investigating
that subject in 1896-97, he found a widespread opposition throughout the arid
regions against government control of irrigation works in any way, and in his
report he went no further than to advise the building of reservoirs for giving
the people more water, leaving its distribution exactly as it was before. Yet in
the short space of ten years public sentiment has completely changed, and
to-day no one questions the wisdom of the broader plan upon which these works
are being carried out. So it will surely be in regard to reservoirs in all other
parts of the country. The principle is the same. It may be accepted that only
the general Government can do this work in the comprehensive way in which
it ought to be done, because only the Government can reap all the benefits ; only
the Government can wait the long periods necessary for full returns ; and only
the Government has the necessary resources to make expenditures on the re-
quired scale. These points will not be enlarged upon, and the many and cogent
reasons why this is so will not be given. The trend of public thought is all hi
that direction. The old idea that the Government can riot execute great works
or small as cheaply, efliciently, and expeditiously as private agencies is fast
being dispelled, and the vast benefits which the people derive from public con-
trol of important enterprises are coming into fuller recognition all the time.
The foregoing remarks should not be construed as in any way rejecting the
idea of local help by States, counties, cities, or even private agencies. It often
happens that public works have a special local importance in addition to their
public value. It is just and proper in such cases that local aid be given. This
principle is now fully incorporated in river and harbor legislation. For ex-
ample, the Lake Washington Canal, which will be of very great importance to
the city of Seattle, is a joint enterprise between the Government and the city,
the latter paying fully one-third of the cost. The cooperation between the
United States Geological Survey and the several States, in preparing a contour
map of the country is an example on a large scale. The principle ought to find
an extensive application in the establishment of national forests throughout the
country.
CONCLUSION.
This paper will be closed with some reference to the relation of navigation to
other uses of our streams and to certain legal obstacles that stand in the way
of comprehensive me.'isures. That the improvement of our inlnnd waterways
should be organized upon a more rational system than it has ever been ;
that the reciprocal relation between navigation, water power, etc.. should be
given practical recognition; above all. that the prosecution of these works
.should be placed upon the same sure basis as is the construction of the Panama
Canal, with positive assurance that, when once commenced, funds will be
forthcoming for their prompt completion, would seem to admit of no doubt.
How far navigation should be correlated, in improvement work, with other uses
of the streams is an open question. Water power and navigation are in many
cases so closely related that they will have to be considered together. In
regard to soil wash, no such intimate relation exists. To whatever extent soil
.erosion now exceeds that of former times it relates almost exclusively to culti-
vation and has no appreciable influence upon the channels. Its control is of
far greater importance to agriculture than it is to navigation. This is also
true of irrigation, which, so far as it affects navigation at all, affects it in-
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 101
juriously. If the development of irrigation is ever carried to the length that
we hope it may be, it will cause a heavy drain upon the low-water flow of the
Missouri. Sacramento, San Joaquin. and the Columbia rivers (not important
as to this stream), the only navigable waterways of consequence that are
affected by it. Except for this fact of drawing water from the stream, irri-
gation has no relation to navigation.
Forestry, irrigation, and prevention of soil wash are all related to the con-
servation of the vegetable resources of the country. They are kindred purposes
and should naturally fall under the same administrative control. Navigation is
a function of transportation, which is a very different subject. Water power
is becoming more and more closely related to it, and these two subjects natu-
rally go together. It must not be expected that the character of works for river
regulation can be materially changed by means of reservoirs, forests, or soil-
wash prevention. Levees and bank protection, locks and dams, dikes and
dredging will continue to be standard methods of river improvement in the
future as in the past. The accumulated experience of centuries in all civilized
countries can not be set aside in a moment. In particular, flood protection is
not likely ever to find any complete substitute for levees. They have been
used extensively the world over throughout recorded history. People who think
only of the Mississippi and the Po. when levees are mentioned, little understand
to what an extent " diking " is resorted to wherever rich bottom lands have to
be guarded against floods or tides. Some of the Quest agricultural lands in
the world are behind levees where almost perfect security is felt. No class of
river control is in more extensive use, none is better understood, and from
none has the world, throughout its history, derived greater security and benefit.
Municipalities, like Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Kansas City, must look in the
main to their own efforts for protection against floods. In particular they
must reject absolutely the delusive promises of forestry. These cities are tres-
passers upon grounds dedicated by Nature to a condition of overflow. They
have occupied these grounds and placed themselves in the way of the floods
deliberately and with their eyes open. They have gone farther than this, and
iu many instances have encroached upon the channels and have thus made the
Hoods worse than they used to be. It is not for them now to look for outside
deliverance, but they themselves should grapple courageously with the problem.
In most cases these problems admit, if not of complete solution, at least of a
very large measure of relief. The maxim that Providence helps them who help
themselves may also apply to the Government. Cooperation in connection with
its regular work, either in channel improvement or in the building of reservoirs,
would doubtless be given. The disposition which must be met and overcome is
to let things go as they are, trusting blindly to chance to deal more kindly in
the future. This supineness of spirit and the enervating reliance upon indefinite
future relief through the agency of the Government must be replaced by self-
reliance, and these great industrial centers must rise in their own might and
free themselves from their bondage to these ever-recurring catastrophies. In
Boston. Chicago. Galveston. San Francisco, and even in that lusty young giant
of the Northwest, Seattle, are examples enough of what an aroused civic spirit
can do in the direction of self-aid.0
The part that reservoirs will play in the larger problems of channel improve-
ment and flood control on the great rivers will be in the nature of an insur-
ance. Every cubic foot of water taken from the crest of a flood and released
when the rivers are lowest is pro tanto a benefit. If the great floods of the
Mississippi can be cut down by so much as a foot through reservoir storage, it
°The author is not closely familiar with the situation at Pittsburg and Cin-
cinnati, but he is familiar with that at the two Kansas Citys where, in 1903, the
greatest loss occurred that any American city ever sustained at the hands of a
river flood. He speaks from the results of careful study on the ground when he
states with the utmost positiveness that for approximately $10,000,000, with
such aid as might reasonably be expected from the Government on the Mis-
souri River front, the flood problem of the Kaw and Missouri in that hive of
industrial enterprise known as the West Bottoms can be solved absolutely; the
too small area of these bottoms can be increased by upward of 200 acres; two-
thirds of the bridges in the same area can be eliminated ; that prodigious bar-
rier to free movement — the Kaw River-^-can be practically removed or placed
where it will not be in the way ; and the general situation can be so improved
that the resulting benefits, wholly apart from that of flood protection, would be
well worth the cost.
102 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
will be an immense gain ; and the same will be true if the low-water stages cau
be increased by two or three feet. Whether the much greater results expected
by Mr. Leighton can ever be realized is a question which the future alone can
determine.
A word, finally, concerning the legal obstacles in the way of a broad Govern-
ment policy looking to the development of national forests and the storage of
water on an extensive scale. The expansion of Government work into fields of
obvious utility is often blocked by the structure of our Government through
the bar of constitutional prohibition or at least lack of power. It is said that
the purchase of lands for the rearing of forests for timber alone is unconstitu-
tional, and that the same is true of the storage of water for any other purpose
than navigation ; and yet, forests for timber and reservoirs for power must
always remain the real justification for public expenditure along these lines.
To the average understanding the distinction between things constitutional and
things unconstitutional is often hard to discern. The Government is now
expending millions in storing water and conducting it upon land whereby the
products of the soil may be obtained. It is applying this water to both public
and private land, or to lands that were in private ownership when the projects
began. Is there any real difference between providing the power to raise sugar
beets, for instance, and that for manufacturing them into form for human con-
sumption and transporting them to the consumer? Are not the last-mentioned
purposes quite as necessary as the first?0 And again, is there any distinction
in principle between improving a river so that boats can navigate it and improv-
ing it so that it may provide power that will transport produce by laud as well
as by water?
Again, the Government has accepted gifts of land like the Yosemite Valley
and the Muir Redwood Grove, to be given over to the enjoyment of the people
and involving perpetual expenditures for maintenance in the future. It has
traded lauds of its own for lands with which it has parted ownership. It
reserves vast areas to-day which might be private lands to-morrow. What is
the distinction of principle between doing all these things and buying outright
lands that are needed for the same or similar purposes? They are distinctions
without real differences. They concern the letter and not the spirit, and they
can not stand whenever the interests of the public really demand their
abrogation.
Still, it is probably a fact that federal1 authority to buy lands for forest
culture alone and to create reservoirs for industrial use exclusively, would be
considered by the courts as transcending the power of Congress under the
Constitution, and it is this fact that forces those who believe in having the
Government do these things to strain the truth by attempting to prove that
they are necessary for navigation and for the prevention of floods. It enforces
a policy of indirection instead of permitting these things to be done squarely
for their real purpose and as a matter of right. In his address before the
Judiciary Committee, in its hearing on the Appalachian bill, Mr. Pinchot
stated that that proposition must stand or fall upon the theory that the forests
regulate stream flow, and are therefore useful to navigation. Did he not refer
to the particular point here under consideration — that on any other theory the
measure would be unconstitutional? Surely he did not mean that the cause of
forestry itself must stand or fall upon any such issue.
Does not this situation suggest the necessity for an important initial step
tvhich shall sweep away these artificial barriers and let these great questions
stand or fall on their intrinsic merit? If the upbuilding of new forests, if the
storing of our flood waters, are necessary measures for the welfare of the
nation, the way should be cleared for their accomplishment. There may be
differences of opinion about amending the Constitution in the interest of uni-
form divorce laws, popular election of Senators and the like, bur. if we may
judge from the universal agreement upon the particular subjects here consid-
ered, every State in the Union would ratify an amendment giving to Congress
the power to legislate for the conservation and development of the natural
resources of the country.
The author should possibly state, in justice to the otncinl body of engineers
to which he belongs, that the arguments presented in the foregoing paper are
his individual opinions only. He is not acquainted with the views of tiny other
officer upon the subjects treated, except as he has seen them expressed in
official reports or in the public press.
a It has even been hinted by high judicial authority that the reclamation act
itself would not stand the test of constitutionality, if brought into court.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 103
THK EQUALIZING INFLUENCE OF FOKKSTS ON THE FLOW OF STREAMS AND THEIB
VALUE AS A MEANS OF IMPROVING NAVIGATION.
[Being mainly a rejoinder to the paper of Col. H. M. Chittenden, U. S. Army, entitled
" Forests and reservoirs in their relation to stream flow, with particular reference to
navigable rivers," presented before the American Society of Civil Engineers. Prepared
at the request of His Excellency Curtis Guild, jr., governor of the State of Massa-
chusetts, by George F. Swain, LL. D., professor of civil engineering in the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.]
It is the opinion of probably the great majority of engineers conversant with
the subject, that forests act as equalizers of the flow of streams by diminishing,
in general, the frequency and violence of freshets, and increasing the low-water
flow, and by preventing the erosion of the soil and the consequent silting up of
water courses.
Based on these premises, it is believed to be of much importance to the inter-
ests of navigation as well as to other interests, that the United States Govern-
ment should establish forest reserves in the Southern Appalachian and White
Mountains, the object of such reserves being :
First. To aid in the protection of certain given watersheds.
Second. To enable the Government to give an object lesson to private owners
in the vicinity as to what may be accomplished by proper forest management,
and to cooperate directly with such private owners in encouraging them to use
the best methods.
Third. To aid in preventing forest fires and the consequent deterioration of
the soil and destruction of timber on both government and private lands.
Fourth. To aid in and encourage reforesting, and by this means and by proper
management to augment and prolong the timber supply.
In September, 1!)08, a paper, the title of which has been quoted above, was
published in the Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers by
Col. H. M. Chittenden, of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, in which argu-
ments were advanced which in a measure seem to controvert the generally
accepted opinions. The present paper is a brief rejoinder to that article, pre-
pared with special reference to its bearing upon the Appalachian and White
Mountain Forest Reserve bill.
The paper of Colonel Chittenden is exceedingly well written, and upon first
reading might seem to contain strong arguments against the regulative action
of forests. Upon analyzing its statements, however, it will be perceived that
Colonel Chittenden practically acknowledges most of the claims made for
forests, that the paper contains many contradictory assertions and illogical
deductions, and that his arguments are largely conjectural and unaccompanied
by proof.
The paper states that the commonly accepted opinion is that forests have a
beneficial influence on stream flow (1) "by storing the waters from rain and
melting snow in the bed of humus that develops under forest cover * * *
preventing their rapid rush to the streams and paying them out gradually
afterwards, thus acting as true reservoirs in equalizing the run-off; (2) by
retarding the snow melting in the spring and prolonging the run-off from that
source; (3) by increasing precipitation; (4) by preventing erosion of the soil
on steep slopes and thereby protecting water courses, canals, reservoirs, and
similar works from accumulations of silt."
This will probably be admitted to be a fair statement of what the believers
in the benefits of forests consider to be true, except that some do not consider
that there is yet sufficient demonstration that they increase the rainfall, and
also except that the water is not stored simply in the bed of humus, but also
in the ground beneath.
With reference to the first of these points, the author states that it is " strictly
true of average conditions." He says : " It is true, therefore, as popularly under-
stood, that, in periods of ordinary rainfall, with sufficient intervals for the forest
bed to dry out somewhat, forests do exert a regulative effect upon run-off.
They modify freshets and torrents and prolong the mn-off after storms hav<T
passed, and therefore realize in more or less perfection the commonly accepted
theory."
He believes, however, that this beneficial effect is not exerted under extreme
conditions, i. e., great floods and excessive low waters, and he states that these
extreme conditions " determine the character and cost of river control."
Even if it be admitted that the presence of forests does not affect "ex-
treme conditions," this is no argument against the value of forests, for it is
104 FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
certainly not true that only extreme conditions affect the navigability of
streams or " determine the character and cost of river control." Extreme con-
ditions determine certain elements, such, for- instance, as the height of levees.
Colonel Chittenden certainly can not mean to state that ordinary, everyday
floods do not carve away banks and cause shoaling of channels, rendering
dredging necessary for navigation. A few high but not extreme floods may do
much more damage than one extreme flood, and may necessitate more expendi-
ture for dredging and other purposes. Extreme conditions are in the nature of
freaks. They occur only at intervals of many years. It would seem to be more
nearly correct to state that the interests of navigation are governed more by the
usual conditions, and that it is possible for extreme conditions at rare intervals
to interrupt traffic for a short time without causing much loss. It may as well
be argued that it is not wise to attempt improvements on railroads because an
earthquake or a tornado or an extreme flood in a river may destroy a portion
of the track and interrupt traffic for a while. It matters little in the naviga-
bility of a stream if at intervals of twenty, thirty, or fifty years an extreme
drought occurs for a few days or weeks, making the depth of the channel
insufficient for the largest vessels.
If it be true, therefore, that extreme conditions do not govern the question,
Colonel Chittenden has admited all that the advocates of forests desire. Let us
consider, however, the arguments with reference to such extreme conditions :
The argument with reference to extreme floods appears to be that floods are
always the result of combinations from various tributaries; the highest flood
from one stream coming at the same time as the highest flood from other
streams, occurring after periods of long-continued and widespread precipita-
tion. In such cases the forest bed becomes completely saturated, its storage
capacity exhausted, and when this point is reached " the forest has no more
power to restrain floods than the open country itself."
It is of course evident that the rainfall may be so great and long continued
that the forest bed becomes saturated and that the water flows over the surface,
but it does not seeni incorrect to say that in this case the forest has no more
power to restrain floods than the open country itself. The discharge will be
hindered in the forest by the physical conditions and because the soil will -n6*l
be washed away and the water will not be gathered into torrents flowing down
through eroded channels. Moreover, it seems a strange argument to maintain
that because the retentive power of the forest is not unlimited it is not therefore
useful. Even if it be admitted, however, that under a torrential rainfall the
water flows away from the forest without hindrance, it is under just such
a condition that the forest is most valuable in preventing erosion, for the water
is distributed over the forest floor and does not carry away with it the earth
beneath. With reference to this point, however, Colonel Chittendeu maintains
that there is no more erosion from cut-over lauds than from forested lauds.
There are certain reasons for believing that he is not correct. In the first
place, the forest cover is always more or less disturbed or injured by the cut-
ting, and after cutting is done it is more exposed to the sun and becomes dryer
in summer and more liable to take fire. It is believed to be a fact that fire
very frequently follows the lumberman and originates on cut-over land. This
still further destroys the forest cover, and heavy rain falling on deforested
ground is not broken in its fall by the leaves and branches of the trees. In
many places, of course, a new growth springs up after the forest is cut, if it
is not prevented by fire, and this new growth Will in the course of time become
a new forest and the old conditions will be restored, but in the meantime there
is a deterioration of the soil covering and a greater liability to erosion, as well
as a smaller power of retention and consequent more rapid discharge of the
rain waters. In some parts of the White Mountains, tracts once cut clean
and burned over do not grow up again.
Colonel Chittendeu suggests that under extreme flood conditions, such as have
been referred to, the presence of a forest may actually produce a worse condi-
tion than if the country were cleared, and asserts positively, but without proof,
" that the forest does promote tributary combinations * * * and that it
may therefore aggravate flood conditions." He continues, " that forests never
diminish great floods, and they probably do increase them somewhat." As this
statement is not proven, it can only be regarded as Colonel Chittendeu's per-
sonal opinion. There is certainly no more reason for believing that forests pro-
mote the combination of floods from different tributaries than that they have
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 105
the opposite effect. It may be admitted, however, that it is possible to con-
ceive of circumstances in which, under extreme conditions, the presence of a
particular forest may increase a particular flood at a particular point. It is
equally possible to imagine many more conditions under which the reverse
would be true, and it is clear that if the forest has a restraining influence on
the discharge of water from the surface, increasing the amount of percolation
into the ground, to reach the surface later at lower levels by springs and seep-
age, it must, in the vast majority of cases, reduce the frequency and violence of
floods.
It is true, as stated by Colonel Chittenden, that the records of high water
in most streams do not show that the waters now rise, under extreme conditions,
higher than extreme floods which have occurred in the past. The highest re-
corded flood on the Connecticut River occurred in 1S54, long before the present
rapid rate of cutting on its upper headwaters had begun. Similar facts are no
doubt true of other streams. Exceptional conditions are always likely to occur,
but, as mentioned above, it is not exceptional conditions which should govern hi
this question. To do so is like arguing against the benefit of food for the rea-
son that a man's food may choke him, or against the benefits of the sun's heat
for the reason that people occasionally get sunstruck.
Colonel Chitteuden illustrates the action of a forest by considering an inclined-
plane surface " practically impervious to water," with a layer of sand covering
some small portion of it, and to which a spray of water is applied. This com-
parison, however, is not a correct one, for the forest cover does not rest upon
an impervious surface. The forest and its cover prevent the earth beneath from
being baked by the sun and compacted by the rain. It is kept in a porous con-
dition, ready to absorb water which filters down to it through the forest cover.
Any conclusions, therefore, drawn from Colonel Chittenden's simile must be
inaccurate.
The author's summary of this part of the discussion is perhaps contained in
the following sentence: "That the forest does promote tributary combinations
there would seem to be no question, and that it may therefore aggravate flood
conditions necessarily follows. It is not contended that this increase is ever
very great, but it is contended that forests never diminish great floods and that
they probably do increase them somewhat."
It would seem to be much nearer the truth to say that forests generally
diminish floods, although it is conceivable that a forest may slightly increase a
given flood at some points.
The author further states that " the forests are virtually automatic reservoirs,
not subject to intelligent control, and act just as the system of reservoirs once
proposed by the French Government for the control of the floods of the River
Rhone would have acted if built. These reservoirs were to have open outlets,
not capable of .being closed, which were intended to restrain only a portion of
the flow. A careful study of their operation in certain recorded floods showed
that they would actually have produced conditions more dangerous than would
have occurred without them."
The last sentence of this quotation is rather conjectural and its meaning
not quite clear, but it will be surprising to most people to be told that a reser-
voir not subject to intelligent control does not regulate, and they will hardly
accept the statement. Of course a lake is a more efficient regulator than a
forest, because if its level is rising the discharge from its lower end is always
less than the flow into its upper end, while in the case of the forest, when its
storage is exceeded, its level can not rise, and it can simply hinder the discharge
of later rainwater by physically obstructing its flow.
The general aspect of this part of the subject seems, after all, quite simple.
The forest floor absorbs a large amount of water, prevents it from flowing off
rapidly, and allows it to gradually percolate into the porous ground beneath.
If the land were clear of vegetation, or if it were cultivated, and especially if
the slopes were steep, the erosion would be greater and might sooner or later
leave no soil upon the rocks to servo as n reservoir in future storms. The
author's argument, therefore, leaves unassailed the beneficial effects of forests
in regulating flow.
The fact must be emphasized that those who believe in the beneficial effect
of forests upon flow do not urge the preservation of the forests on lands needed
for agriculture. The beneficial effects of the forests on flat lands in modifying
the violence of freshets and increasing the low-water flow is much less clear
106 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
than in the case of forests in steep mountain regions. It is the preservation of
these last— forests upon land not suited to agriculture — that is believed to be
especially important from every point of view.
The statement of Colonel Chittendeu that the flood of 1908 in the Western
States would have been much greater if the region had been forested, is a mere
statement of his own opinion, entirely without proof, and undoubtedly incapable
of proof; and further, if the gauge records given by him show that it is impos-
sible to find evidence in them to support the current theory of forest influence,
it may also be stated that there is nothing in them to support his own contention.
The question will, of course, have occurred to the reader of these remarks,
Why it is not possible by long-continued observations of the height of floods
on our rivers to settle this question absolutely? With reference to this some
explanation is necessary. The flow of a stream is the resultant of a number of
elements, chief among which are rainfall, its distribution throughout the year
and over the area considered, the slope of the ground, the area of forest, culti-
vated land, etc., the number of lakes and reservoirs, the temperature, and other
elements. The chief of all of these is undoubtedly the rainfall and its distri-
bution. A great fall of rain, long continued, will probably cause a great flood
whether there are forests or not, although, as before explained, there is abun-
dant evidence for the contention that the action of the forest is to diminish the
flood. Meteorological phenomena are admittedly variable and uncertain, and,
of course, they are entirely incapable of control. The rainfall varies from year
to year in long cycles, the extent of the variation being such that in the United
States it has generally proved impossible to determine with certainty whether
the rainfall over a given territory which has remained in essentially the same
physical condition, is increasing or not. The rainfall at a given place may vary
from 30 inches in one year to 50 or 60 inches in the following year, and its dis-
tribution is subject to similar variations. These variable elements therefore
may mask the influence of forests or of reservoirs, but the important point is
that these two are the only elements subject to man's control.
It is admittedly physically possible, by reforesting and by the construction
of storage reservoirs, to make the flow of a given stream practically uniform
throughout the year, although to do so would in most cases involve a pro-
hibitive cost; and, moreover, it would be physically impossible to regulate a
reservoir and allow the water to flow out of it in such a way as to produce
this effect, because the future can not be foreseen. Observations of gauge
readings on rivers, therefore, are inconclusive in themselves. Fortunately,
however, we are not without valuable evidence on this point. Mr. M. O. Leigh-
ton, chief hydrographer of the United States Geological Survey, has, during
the past summer, made an elaborate study of the floods of tho Tennessee River,
in which he has endeavored to eliminate the effect of the rainfall and its dis-
tribution by comparing the number of days of flood with the number of indi-
vidual rainstorms of sufficient magnitude to produce floods. The record shows
that during the last half of the period studied the number of days of flood
was actually less than in the earlier part of the period, notwithstanding the
deforestation which has recently taken place. The rainfall, however, has also
been less in the latter period, and the results of Mr. Leighton's study are that
the diminution of the rainfall has been much more than sufficient to account
for the diminution of the floods, so that the actual result is that the floods
have been increasing, the percentage of increase being 1S.75 in the last seventeen
years as compared with the seventeen years previous. This study is the best
contribution to the subject which has come to the writer's knowledge, and it
seems conclusive. The experience in France also furnishes valuable evidence
in this matter.
In 1857 M. F. Valles, a French government engineer, published a work in
which, and in some subsequent papers, he gave almost the identical arguments
advanced by Colonel Chittenden, maintaining that forests diminished the rain-
fall, increased the floods, and diminished the supply of grain by withdrawing
lands from cultivation. He also maintained that floods were beneficial by
bringing silt from the mountain sides to the plains. His work, however, seems
to have been entirely without influence, for immediately after its publication
the French Government entered upon a policy of forest protection and refor-
estation, particularly in the mountain regions, which has been continued up to
the present time. Up to January 1, 1900, the State had acquired over 400,000
acres, or 629 square miles, for the purpose of controlling torrents. Of this area
440 square miles are in the Alps, 145 square miles in the central plateau and
FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 107
the Cevennes, and 44 square miles in the Pyrenees. The expenditure has been
as follows :
For acquisition of land $5,200,000
For work of reforesting 4,000,000
For work of regulating 2,600,000
Miscellaneous '.— 1, 600, 000
Total 13. 400, 000
and there is still to be expended under the plan contemplated about $23,000,000
more.
Referring to this work one of the most recent writers on the subject (G.
Huffel, Economie Forestiere, 1904) states: "The role of the forest as a regu-
lator of the flow of streams may be considered as evident, and it is to-day uni-
versally admitted." Under the able direction of Prosper Demontzey, chief of
the service of reforestation in France for 1882 until retired in 1893, and of his
predecessors, much has been accomplished, and some formerly very destructive
torrents have been reduced to inoffensive streams by reforestation and regula-
tion, much more being expended for reforestation than for regulation, as above
shown. Perhaps it will now be argued that the good results that have fol-
lowed have been due entirely to the regulation and not to the reforestation, but
that is not the view of the French engineers.
At first there was great opposition to he French governmental policy on the
part of the inhabitants of the mountain districts, and in 1864 there were riots
in some places. This opposition, however, has entirely subsided, the inhabitants
now cooperate heartily with the Government, even petitioning to have it extend
its work, and in some cases even giving portions of their lands on the mountain
sides without compensation.
When it comes to the question of extreme droughts, Colonel Chittenden takes
a curiously contradictory position to the one which he takes in considering the
matter of floods. Regarding the latter, it will be remembered, he considers that
the forests may cause a combination of the highest floods arising simulta-
neously from different tributaries : with reference to droughts, however, he
assumes just the reverse, namely, that the extreme low water on different tribu-
taries will not occur simultaneously. It seems clear that the extreme combina-
tion is as likely to occur in one case as in the other.
He admits "that, as a general rule, springs and little streams dry up more
completely than when forests covered the country," but he argues that, since
each spring is small, their drying up will have little effect upon the main
stream, the flow of which will be kept up, if the region is deforested, by the
rapid discharge, over the surface, of the water from summer showers, which
will occur, first on one tributary and then on another, in such a way as to fur-
nish to the main stream always a low-water flow greater than if the springs
could all be kept np. If his argument be carried to the very common case where
no rain falls upon a given drainage basin for weeks, or for a much longer time
than it takes for a drop of water to flow from the extreme source to the mouth,
it would seem to lead to the conclusion that there would be no flow at all in
the stream. In* other words, the author would ha-ve the mills at Lawrence and
Lowell depend for their summer flow, not upon keeping up the " springs and
little streams" so far as possible by increasing through the effect of forests the
percolation into the ground, but .would have these mills trust to luck that the
summer showers would be so distributed over the different tributary basins
that when one was low others would be high, and he maintains that in this
way the low water would be greater than if all the little springs were kept up.
This would, of course, require most intelligent planning on the part of Jupiter
Pluvins, for it would not do to have these summer showers, which are sup-
posed to flow rapidly from the surface, inaccurately timed or distributed over
the basin. It does not seem necessary to pursue this suggestion further.
Even a large drainage area, say 10,000 square miles, may well have its main
stream possess a length from extremest source to mouth, measured on the
stream, of considerably less than 300 miles. If the average velocity of the
stream is 1 mile an hour, which is low. it would take less than two weeks for
a drop of water to pass from the extremest source to the mouth. Now, even in
districts which have a summer rainfall, it frequently happens that even an area
as large as that mentioned is without rain in any part of it for months at a
time, under which condition, if the writer understands Colonel Chittenden's
theory and his admission, even such a large stream would practically dry up.
108 FOEEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATEESHEDS.
It would seem to be much more reasonable to depend upon some means of keep-
ing up the springs and small streams rather than upon the equal distribution
of surface waters of the summer showers from deforested areas.
Moreover, it is not evident why, even in a small stream, a uniform flow is
any less desirable than an intermittent flow. Of course, as is well known, the
larger the stream the greater the low-water flow per square mile, other things
being equal, for the very reason that the low-water flow on all tributaries will
not occur at the same time, no doubt partly owing to local rains. A precisely
similar remark applies to the flood discharge, which is less per square mile on
large watersheds than on small ones, because the maximum discharge from
different tributaries will not occur at the same time. Colonel Chittenden, there-
fore, seems here inconsistent. In discussing floods he considers an extreme
condition in which the floods from various tributaries arrive simultaneously at
a given point, and from this he argues that forests increase the violence of
floods. In the case of extreme drouths, however, he considers the cas"e, not
where the low-water flow from various tributaries arrive simultaneously at a
given point, but, on the contrary, where comparatively high water from one
arrives at the same time as the low water from another.
With reference to the effect of forests upon snow melting, Colonel Chittenden
states that " it can be demonstrated that the effect of forests upon the run-off
from snow is inevitably to increase its intensity.''
He argues that the snow does not drift at all in the forests, but that great
drifts form on open ground ; that the snow begins to melt over open ground
earlier than in the forests, and that the drifts on open ground serve as reservoirs
to feed the streams, lasting much longer than the snow in the forests ; that the
snow melting* in the forests does not sink into the ground, but into the snow
itself, which becomes saturated, until a warm rain carries off the whole mass
of snow hi a freshet. He says, referring to the snow in the forest : " The water
from the first melting from the snow blanket does not sink into the ground, but
into the snow itself. Snow is like a sponge; a panful will shrink to one-fourth
of its volume or less before any free water appears."
This argument contains a number of errors and inconsistencies. In the first
place, the snow does drift in the forest, although not to the same extent as in
the open. Colonel Chittenden admits that the snow blanket lasts longer in the
forests than in the open, except for the drifts. It is the present writer's experi-
ence, however, that the snow in the forests lasts considerably longer than even
the drifts in the open, although this may not be true in the case of very high
altitudes. The snow in the drifts on or near the summit of Mount Blanc, of
course, lasts longer th;m the snow in the forests below, because the top is in a
region of perpetual snow. Obviously this is not the condition to be considered
in the present instance. But Colonel Chitteuden ignores the fact that under
the snow the ground in the forest is warmer than the ground in the open and
that the snow blanket melts at the bottom rather than at the top. Frequently
th3, ground in the forest does not freeze at all and therefore it is in a better
condition to absorb the melted snow than the ground in the open. But even if
the snow blanket in the woods absorbs, as he thinks, the water from its own
melting under the sun's rays, preventing it from percolating into the ground,
why do not the large drifts in. the open, which he says form the main reservoirs
of the streams, also absorb their own water and prevent it from running off?
The fallacy of Colonel Chittenden's arguments in this respect is obvious.
It is, of course, true that if a warm rain comes upon the suow blanket in the
woods, carrying it off in a short time, the resulting flood may be greater than if
the forest had not been there to retain the snow ; but it is equally clear that in
the latter case the earlier spring floods would have been increased. If a given
.•imount of snow has to be carried off into the streams, it is obvious that the
flow of the streams will be more regular if the period of melting is extended,
and this is the effect of the forests.
A further instance of illogical reasoning is found in Colonel Chittenden's
reference to the great floods which occurred in the State of Washington. He
says : " The great flood of 1900 in this section was a perfect demonstration not
only of -the vast intensifying effects of forests upon floods due to snow melting,
but of the utter helplessness of the forest bed, when saturated with long rains,
to restrain floods." It will be clear, however, upon reflection, that this flood is
no demonstration of any " intensifying effect." It simply demonstrates that
there may be heavy floods from forested areas. If those forests were cut down,
That same flood might, and probably would, have been much more violent.
Colonel Chitteuden here apparently forgets the difficulties in studying this
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 109
problem which arise from the fact that the effect of the forests can not be sep-
arated from the other elements entering into the problem.
Similarly inconclusive is the statement about the flood of the American river
compared with Puta Creek in California. Watersheds differ not alone as re-
gards forests, but in other respects. The facts stated simply seem to show that
in this case the forests did not regulate its-flow to an extent sufficient to coun-
terbalance other factors. For instance, if the writer is correctly informed, the
slopes of the Sierras are steeper than those of the coast range. Again, the
shape of the drainage area is a matter of considerable importance with reference
to the maximum rise of water at a given point.
The writer has not had the opportunity to study to any extent the conditions
in the Rocky Mountains, but he observes that Prof. L. G. Carpenter, of the Col-
orado State Agricultural College — than whom there is no more competent au-
thority— in his paper on " Forest and snow " comes to the conclusion that
(a) * * * " the greater the amount of forest cover the less violent the daily
fluctuation, the more uniform the flow throughout the day and throughout the
season and the later the stream maintains its flow. (&) The loss of the forest
cover means more violent fluctuation during the day, greater difficulty in regu-
lating the head gates and keeping a uniform flow in ditches, and 'hence an
additional difficulty in the economic distribution of water; also the water runs
off sooner, hence the streams drop earlier in the summer, and, on account of the
lessening of the springs, the smaller is the winter flow, (c) The preservation
of the forest is an absolute necessity for the interest of irrigated agriculture."
Colonel Chittenden, however, after devoting so much space to considering the
effects of forests upon extremes of flow, does not on the whole take his own
arguments seriously, for later on he says : " In the records of precipitation,
wherever they exist, will be found a full and complete explanation of every one
of the floods that have seemed unusually frequent and severe in recent years."
After citing the conditions, he goes on to say : " Similar conditions prevail in
every great flood, and the true explanation is found in them and not at all in
the presence or absence of forests on the watersheds."
Reference has already been made to the fact that the amount and distribu-
tion of rainfall are the most important factors affecting the flow of streams,
yet it is quite unreasonable to conclude that on that account the forests have
no effect at all.
These quotations are cited, however, to show the apparent contradictions in
Colonel Chittenden's arguments.
It would' take too long to analyze in detail the remainder of Colonel Chit-
tenden's paper and to criticize his many statements. If his views, however,
have weight, attention should be called to one statement which he makes with
reference to erosion. He states (page 955 et seq. ) that the sediment carried
into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi " all comes from the uplands far
;ind near, but particularly from the more remote and hilly regions. This load
is in the nature of through traffic. The local freight picked up from a caving
bank is mainly discharged at the next station. It follows, therefore, that if the
banks of a stream were revetted from the Gulf to Pittsburg, the Falls of St.
Anthony and the mouth of the Yellowstone, the quantity of sediment passing
into the Gulf would not be diminished a particle."
As the quantity of sediment carried into the Gulf each year is exceedingly
large. Colonel Chittenden admits the great erosion from the mountain slopes.
\Ve do not agree with him, however, in the statement quoted. A river picks
up sediment where the velocity of the water and the size of the grains of sedi-
ment admit, and a reduction of velocity causes the deposition of sediment, be-
ginning with the heaviest particles. The river cuts away a bank here and de-
posits a bar there, and much of its load is, as Colonel Chittenden states, in the
nature of local freight. The important point, however, is that all this freight
is moving downstream, and it would seem scarcely reasonable to suppose that
under this continual movement downstream the only silt to find its way into
the Gulf .is that which comes from the extreme sources.
In contradiction to the above statements. Colonel Chittenden says: "It is
incontestably true that whatever restraining effect forests have upon run-off is
greater upon the lowlands than upon steep mountain sides." This is a good
illustration of the character of statement with which this paper abounds, posi-
tive statements given entirely without proof and in contradiction to all experi-
ence and to the best authorities. It would seem to be reasonably clear that
since on steep slopes there is more tendency for the water to run off than on
moderate slopes and flat land, whatever restraining effect the forest exerts
110 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
would be greater on steep slopes than elsewhere. Seeing that if the land were
absolutely level there would be no tendency at all for the water to run off, so
that it would all either percolate or be absorbed, or evaporate, and seeing that
flat lands upon which forests will grow are generally suitable and must sooner
or later be used for cultivation, and seeing, also, that Colonel Chittenden has
asserted that newly plowed laud has probably a retentive capacity greater than
the forest ground, the difficulty of reconciling some of these statements will be
seen.
In the recent work of Huff el, " Ecoiioinie Forestiere," for example, a detailed
discussion of many of these points will be found, and the fallacy of Colonel
Chittenden's last remark above quoted is there abundantly shown.
Colonel Chittenden refers to some foreign publications, particularly to the
reports of the Tenth International Navigation Congress, held at Milan, in 1905.
With reference to this he says : " While all the writers heartily favored forest
culture the opinion was practically unanimous that forests exert no appreciable
influence on the extremes of flow in rivers." The important part of this quota-
tion is the first clause, and not the last. It is true, and it is a very significant
fact, that all the writers urged the preservation of the forests on the mountain
sides, or precisely what is contemplated by the White Mounta in-Southern
Appalachian bill. As foreign testimony may be of value in this connection, as
showing the dependence of the interests of navigation upon the preservation of
the forests, it may be worth while to give extracts from some of these reports.0
Mr. Lafosse, the French delegate, says :
" If the destruction of forests is to be deplored it is most of all on the moun-
tain that the cutting away of timber is to be feared. It is not alone the supply of %
the springs and the discharge of the streams which are in danger ; it is the very
existence of the rivers themselves. The stream which can be utilized disap-
pears, to give place to the devastating torrent.
" The soil swept bare of its forests, exhausted by the abuses of \grazing, loses
quickly its vegetable stratum. Washed periodically, and carried away by melt-
ing snow and summer storms, it is soon disaggregated. The waters run toward
the low points, rolling before them gravel and boulders, and even tearing out
loose sections of rock. A thousand rivulets cut out beds, the torrent is formed.
Scours begin, the banks are broken down, and a mass of mud, stones, and rocks
invades the valley, destroying everything as it passes."
Mr. Wolfshiitz, a delegate from Austria, while admitting that excessive floods
are not appreciably checked by forests, writes as follows:
" For economical reasons reaft'orestations will have to be confined to the
steeper mountain slopes, 'which are of little use for other cultivation. Here
the forest will have a beneficial influence by making the soil firmer and more
compact and by preventing erosion and washing down, and thus any excessive
alteration and the formation of detritus, which would shoal and silt up the
water courses. Such forests further retard the melting of the snows in spring
and lessen the violence of spring high water. It is thus advisable in the
interests of navigation to spare and to attend to the forest. There is no simpler,
cheaper, nor more effective means for securing the mountain slopes and for
keeping the pebble shoals down. In this respect, forests have incoutestably had
a beneficial influence upon the floods of the large rivers. Beyond this, however,
no further measurable influence upon the high waters of rivers can be credited
to them.
"As regards the occurrence of high floods in the large rivers, the forests
can not have any noteworthy influence. As regards the increase in the
ground-water level and in the replenishment of springs, the forests have, in the
plains, no more influence than the open ground, and it is only in the mountains
that this action can be rated at any higher figure. In the mountains, however,
the main office of the woods will be to prevent the denudation and erosion of
the surface, the formation of detritus, and the silting up of the river beds with
mud, sand, and pebbles."
Mr. Riedel, of Vienna, is very emphatic as to the benefits of forests. He
shows the terrible results which have been brought about by their destruction
in various parts of Europe, and with reference to Germany states that " in
Germany, also, reasonable bounds were not everywhere kept to, and the effects
of the progressing deforestation made themselves apparent on the one hand in
scarcity of timber and on the other in the impoverishment of pereuniel
aThe translations were made abroad and the quotations are given just as
printed.
FOREST LANDS FOE, THE PEOTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. Ill
springs and the alarming lowering of the mean water level of German rivers,
and not less so in a gradual increase in the dryness of the ground, caused by
the fall of the level of the underground waters.
" The unquestioned circumstance, that a large number of rivers now carry
down more loose material than formerly, is a consequence of the extensive
denudation and careless clearing of the plantations. The slopes of the hills
lose a large part of their fruitful soil, and in many cases earth slides and even
extensive subsidences of whole slopes take place, while considerable areas of
ground in the valleys are smothered up and rendered useless.
" The loose material which the tributary brooks carry into the main streams
ceases to be carried onward as the declivity becomes fess steep, and in conse-
quence fills up their beds. The streams are then obliged to seek out new
courses, by which the most fruitful ground is devastated and the whole bed of
the valley is gradually transformed into a barren layer of loose stones. This
drawback affects not only the mountain dwellers, but, in so far as the waters
are not able to deposit their loose suspended material in large basins on the
way, the population of the lower-lying and well-tilled valleys also. Here the
damages further include the circumstance that, by reason of the often elevated
position of the river»bed, overflow waters are very difficult to get rid of.
" Proofs of the foregoing, and especially of the last-mentioned circumstance,
are afforded by a large number of river valleys. This Condition of things is
of importance in the cases of those river or stream channels which by the
formation of weirs are to be made serviceable for purposes of inland naviga-
tion, earth slides, damages to river banks, and inundations did not take place,
though at a distance from the channel, lie at a lower level than the latter, are
swamped to the most damaging extent.
" The foregoing is not intended to convey the idea that previous to deforesta-
tion, earth slides, damages to river banks, and inundations did not take place,
but it is intended to show that since the decrease of the forests all these dis-
advantages have increased to a serious and disquieting degree."
Mr. Lauda, of Vienna, compares two similar watersheds of about the same
area in Austria, one being much more heavily wooded than the other. He
thinks the forests may not exert much influence in high floods, but concludes as
follows :
" If, now, the fliial judgment on the subject of the influence of forests on the
regimen of streams be unfavorable to the forests to this extent, that there are
denied to it certain of the properties attributed to it generally, it does not follow
from this that it is necessary to oppose the rewooding of arid surfaces, the re-
planting of the basins of streams, or the maintenance of planations of trees.
The general utility of the forest is so well settled, the extraordinary apprecia-
tion in which it is held, as a means of protecting the soil against landslides, is
so firmly established, its great advantageousness, especially for the spring dis-
trict, in holding back earth thrusts and reducing the amount of sediment car-
ried by rivers so important, that these reasons alone justify fully the greatest
possible promotion of forest culture."
Mr. Ponti, of Italy, seems to have no doubt that forests on steep slopes are
useful in the interests of navigation. He says :
" In Sicily, the consequence of cutting away the forests on a vast scale in
the province of Messina has been also to raise sensibly the bed of the streams,
and many of these beds are now above the adjoining fields."
Mr. Keller, of Austria, thinks that forests affect the regimen and discharge
of rivers only to a slight extent except in mountainous regions, regarding
which he says :
" However, there is no doubt that hi many cases deforestation has contrib-
uted to the erosion of the mountains and to the deposit of their soil at their
foot, as also to an unfavorable change in the conditions of flow and drainage
of the waters. This remark applies equally to the regions of high mountain
ranges as to the Mediterranean basin. There are also the formation of a
cohesive soil takes too long to make good the loss caused by a sudden shower."
Mr. Lokhtine, of Prussia, does not discuss particularly the effect of moun-
tain forests, but among his conclusions is the following:
"(1) Forests form a beneflcieut factor, acting favorably on the general abun-
dance of water in a country, and particularly on the supply of streams and
rivers. That is why the destruction of forests should be considered as hurtfu!
and dangerous."
These extracts show that foreign authorities are unanimous as to the benefits
of forests on the mountains upon the liow of streams and the interests of
navigation.
112 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
It will not be attempted to discuss Colouel Chittendeu's remarks with refer-
ence to reservoirs, as these are not here under consideration.
Finally, it must be remembered that the acquirement by the Government of
forest reserves in the Appalachian and White Mountains will be of benefit to
the navigation of the streams not simply in proportion to the area of these
reserves. By acquiring a foothold, the Forest Service will be able to demon-
strate to owners of adjoining tracts the benefits of wise forest management,
and will be able to cooperate with them on the ground in using similar methods
in their own forests. The Government, also, for the same reason will be able
to restrict forest fires, not only on the government reserves but on private
lands. The effect of the government reserves, therefore, will be much larger
than in proportion to their area, and by wise management and by cooperation
with private owners not only will erosion of the ground be prevented and the
flow of the streams favorably affected, but the timber supply will be conserved.
UNITED STATES ENGINEER OFFICE,
Seattle, Wash., January 12, 190!).
Hon. CHARLES F. SCOTT, »
Chairman Committee on Agriculture,
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.
MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 4th instant, inclosing a paper ,by Dr. George
F. Swain, with a request for my opinion thereon, has only just arrived, the
delay being doubtless due to the heavy weather prevailing along the Northern
Pacific roads.
As you are doubtless anxious for an early reply, I will dictnte one at once,
without taking time for a more careful consideration of Doctor Swafn's paper.
I therefore ask your indulgence with the somewhat disjointed and fragmentary
character of my reply. I should be glad to put it in better form.
Taking up seriatim Doctor Swain's criticisms, I note that in the first place
he says " the great majority of engineers conversant with the subject believe
that forests act as equalizers of stream flow." This statement would be more
correct if he said the great majority of engineers not* conversant with the
subject; i. e., with the subject of stream flow in our navigable rivers. I do not
myself know a single hydraulic engineer of wide experience in these matters
who believes that forests have any particular effect in diminishing great floods
or in preventing extreme low waters. I believe this also to be the opinion of
foreign engineers. There is a very wide sentiment in both countries to the
contrary, but this sentiment is very largely explained by the persistent argu-
ments of forestry advocates, to which hydraulic engineers take no particular
exception, because they do not wish to go on record as opposed to forestry
extension.
In this connection I will pass to the last portion of Doctor Swain's paper, in
reference to foreign opinion on this subject. I have searched this matter a
great deal, and I believe that I am entirely correct in saying that the schools
of thought on the subject in Europe may be divided into forestry advocates
and river engineers. I am unable to find among the latter any that advocate
forests as a corrective for the extremes of flow in our rivers. Doctor Swain
cites the report of M. F. Valle as having made no impression at the time. I
am unable to say what impression it had, but the report itself is a very forcible
one, and cites the opinion of a number of other hydraulic engineers of promi-
nence who coincide with M. F. Valle's views. As a matter of fact, this sub-
ject was under careful discussion at that time, and there were different views,
just as there are to-day upon the subject. Hut when it caine to the question
of practical work the French engineers summarily rejected the idea that the
forests could be relied upon in any degree to simplify the problems of floods in
French rivers.
In the exceedingly elaborate investigation instituted by Napoleon III, as a
result of the extraordinary flood of 1856, this very matter was brought forward
by forestry advocates and was considered by the engineers. Their finding was
that whatever value forests might have locally in preventing erosion of steep
slopes, they could not be relied upon in any degree to diminish the great floods
from which France had just been suffering, and that any measures which
might be taken in the line of reforestation would have no appreciable effect.
Their report cited a very elaborate and exhaustive work upon the floods of French
rivers, going back over six hundred years, in which it was conclusively shown
that former floods were larger than those at the present time, the progressive
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 113
diminution of the floods in the river Seine with the settlement of the country
being particularly noticeable. This practical example of what the real technical
thought of river engineers on this subject was has been followed ever since.
So far as I am aware, no project of river improvement, either for flood pro-
tection or low water in their navigable rivers, has embraced reforestation as an
essential part, or even any part at all.
Doctor Swain quotes in extenso from the papers read before the Milan con-
gress, but a careful reading of these papers will show that the arguments in
favor of forests are based, in great part, upon the question of erosion and the
torrential flow of mountain streams. They do not touch the question of control
of our great rivers. Doctor Swain's reference to M. Lauda's report upon this
subject is certainly not indicative of that author's views, as your committee
can readily see from reading the inclosed translation of his report upon*the
great flood of the Danube in 1899. M. Lauda makes it very clear that forests
on that watershed had no appreciable influence in diminishing the flood ; in fact,
the largest run-off came from those very portions which were most heavily
wooded.
Summing up this particular matter, it is my opinion that the views of river
engineers may be correctly expressed as follows : That they are heartily in
favor of the creation of forests for the preservation of our timber supply and,
possibly, also in the prevention of erosion in particular stiuations, but they
have no faith whatever in the efficacy of forests to simplify the problems of
river control.
I now take up the point of which considerable is made by the forestry advo-
cates, and that is that it is not the extreme floods and low waters that are of
so much importance as the frequency of moderate floods. Doctor Swain calls
these extreme conditions " freaks." I am quite unable to appreciate the force
of this argument in even the smallest degree and I will try to make my reasons
therefor clear to you. It must necessarily be the extreme conditions which engi-
neers have to consider in the control of our rivers. Take the city of Pittsburg,
for example. That city could not be satisfied with any measure of flood control
which does not take into account the great floods. The forestry advocates
might say to that city, if you will give us an appropriation to reforest the
Monongahela watershed, we can assure you that the average moderate floods
of that river will be diminished in height and in frequency by 10 or 15 per cent
of what they are at the present time, and you can then get along by constructing
protection works that will meet this new condition, letting the " freaks " when
they come alojig, take care of themselves. Now, any such proposition as this is
manifestly absurd, and the city would at once reply that the great damage
which has been done in its past history, the great inconvenience suffered, have
come from these particular extreme floods, which are denominated " freaks."
The city would say that its people would not be satisfied with any scheme of
protection that did not provide for these conditions. Inquiring of the forestry
advocates as to whether they could have any assurance that these " freaks "
could be eliminated by reforestation, the reply must inevitably be that they
could not. The city would then probably say, " It seems to us that it would be
better to take this extra money for reforestation and add it to our protection
works and make these strong enough and high enough to keep the ' freaks ' out.
If we can be assured of local protection against the extreme floods, we shall
not worry very much about those that are smaller; they may cause some
inconvenience, but we will worry along with them very well."
In like manner exactly the same reply must be given to any attempt to apply
this agreement to the levees of the Mississippi River and also to low-water
navigation of our streams. The reply of the boatmen must inevitably be that
any scheme of river control must include the "freak" years; that they do not
want their boats laid up every now and then, simply because an exceptional
year comes along which pulls the water down lower than the " mean " of a
certain number of years. They say that if provision is made for these extreme
low years all the others will take care of themselves.
I think that any practical man must take this view of the case, that in our
problems of river control it is the extremes that must govern; and it is now
admitted, particularly since my paper appeared, that forestry has no power to
mitigate these extremes in the slightet degree; that they were just as great
before the forests were cut off as they are to-day, and there is some evidence
that they were greater.
But the very argument itself that deforestation has made moderate floods
more frequent than they used to be stands without proof. Mr. Leighton's re-
72538— AGE— 09 8
114 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
searches have been cited. I have examined his numerous tables and I can
only give it as my professional opinion that his argument is hopelessly defective
for lack of sufficient data. On the Ohio River, for instance, he takes a period
of twenty-four years, divides it into two twelve-year periods, and shows that in
the second of these periods moderate floods were more frequent than they were
before. This period runs from 1876 to 1900, beginning long after the bulk of
the deforestation of the Allegheny and Monongahela watersheds had taken
place.
From information recently collected at the United States Engineer office at
Pittsburg it appears that the change in forest areas on these two watersheds
during this entire period amounted to barely 6 per cent of the area of the
watersheds, and that the mean change from the middle of one period to the
middle of the next was only 3 per cent. Manifestly to draw any conclusions
as to the effect of such a change upon the flow of these streams is absurd. It is
not at all unlikely that another period of twelve years will show a reversal of
the above conditions.
The same is also true of the Connecticut River watershed, where it is an
admitted fact that the forest area is now even more extensive than it was forty
or fifty years ago. I have not the data on hand to test Mr. Leighton's findings
in regard to the Tennessee River watershed, but, in any case, there is one hope-
less lack of data, and that is the relation between each particular flood and the
rain that produces it. It is not a question of " means ; " it is a question of spe-
cific cases. It often happens that a smaller rain, coming upon a watershed
already soaked with previous rains, will produce a greater flood than a much
heavier rain upon the same watershed when the latter is dry, and, unless these
conditions are known and the manifold circumstances attending them, any such
conclusions as Mr. Leighton has drawn, when applied to particular local water-
sheds, are unwarranted. In my paper I was very careful not to run into this
error. I took only the broad, general results as summed up in the final flow
of our great rivers, and from them it was conclusively shown that deforestation
has not diminished the extremes of flow at all.
In regard to the question of erosion I give the result of my own observation,
and that is that it is almost universally a question of cultivation. A tree has
no power to prevent erosion, except that portion which is directly on the ground,
and if the tree is cut down and removed the condition of the ground remains
as it was before, except where logging roads or chutes are constructed for the
removal of the timber. When the cutting of timber is immediately followed
by undergrowth, the latter is in every sense as effective, and often very much
more effective, in preventing erosion than the timber itself. It may be replied
that trees are cut down only to give place to cultivation and that, therefore, de-
forestation and tree cutting mean the same thing ; but they do not by any means,
and there are vast areas all over our country to-day that are deforested, i. e.,
the virgin timber has been removed, but have not been reduced to cultivation
at all. In the matter of preventing erosion of our fields, it is a question of
what kind of cover will best serve this purpose and meet the other uses to
which the soil is to be put If that cover is a forest, let it be adopted, but do
not attempt to establish any hard-and-fast rule of general application that the
removal of our forests leads to the erosion and ruin of our fields. It does so
in only special cases where the soil is extremely unstable and liable to wash
away upon any disturbance.
Doctor Swain states, on page 6, that I have not proven that forests never
diminish great floods, or that they probably do increase them somewhat, and
that it is therefore only a matter of my personal opinion. In reply to this I
invite your attention to the tables showing the great floods on our principal
rivers, as far back as records have been kept, and you will there find that both
the great floods and the extreme low waters were quite as great and quite as
frequent in the earlier periods as they are at the present day.
Doctor Swain's criticisms of my reference to the reservoir scheme projected
for the river Rhone are not well taken, in the absence of information on his
part. If he will read the remarks of the French engineers upon this subject,
he will see that they found, after very exhaustive study, that the system of
reservoirs they proposed — with outlets permanently opened — would have aggra-
vated the flood which actually occurred in the lower portions of that valley in
1856.
The doctor's criticism of my reference to the flood of 1908 in western Mon-
tana (p. 9) is also not well taken. It was not a matter of opinion at all, but
a practical, logical proposition, as capable of demonstration as any proposition
in mathematics.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 115
At the bottom of the same page Doctor Swain touches upon the real crux
of this whole question, and that is climatic or atmospheric conditions. Every
flood is produced by rain or snow. No flood was ever produced in which the
rain or snow did not descend in very considerable quantities. It is perfectly
demonstrable that the proportion of any precipitation (which is capable of
producing a flood in our large rivers) that can be held back or controlled by a
forest bed is relatively an insignificant quantity. It is this fact — that the
heavy rains completely drown out and exhaust the storage capacity of the
forest bed — that renders it nugatory in diminishing the height of the flood. It
no doubt has some influence when the first rains come, after a period of some-
what dry weather, but in a short time its capacity is to all practical purposes
exhausted and it cuts no figure whatever in restraining the subsequent run-off.
The question, therefore, comes back to rainfall, and unless the forestry
advocates can show that deforestation has a direct and powerful influence
upon rainfall their whole position would seem to fall to the ground. I believe
that it is now well recognized the world over that climatic changes do not
result from the clearing of the land. I can produce pages of records of the
rainfall in our own country that would seem to prove this conclusively, and
I quote here an item which I happened to have at hand from Professor Abb§ of
the Weather Bureau, which is exactly in point.
" There is no well-authenticated case of an appreciable change of climate
within the past two thousand years. The researches of Eginitis on the climate
of Greece seem to establish this principle beyond doubt. Neither is it possible
that any change on the surface of the earth due to man — such as deforestation,
reforestation, agriculture, canals, railroads or telegraph lines — can have had
anything more than the slightest local effect on climatic phenomena that
depend upon the action of the whole atmosphere."
The examples cited by Doctor Swain of expenditures by foreign governments
for reforestation have no pertinence to the point here in consideration. It is
perfectly true that all enlightened countries expend money for this purpose,
as they should, and as it is to be hoped our country will do; but it is for the
purpose of raising forests and not for the improvement or control of our great
rivers. In France they have been resorted to extensively for the purpose of
preventing erosion on mountain slopes, where extensive deforestation and ill-
advised cultivation were undertaken upward of a century ago.
In reference to my argument concerning the low-water flow of rivers, some
misunderstanding has resulted, due to a failure to comprehend what I actually
said. In no case have I depreciated the value of springs which are, of course,
of the very highest importance at such times; but I simply said that the dif-
ference between the low-water flow of a spring or stream when forests covered
the ground and what it is now, is a relatively very small quantity, compared
with the flow of the river itself.
The real springs upon which our streams rely in time of low water remain
nearly permanent and respond very slowly to the effects of rainfall. They are
deep-seated springs that flow for long distances through the earth, and often
emerge to the surface far from their source of supply. Such springs are found
in all parts of this country and in all parts of the world, and many towns and
cities rely upon them for their supply. I have been unable to find any evidence
that these permanent springs have suffered materially in volume from defor-
estation of the country. The shallower springs, those which come from near
by and respond quickly to rainfall and drought, are the ones that dry up to
such an extent in the low water season. They used to dry up also before the
forests were cut away, and do so in forests to-day, as anyone can see by exam-
ining springs in the early part of the season and then again in the autumn.
It is this class of springs which has suffered, if there has been any diminution
by the clearing of the country. But it is right here that our forestry friends
jump at the conclusion, which is by no means warranted, that the removal of
the trees is the cause of this diminution and also the cause of the diminishing
supply of wells. They never stop to consider the enormous demand upon these
waters, which has accompanied the settlement of the country and which is
increasing all the time. The one item of locomotives in the United States takes
up 170 cubic feet of water per second or a stream twice as large as the Mon-
ongahela River in extreme low water. Towns require 100 gallons per day per
individual; every farm has its wells and the drain of water for these varied
purposes is something enormous. It has been conclusively proven that wells,
by being constantly drawn upon, lower the water where no change whatever has
taken place upon the surface of the ground. In fact, it seems reasonably cer-
116 FOEEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS.
tain that, if all these demands for various purposes were to be shut off com-
pletely, if such a thing were possible, our springs and wells and little streams
would show a material increase in flow. These losses are, of course, not at
all due to the presence or absence of forests and can not be affected by anything
which may be done in the planting of trees.
In like manner, the assumption that the little mill of former times was
abandoned because of low water is entirely erroneous. Take any one of these
mills and trace its history, and in nine cases out of ten business and not physical
conditions will be found to be the explanation. The advent of steam and
cheaper methods of manufacture have done away with the little mill, and if
steam were abolished to-day the little mill would most assuredly come back
again without delay. So in all these cases, whatever the diminution of the
flow of small streams may be, it can not be chargeable entirely to forests, but
has other good and more important explanations.
There is, however, one thing which undoubtedly increases the dry-season
flow in the open country somewhat over that in the forest, and that is the
summer showers. The roads and ditches, the pavements, and roofs of houses
do shed such showers more effectually than the forests at such times, and un-
doubtedly the summer run-off in the streams is then greater in the open country
than in the forests. This is precisely what I referred to when I said that
the Increased run-off from showers very likely made up the difference in the
low-water flow of springs. In proof of this I appeal to the records of our
large rivers, which show that the low-water flow under present conditions is
no lower than it used to be when forests covered the country. In fact, to cite
an example of the Monongahela River, if all the demands for water upon
that stream which have grown up since 1856 (a very low-water year) were
cut off, the flow of that stream in the great drought of last fall would undoubt-
edly have been greater than it was in the year above mentioned.
I will not go at length into Doctor Swain's criticism of my argument in
regard to the influence of forests on snow melting, as this applies mainly to
the Rocky Mountain region and the Pacific coast and has a relatively small
bearing upon the Appalachian forests. As to the argument itself, I believe it
will come out of this discussion as permanently established as any fact in
science. You will find, when you come to read some of the papers which it has
called forth, that the state engineer of Wyoming confirms it in its entirety;
certain engineers of Los Angeles give comparisons of four rivers in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains and show that the deforested watersheds have the most
regular and most copious supply, and you will also see another paper in which
the same results are set forth in the mountains of Nevada.
The annunciation of this theory has caused some surprise and a good deal of
opposition, but it has not been shaken by anything that Doctor Swain has said,
and I am perfectly willing to rest upon the simple statement of facts put forth
In my paper.
The same is also true as to the forests of this coast. In nothing have I been
so much surprised as in becoming acquainted with the torrential character of
these streams. If there is a place on the face of the earth where forests
ought to regulate stream flow, it is right here. As a matter of fact, these
streams respond to storms in a way that I have never known to happen in any
country cleared of forests. It is undoubtedly due to the effect of the forests
In spreading the snow out in such vast areas, so that the rain and warm
weather get at it in all directions; and also to the fact that through long
periods of time the water has created little channels underneath the debris, so
that it finds its way to the streams much more readily than one would imagine.
The fact stands out very clear and undisputed that, in this region of pro-
tected watersheds, floods and low waters are just as pronounced as in our
eastern cultivated country, except where low water is kept up by the supply
from the glaciers.
In regard to the caving of our river banks, I would expressly request that
my statement of that case be studied carefully, because I believe it to be sub-
stantially correct. Of course, the great moving of silt in our rivers is from
the local caving of banks, but it is always in the nature of picking up here and
putting down there. It does not contribute to the total outflow from the
mouths of the rivers, because these valleys, from year to year, are gathering
sediment all the time.
As to the statement on page 19, second paragraph, which is criticised by
Doctor Swain, I will simply say that if any one will take a board and put
sand, soil, or any other absorptive material on it, and saturate it with water,
FOEEST LANDS FOB THE PBOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS. 117
weight the water, and find out bow much of it runs off when inclined at an
angle of 5 degrees and also how much when it is inclined at an angle of 46
degrees, he will at once agree entirely with the author's statement.
Referring once more to the question of filling up our streams through erosion,
of which so much is made in recent articles on forestry, I have to say that In
my paper I ch.-illeiige directly the statement so frequently made that our own
navigable rivers are silting np as a result of deforestation. That challenge
has remained unreplied to, because the facts prove the statement untrue. Very
interesting in this connection is a recent investigation by the Geological Survey °
in connection with Air. Leighton's proposed reservoir system, in which it was
shown that under present conditions, after deforestation has progressed to a
very great degree, there is absolutely no danger that these reservoirs would
become inoperative for many hundreds and even thousands of years from
filling up with sediment. When this fact is considered, it is easily seen how
slight an influence such sediment can make upon a great river like the Ohio,
which can easily wash it all out and a thousand times as much, and still not
tax its energy to the limit. If the erosion from these watersheds is now so
small, after deforestation has taken place on perhaps 50 or 60 per cent of
the watersheds, why should we assume that it will become dangerous with the
removal of 15 or 20 per cent more of the forests.
To sum up this somewhat rambling letter, I wish to say that my point in
the whole discussion is simply this, that it is to-day an unproveu fact — and I
thoroughly believe incapable of being proven — that anything which it is possible
to do in the line of reforestation will simplify our river problems in the least
degree. It was. in fact, the real purpose of my paper to call the attention of
the country to this matter in connection with its future policy in the creation
of our forests. The proposed Appalachian Forest Ileserve will cost many mil-
lions of dollars. If it is being undertaken in the interests of river improve-
ment, the people should be thoroughly informed as to whether the promised
improvement will result. If it is found, upon investigation, that the creation or
preservation of these forests will not simplify these problems or reduce the cost
of navigation works and flood protection in any degree, then, manifestly, it is
not a proper expenditure for this purpose. I thoroughly believe in the neces-
sity of inaugurating a comprehensive policy of creating and extending our
pieseut forests as far as it is practicable, but it seems to me th.it it ought to
be done for the m«c purpose which these forests are to serve
In my paper I pointed out another argument, which has so far not been re-
plied to by anyone, and that is that, with any practical extension of our present
forests it would not be possible to produce a sufficient result to make any
appreciable effect upon our streams, even granting the full force of the forestry
argument. We can not, in the very nature of things, have a greater area of
woodland than we now have, namely, about one-third of our total area east
of the Mississippi River, The necessities of settlement and cultivation will
rather require it to be reduced.
If I may make a suggestion in this connection it would be this-: This im-
portant subject has never really been brought up for general discussion; until
within the last few months it has always been advocated from the pro-forestry
side alone. AVithin the next few mouths there will be printed the entire dis-
cussion of my paper, including arguments by Messrs. Pinchot, Leightou, and
Swain, and Professors Smith and Willis of the Geological Survey, besides
several prominent engineers. It will include also my closing argument on the
subject.
It would seem very desirable that this information should be gotten before
your committee before it takes final action in this matter, and it would seem,
further, to be very desirable that instead of immediate action the whole matter
should be referred to a commission in which the engineering profession shall
have at least an equal representation. The trouble with the forestry advo-
cates is that they have a " cause " to promote, and the promotion of this cause
does not leave them in that free and unbiased state of mind which is required
for an impartial investigation of a subject like this.
The future development of our forests is going to cost many millions ot
dollars, and it would seem to be a wise step to pursue the same course in this
as in any other great undertaking, like the Panama Canal, for instance, by
subjecting it first to a full and impartial investigation in order that its varied
a See Engineering News. Dec. 10, 1908, p. 649.
118 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
bearings may be fully disclosed. There is manifestly no necessity for precipi-
tate action. In spite of all that the pessimist may say, our country is not
going to ruin if the Appalachian bill is not passed at this session of Congress,
and it is important, in the interest of intelligent legislation, that a very thor-
ough investigation of the whole subject be made before any definite policy is
adopted.
I have been greatly impressed with the immense drawback to the country,
due to the situation of some of our forests, which are so remote and inaccessi-
ble as to be almost valueless, and it has seemed to me that any intelligent
policy must include the restoration of our forests where they used to be and
in these situations that are most accessible and most convenient to the homes
of the people.
I am in no sense opposed to the Appalachian forest reserve, so far as such a
reserve satisfies the requirements of a source of timber supply, but when it
comes to creating such a reserve on the ground that it will simplify or cheapen
the problem of flood protection and navigation in our navigable rivers, the
matter requires further investigation.
Very respectfully, H. M. CHITTENDEN,
Lieutenant-Colonel, Corps of Engineers.
I forgot to refer to the effect of snow upon the forest bed in our eastern de-
ciduous forests. The fallen leaves of the previous year are pressed down per-
fectly flat and form a partially water-tight lining between the snow and the
ground, which not only interferes with absorption of such melting as may take
place from underneath, but materially accelerates surface run-off into the
HOUSE EEPORT NO. 2027, 60TH CONGEESS, SECOND SESSION.
ACQUIRING LAND FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS FOR THE
CONSERVATION OF NAVIGABLE STREAMS.
FEBRUARY 3, 1909.— Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state
of the Union and ordered to be printed.
Messrs. WEEKS and LEVER, from the Committee on Agriculture,
submitted the following
REPORT.
[To accompany S. 4825.]
The Committee on Agriculture, to which was referred various bills
for the protection of the watersheds of navigable streams, submits the
following report, to accompany Senate bill 4825.
After a thorough discussion of the purposes to be accomplished it
was deemed advisable to report the accompanying bill, as meeting
more fully than any other the needs of the situation.
Section I proposes to give the consent of Congress to each of the
several States of the Union to enter into any agreement or compact
not in conflict with any law of the United States, with any State or
States for the purpose "of conserving the forests and water supply of
the States entering into such agreement or compact.
Section 2 appropriates the sum of $100,000 to enable the Secretary
of Agriculture to cooperate with any State or group of States, when
requested to do so. in the protection from fire of the forested water-
sheds of navigable streams, and the Secretary is authorized to stipu-
late and agree with any State or group of States to cooperate in the
organization and maintenance of a system of fire protection on any
private or state lands within such State or States and situated upon
the watershed of a navigable river.
The section further provides that no such stipulation or agreement
shall be made with any State which has not provided by law for a sys-
tem of fire protection, and that in no case is the amount contributed to
any State to exceed the amount appropriated by that State for the
same purpose.
Section 3 provides that the Secretary of Agriculture may, for the
protection of the watersheds of navigable streams, on such conditions
as he deems wise, agree to administer and protect for a definite term
of years any private forest lands situated upon any watershed whereon
119
120 FOEEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
lands ma}7 be permanent y reserved, held, and administered as national
forest lands, and that in such case the owner shall cut and remove the
timber thereon only under such rules and regulations as will provide
for the protection of the forest in the aid of navigation. The section
provides that in no case is the United States to be liable for any dam-
age resulting from fire or any other cause on such lands.
Section 4 provides that from receipts from the sale or disposal of
any products or the use of lands or resources from the public lands
now or hereafter to be set aside as national forests which may here-
after be turned into the Treasury of the United States and which are
not otherwise appropriated, there shall be available $1,000,000 for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, and not to exceed $2,000,000 for each
fiscal year thereafter, to be used in the examination, survey, and ac-
quirement of lands located on the headwaters of navigable streams, or
those which are being or which ma}T be developed for navigable pur-
poses, and further provides that the provisions of this section shall
expire by limitation on June 30, 1919.
This section has two features not included in any of the other bills
referred to the committee. The first is, that the proceeds from the
present national forests., so far as they are at present unappropriated,
are to be turned to the purchase of forest lands to the amounts above
mentioned. The second feature is, that instead of limiting the acquisi-
tions by purchase or otherwise for this purpose to any particular
region or regions, such as the Southern Appalachian or White Moun-
tain region, lands' may be acquired on any watershed, so far as they
fall within the purposes of the bill.
Section 5 provides for the establishment of a National Forest Res-
ervation Commission, to be composed of the Secretary of War, the
Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, one member
of the Senate, and one member of the House of Representatives, the
object of the commission being to consider and pass upon such lands
as may be recommended for purchase and to fix the price or prices
to be paid for such lands. It further provides for limiting incum-
bency and for filling vacancies in the commission.
Section <3 provides for an annual report to Congress of the operation*
and expenditures of the commission.
Section 7 authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to examine and
locate lands to be recommended to the National Forest Reservation-
Commission for purchase. The section also provides that a report
shall be made to the Secretary of Agriculture by the Geological Survey
showing in what way the control of such lands will promote or protect
the navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie.
Sections 8 and 9 provide the method by which lands may be acquired
by the Secretary of Agriculture after they have been approved by the
National Forest Reservation Commission.
Section 10 provides that the owner of the land from whom title
passes to the United States may, under certain conditions, reserve the
minerals and merchantable timber within or upon such lands at the
date of conveyance, and provides the method by which the removal of
such minerals or timber may thereafter be accomplished.
Section 11 provides for the sale of small areas of agricultural land*
which may of necessity or by inadvertence be included in tracts acquired
under this act.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 121
Sections 12 and 13 provide for the management as national forests
of the lands so acquired and describe the limits of civil and criminal
jurisdiction over them.
Section 14 provides that 25 per cent of all moneys received from any
national forest acquired under this act shall be paid at the end of each
year to the State in which such national forest is situated for the
benefit of public schools and public roads.
Section 15 provides for the necessary expenses of the commission
and prescribes the manner of auditing and paying of the same.
SCOPE OF THE BILL.
This bill is general in its scope, and permits the acquirement of
lands in any part of the United States wnere such acquisition can be
shown to be advisable to the National Forest Reservation Commission,
after the Geological Survey has determined that such acquisition will
promote or protect the navigability of streams on whose watersheds
the lands lie.
INCOME FROM THE NATIONAL FORESTS TO BE USED.
The funds to be used under the provisions of this bill are a pre-
scribed amount of those which come into the Treasury from the sale
of the products or the use of the resources of the national forests so
far as they are not now appropriated. The law at present provides
that 25 per cent of the money so received shall be paid to the States
or Territories in which such forests are located, for school and road
purposes. It is to be particularly noted that this bill does not change
that plan, but rather extends it to the States or Territories in which
national forests may be acquired. The net amount received from the
uses of the national forests for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908,
was $1,341,691.30, and for the present fiscal }7ear is estimated to be
$1,500,000.
RELATION OF FORESTS TO THE USE OF INLAND WATERWAYS.
The relation of forests to the use of the inland waterways is shown
by the following quotations:
Our river systems are better adapted to the needs of the people than those of any
other country. In extent, distribution, navigability, and ease of use they stand
first. Yet the rivers of no other civilized country are so poorly developed, s-o little
used, or play so small a part in the industrial life of the nation."
The first requisite for waterway improvement is the control of the waters in such
manner as to reduce floods and regulate the regimen of the navigable streams. &
Every stream should be used to the utmost; every river system, from ity head-
waters in the forest to its mouth on the coast, is a single unit and should be treated
as such, c
A mountain watershed denuded of its forest, with its surface hardened and baked
by exposure, will discharge its fallen rain into the streams so quickly that over-
whelming floods will descend in wet seasons. In discharging in this torrential way
the water carries along great portions of the land itself. Deep gullies are washed in
a Preliminary Report of the Inland Waterways Commission. Senate Document
325, Sixtieth Congress, first session.
& Report of ttfe National Conservation Commission. Senate Document 676, Sixtieth
Congress, second session.
c Preliminary Report of the Inland Waterways Commission. Senate Document 325,
Sixtieth Congress, first session, page 2.
122 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
the fields, and the soil, sand, gravel, and stone are carried down the streams to points
where the current slackens. Since the extensive removal of the forest on the upper
watersheds there has been avast accumulation of silt, sand, and gravel in the upper-
stream courses. Examples of reservoirs completely filled are already to be seen on
almost every stream. In the degree that the forests are damaged on the high water-
sheds, then inevitable damage results to water power and navigation through increased
extremes of high and low water and through vast deposits of grave), sand, and silt
in the stream channels and in any reservoir which may have been constructed, o
The chief obstacles to navigation, then, are lack of water during portions of the
year, and detritus which is washed into the streams and gradually fills the channels
or forms obstructions at the mouth. Were the flow uniform, the amount of water
carried by a river during the year would be sufficient to provide a good depth at all
times. But the flow is uneven; there is too much water at one time and not enough
at another. The floods of the spring waste the water which should be available to
maintain a navigable depth during the summer and fall. To lessen this inequality
of flow should therefore be the aim of all measures for the development of our water-
ways. If the rivers could be kept always in gentle flood, a relatively small expendi-
ture for reservoirs, locks, and dams would be required. In the same way, if means
could be found to prevent silt and sand from being washed into the streams the
enormous cost of dredging would be largely done away with. The function of the
forest and of the humus beneath as a storage reservoir 'is of high importance, yet in
relation to navigation and the storage of storm waters the influence which the forest
has in checking erosion is of equal, if not greater value. &
In the Southern Appalachians the fullest use of water resources can be secured only
by carefully guarding the natural conditions which control them. The valuable
water resources of this region depend absolutely upon the maintenance of a protect-
ive forest cover. Without this forest cover the water power of the region can never
be developed to the full, and in the same way the navigable streams can not be kept
from silting up if the forest cover about their headwaters is removed. The protec-
tion of these areas is a large undertaking, but it is necessarily the first undertaking,
since it is fundamental to the development and utilization of the water resources. If
the forest is not first protected, damage to water resources will be far-reaching. If
the forest is preserved, the benefits from the standpoint of water utilization will be
widely diffused, even far beyond the borders of the Appalachain region, c
The opinions here quoted represent the almost unanimous view of
all who have investigated the relation between mountain forests and
navigable rivers. The bill which the committee has reported is in line
with the policy of conservation as recommended by the President and
the National Conservation Commission. It provides for establishing
an adequate programme of protection to the mountain forests by giv-
ing the Federal Government the right to cooperate with the States or
with private individuals, and by the acquisition of lands where such is
necessary. Further, it provides the most natural arrangement for
defraying the cost of such acquisition— that of using the funds which
come to the Treasury from the national forests already established,
and the bill necessitates the appropriation of no additional sums of
money in the carrying out of this project.
It has been the policy of the Government to improve its navigable
streams by the expenditure of large sums of money, in some cases at
their headwaters. For example, a series of reservoirs has been con-
structed at the headwaters of the Mississippi at a cost of approxi-
mately $2,000,000. Locks and dams have been constructed on the
Monongahela River at a cost of $2,479,818.48: on the Allegheny Kiver,
$1,658,423.18; and on the Ohio River in Pennsylvania, $5,385,060.78.
Expenditures have been made on the headwaters of the Sacramento
° Report of the Secretary of Agriculture on the Southern Appalachian Watersheds.
Senate Document 91, Sixtieth Congress, first session.
6 Report of the U. S. Geological Survey to the Department of Agriculture. Forest
Service Circular No. 143.
c Report of the U. S. Geological Survey to the Department of Agriculture. Forest
:• - vice Circular No. 144.
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 123
River amounting to $400,000 for the construction of dams for the
purpose of preventing the silting up of the lower channel of the river
as a result of hydraulic mining in the mountains.
In France, the first efforts to repair the disastrous torrents were
made by engineers along the lower water courses. Dredging and
dams, however, proved at best but temporarily effective. Only when
they began to push this work up to the headwaters of the streams did
they find themselves on the right road.
RELATION OF THE FORESTS TO FLOODS.
Flood damage in the United States has increased from $45,000,000
in 1900 to 1118,000,000 in 1907. All rivers on whose watersheds the
forests have been heavily cut show flood increases. They are greatest
in such streams as the Ohio, Cumberland, Wateree, and Santee, where
the most timber has been removed, and least in those streams on whose
watersheds forest conditions have been least changed. Except in the
change of forest conditions there have been no factors that could have
intensified flood conditions. In the Ohio River in seventy years the
number of floods at Wheeling has increased 62 per cent and their
aggregate duration 116 per cent.
In the Cumberland River at Burnside, Ky., the number of floods
increased 330 per cent in the fifteen years between 1891 and 1905 and
the duration in the same proportion. During the same period in the
Wateree River at Camden, S. C., the number of floods increased 65
per cent and the duration 82 per cent. In the Congaree River the in-
crease during the same time has been 94 per cent in number and 113
per cent in duration. In the Savannah River at Augusta, Ga., be-
tween the years 1876 and 1905 the increase in the number of floods
has been 94 per cent and in duration '266 per cent. Between 1891 and
1905 the Alabama River at Salem, Ala., had an increase in number of
floods of 83 per cent and in duration of 31 per cent.
The Geological Survey has made a careful study of floods in the
Tennessee River during the past thirty-four years, and has found that
on the basis of equal rainfall floods in the last half of the period have
increased 18f per cent.
At the Tenth International Congress on Navigation, held in Milan in
1905, engineers from the various countries of Europe were unanimously
of the opinion that mountain forests were beneficial in .preventing
floods, in regulating the low water in streams, and in retaining the
soil upon the mountains.
RELATION OF FORESTS TO SOIL WASH.
The annual soil wash in the United States is estimated by the Inland
Waterways Commission atabout 1,000,000,000 tons, of which the greater
part is the most valuable portion of the soil. It is carried into the
rivers, where it pollutes the waters, necessitates frequent and costly
dredging, and reduces the efficiency of work designed to facilitate
navigation and prevent floods. Soil when once lost is replaced with
great difficulty, if at all. Consequently the protection of the forests
on the slopes which are too steep otherwise to be utilized means
actually immense gain in soil conservation.
124 FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
Not only is soil removed in great quantities from mountain surfaces,
but the floods which gather on denuded mountain slopes inevitably
result in the destruction of the alluvial soils along the river courses.
OTHER BENEFITS FROM FOREST PRESERVATION.
The protection to navigable streams is the chief purpose of the pro-
posed legislation. Incidentally, there will be great benefits to the
whole country in other directions. Water power, Like navigation,
depends on the regular flow of the streams. The amount of water
power capable of development in the United States is sufficient to
operate every mill, drive every spindle, propel every train and boat,
and light every city, town, and village in the country. The continued
successful development of many of our industries in the future
depends in large part upon the present protection of our inland water-
ways. We are using three times as much timber every year as the
forest produces, not because we have an insufficient area of forest
land, but because our forests are not protected from fire nor properly
used. The eastern forests are notable for their hard- wood production,
half of the country's supply being obtained from this source. The
proposed bill w'ill give protection to the chief hard-wood forests of the
country.
EXPERIENCE OF OTHER COUNTRIES PROVES THAT THE PROTECTION
OF THE FORESTS AT THE HEADWATERS OF IMPORTANT STREAMS IS
IMPERATIVE.
The relation of the mountain forests to the navigability of inland
water is the same the world over. Every country that has maintained
an even and sufficient now of streams for the purposes of commerce
has had to maintain and in some cases establish upon the headwaters
of the streams forests to hold the soil in place and to prevent over-
whelming floods.
Germany stands in the forefront of nations in inland waterway
development, and she has all of her high mountains protected by
forests. These forests have been under government management for
a hundred years and they are the most productive and profitable
in the world, yielding an average net return of $2.40 per acre.
The stripping of the forests from the mountains of France was
unchecked until 1860, by which time 800,000 acres of farm land had
been ruined or seriously damaged and the waterways practically
destroyed. The population of 18 departments had been reduced to
poverty and forced to emigrate. A futile attempt was then made to
check the torrents by sodding. It was only by the acquisition by the
Government of the* bare lands, the building of stone walls for the
gathering of silt and the planting of trees on the soil held in check by
those walls that satisfactory results were accomplished. The cost
of this method has often been as much as $50 per acre. By 1900
$15,000,000 had been spent and the French Government has continued
the work by acquiring each year 25,000 to 30,000 acres of land. The
present programme calls for the expenditure of $50,000,000 on this
work. About one-fourth of the mountain streams have been brought
under control and the balance are beginning to shotv indications of
improvement.
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PEOTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 125
Italy has suffered extremely from the ruin which follows the re-
moval of protective forests. One-third of all the land is unproductive,
and though some of this area may be made to support forest growth,
one-fourth of it is beyond reclamation, mainly as the result of cleared
hillsides and the pasturing of goats. The rivers are dry in summer;
in spring they are wild torrents, and the floods, brown with the soil
of the hillsides, bury the fertile lowland fields. The hills are scored
where the rains have loosened the soil, and landslides have left exposed
the sterile rocks, on which no vegetation finds a foothold. Such floods
as that of 1897, near Bologna, which did over $1,000,000 damage,
destroy property and life.
The dearth of wood and especially the great need of protecting forests
to control stream flow have brought some excellent forest laws. In
spite of the first general forest law (1877), which regulated cutting and
forbade clearing on mountain slopes, large areas have persistently been
cleared, and though provision has been made for thorough reforesting
work, very little of the needed planting has been done. The classifi-
cation of the lands to which restriction shall and shall not apply is a
constant matter of dispute. An effort has been made to show that the
forest planting contemplated by law is largely unnecessary. The last
point, however, has been .safely settled by recommendations of a recent
commission, which declare that at least 500,000 acres will have to be
planted, at a cost of not less than $12,000,000, before the destructive
torrents, brought on by stripping and overgrazing the hillsides, can
be controlled.
Spain has suffered greatly from destructive floods caused by insuffi-
cient forests on the mountains. She has enacted an elaborate system
of laws to prevent overcutting, but the indebtedness of the country
has prevented the efficient carrying out of these laws.
Other countries which are working out comprehensive schemes of
protecting forests at the headwaters of mountain streams are England
in India, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Russia, Roumania, and Japan.
China holds a unique position as the only great country which has
persistently destroyed its forests. What has been done in other coun-
tries stands out in bold relief against the background of China, whose
mountains and hills have been stripped nearty clean of trees, and whose
soil is in many districts completely at the mercy of floods. Trees have
been left only where they could not be reached. Streams which for-
merly were narrow and 'deep, with an even flow of water throughout
the .year, are now broad, shallow beds choked with gravel, sand, and
rocks from the mountains. During most of the year many of them
are entirely dry, but when it rains the muddy torrents come pouring
down, bringing destruction to life and all forms of property. . In a
word, the Chinese, by forest waste, have brought upon themselves two
costly calamities — floods and water famine. The forest school just
opened at Mukden is the first step in the direction of repairing this
waste so far as it now may be repaired.
The results of deforestation in China are particularly discussed and
graphically illustrated in the President's annual message to the second
session of the Sixtieth Congress.
126 FOBEST LANDS FOB THE PBOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS.
CONCLUSIONS.
The great increase in floods in our rivers, together with the increas-
ing property loss and annual loss of soils, shows that in some sections
of the country we are rapidly approaching the situation in which
China now finds herself. It is not now too late for nature to restore
the forests on the mountains, but the time is rapidly coming when it
will be. The question of protecting the forests at the headwaters of
the streams is a national as well as a state problem. It is not right to
expect the State to deal entirely with areas requiring protection when
those areas affect chiefly other States. It is impossible for States
which suffer from conditions outside their own territory to remedy
them by their own action. The mountains of the West are already
largely under government protection. So far as they are not pro-
tected this bill is applicable to them. It is applicable to all other sec-
tions of the United States in which the source streams of the navigable
rivers lie in nonagricultural, mountainous regions, and it is believed
that it will accomplish the necessary protection to the Southern
Appalachians and White Mountains.
If the action which this bill proposes is taken by Congress, it will
work out to the great benefit of both agriculture and the manufactur-
ing industries, while to the permanent development of our inland
waterways the benefits will be fundamental.
KlTTREDGE HASKINS.
WILLIAM W. COCKS.
RALPH D. COLE.
ERNEST M. POLLARD.
CLARENCE C. GILHAMS.
JAMES C. MCLAUGHLIN.
JOHN W. WEEKS.
JOHN LAMB.
ASBURY F. LEVER.
AUGUSTUS O. STANLEY.
J. THOMAS HEFLIN.
Your committee therefore recommend that all after the enacting
clause of Senate bill 4825 be stricken out and the following inserted
in lieu thereof:
That the consent of the Congress of the United States is hereby given to each of
the seyeral States of the Union to enter into any agreement or compact, not in con-
flict with any law of the Cnited States, with any other State or States, for the pur-
pose of conserving the forests and the water supply of the States entering into such
agreement or compact.
SEC. 2. That the sum of one hundred thousand dollars is hereby appropriated and
made available until expended, out of any moneys in the National Treasury not
otherwise appropriated, to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to cooperate with any
State or group of States, when requested to do BO, in the protection from fire of the
forested watersheds of navigable streams, and the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby
authorized, and on such conditions as he deems wise, to stipulate and agree with any
State or group of States to cooperate in the organization and maintenance of a system
of fire protection on any private or state forest lands within such State or States and
situated upon the watershed of a navigable river: Provided, That no such stipulation
or agreement shall be made with any State which has not provided by law for a
system of forest-fire protection: Provided further, That in no case shall the amount
expended in any State exceed in any fiscal year the amount appropriated by that
State for the same purpose during the same fiscal year.
SEC. 3. That the Secretary of Agriculture, for the 'further protection of the water-
sheds of said navigable streams, may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized,
FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 127
on such conditions as he deems wise, to stipulate and agree to administer and protect
for a definite term of years any private forest lands situated upon any such watershed
whereon lands may be permanently reserved, held, and administered as national
forest lands; but such stipulation or agreement shall provide that the owner of such
private lands shall cut and remove the timber thereon only under such rules and
regulations, to be expressed in the stipulation or agreement, as will provide for the
protection of the forest in the aid of navigation: Provided, That in no case shall the
United States be liable for any damage resulting from fire or any other cause.
SEC. 4. That from the receipts accruing from the sale or disposal of any products
or the use of lands or resources from public lands, now or hereafter to be set aside as
national forests that have been or may hereafter be turned into the Treasury of the
United States and which are not otherwise appropriated, there is hereby appropriated
for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and nine, the sum of one
million dollars, and for each fiscal year thereafter a sum not to exceed two million
dollars for use in the examination, survey, and acquirement of lands located on the
headwaters of navigable streams or those which are being or which may be developed
for navigable purposes: Provided, That the provisions of this section shall expire by
limitation on the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and nineteen.
SEC. 5. That a commission, to be known as the National Forest Reservation Commis-
sion, consisting of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary
of Agriculture, and one member of the Senate, to be selected by the President of the
Senate, and one member of the House of Representatives, to be selected by the
Speaker, is hereby created and authorized to consider and pass upon such lands as
may be recommended for purchase as provided in section six of this act, and to fix
the price or prices at which such lands may be purchased, and no purchases shall be
made of any lands until such lands have been duly approved for purchase by said
commission: Provided, That the members of the commission herein created" shall
serve as such only during their incumbency in their respective official positions, and
any vacancy on the commission shall be filled in the manner as the original appoint-
ment.
SEC. 6. That the commission hereby appointed shall, through its president, annu-
ally report to Congress, not later than the first Monday in December, the operations
and expenditures of the commission, in detail, during the preceding fiscal year.
SEC. 7. That the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby authorized and directed to
examine, locate, and recommend for purchase such lands as in his judgment may be
necessary to the regulation of the flow of navigable streams, and to report to the
National Forest Reservation Commission the results of such examinations: Provided,
That before any lands are purchased by the National Forest Reservation Commission
said lands shall be examined by the Geological Survey and a report made to the
Secretary of Agriculture, showing that the control of such lands will promote or
protect the navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie.
SEC. 8. That the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby authorized to purchase, in the
name of the United States, such lands as have been approved for purchase by the
National Forest Reservation Commission at the price or prices fixed by said commis-
sion: Provided, That no deed or other instrument of conveyance shall be accepted or
approved by the Secretary of Agriculture under this act until the legislature of the
State in which the land lies shall have consented to the acquisition of such land by
the United States for the purpose of preserving the navigability of navigable streams.
SEC 9. That the Secretary of Agriculture may do all things necessary to secure the
safe title in the United States to the lands to be acquired under this act; but no
payment shall be made for any such lands until the title shall be satisfactory to the
Attorney-General and shall be vested in the United States.
SEC. 10. That such acquisition may in any case be conditioned upon the exception
and reservation to the owner, from whom title passes to the United States, of the
minerals and of the merchantable timber, or either or any part of them, within or
upon such lands at the date of the conveyance; but in every case such exception and
reservation, and the time within which such timber shall be removed, and the rules
and regulations under which the cutting and removal of such timber and the mining
and removal of such minerals shall be done shall be expressed in the written instru-
ment of conveyance, and thereafter the mining, cutting, and removal of the minerals
and timber so excepted and reserved shall be done only under and in obedience to
the rules and regulations so expressed.
SEC. 11. That whereas small areas of land chiefly valuable for agriculture may of
necessity or by inadvertence be included in tracts acquired under this act, the Sec-
retary of Agriculture may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized, upon ap-
plication or otherwise, to examine and ascertain the location and extent of such
areas as in his opinion may be occupied for agricultural purposes without injury to
the forests or to stream flow and which are not needed for public purposes, and may
128 FOKEST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
list and describe the same by metes and bounds, or otherwise, and offer them for
gale as homesteads at their true value, to be fixed by him, to actual settlers, in tracts
not exceeding eighty acres in area, under such joint rules and regulations as the
Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe; and in
case of such sale the jurisdiction over the lands sold shall, ipso facto, revert to the
State in which the lands sold lie. And no right, title, interest, or claim in or to any
lands acquired under this act, or the waters thereon, or the products, resources, or
use thereof after such lands shall have been so acquired, shall be initiated or per-
fected, except as in this section provided.
SEC. 12. That, subject to the provisions of the last preceding section, the lands
acquired under this act shall be permanently reserved, held, and administered as
national forest lands under the provisions of section twenty-four of the act approved
March third, eighteen hundred and ninety -one (volume twenty -six, Statutes at
Large, page eleven hundred and three), and acts supplemental to and amendatory
thereof. And the Secretary of Agriculture may from time to time divide the lands
acquired under this act into such specific national forests and so designate the same
as he may deem best for administrative purposes.
SEC. 13. That the jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, over persons upon the lands
acquired under this act shall not be affected or changed by their permanent reser-
vation and administration as national forest lands, except so far as the punishment
of offenses against the United States is concerned, the intent and meaning of this
section being that the State wherein such land is situated shall not, by reason of such
reservation and administration, lose its jurisdiction nor the inhabitants thereof their
rights and privileges as citizens or be absolved from their duties as citizens of the
State.
SEC. 14. That twenty-five per centum of all moneys received during any fiscal year
from each national forest into which the lands acquired under this act may from time
to time be divided shall be paid, at the end of such year, by the Secretary of the
Treasury to the State in which such national forest is situated, to be expended as the
state legislature may prescribe for the benefit of the public schools and public roads
of the county or counties in which such national forest is situated: Provided, That
when any national forest is in more than one State or county the distributive share
to each from the proceeds of such forest shall be proportional to its area therein:
Provided further, That there shall not be paid to any State for any county an amount
equal to more than forty per centum of the total income of such county from all other
sources.
SEC. 15. That a sum sufficient to pay the necessary expenses of the commission
and its members, not to exceed an annual expenditure of twenty-five thousand dol-
lars, is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appro-
priated. Said appropriation shall be immediately available and shall be paid out
on the audit and order of the president of the said commission ; which audit and
order shall be conclusive and binding upon all departments as to the correctness of
the accounts of said commission.
Amend the title so as to read: u An act to enable any State to co-
operate with any other State or States, or with the United States, for
the protection of the watersheds of navigable streams, and to appoint
a commission for the acquisition of lands for the purpose of conserv-
ing the navigability of navigable rivers."
VIEWS OF THE MINOEITY.
In the first session of the Sixtieth Congress, reporting upon a reso-
lution offered by Mr. Bartlett, of Georgia, the Committee on the
Judiciary of the House of Representatives declared it to be their
opinion that —
The Federal Government has no power to acquire lands within a State solely for
forest reserves, but under its constitutional power over navigation the Federal Gov-
ernment may appropriate foT the purchase of lands and forest reserves in a State,
provided it is made clearly to appear that such lands and forest reserves have a
direct and substantial connection with the conservation and improvement of the
navigability of a river actually navigable in whole or in part.
Bearing that opinion in mind (and it has met with universal acquies-
cence), it becomes of the very first importance, in considering a bill for
the purchase of forest reserves, to determine whether such reserves
' ' have a direct and substantial connection with the conservation and
improvement of the navigability of a river actually navigable in whole
or in part." The statement that such connection does exist has been
so confidently assumed and so often repeated that those who have
given but a casual or superficial study to the subject have come to
regard it as an established and admitted* fact.
The truth is that it is neither established nor admitted. On the con-
trary, the proposition is very earnestly disputed lay men whose opin-
ions are entitled to great weight. It is perhaps not overstating it to
say that a majority of the riparian engineers who have given the sub-
ject careful s.tudy"are of the opinion that forests do not exercise any
effective control in either extremes of high water or of low water.
Lieut. Col. H. M. Chittenden, of the United States Army Engineer
Corps, who has been studying the control of floods in rivers for many
years, is perhaps the most conspicuous exponent of this view in our
own country, having recently read a paper before the American
Society of Engineers in which is presented a powerful and to many
minds a convincing argument in support of his contention. In Europe
the same opinion is entertained by M. Ernst Lauda, chief of the
hydrographic bureau of the Austrian Government, who has recentl}r
made an exhaustive report upon the great floods of the Danube, in the
course of which he says:
It is universally believed that forests have an influence in moderating and prevent-
ing floods, and deforestation upon their origin and more frequent occurrence, yet this
belief is not better established from a hydrographic standpoint than the entirely un-
founded belief that the floods of the past few years in Austria are due to deforesta-
tion. Against the popular belief in the favorable influence of forests upon floods
resulting from excessive rains may be adduced the interesting fact that lands richest
in forests are frequently visited by the severest floods.
In support of this opinion he traces the history of the Danube River
for eight hundred j^ears, drawing the conclusion that floods were for-
merly just as frequent and just as high in that river as they have been
in recent times. He cites the records of the river Seine also showing
72538— AGR— 09 9 129
130 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
even greater flood height in the sixteenth century than any that oc-
curred in the nineteenth. As deforestation in the watersheds in both
the Danube and the Seine is vastly greater now than it was eight cen-
turies or three centuries ago, the testimony of the actual records pre-
sented by M. Lauda can not be lightly set aside. Nor can it be said
that M. Lauda stands alone in his opinion, for at the Tenth Interna-
tional Congress of Navigation, held at Milan in 1905, papers upon this
subject were presented by representatives from France, Germanj^,
Italy, Austria, and Russia, and while all the writers favored forest
culture the opinion was practically unanimous that forests exert no
appreciable influence upon the stream flow of rivers.
Indeed, Colonel Chittenden, who has perhaps studied foreign reports
upon this subject more carefully than any other American, declares
that he is unable to find among the river engineers of Europe any that
advocate forests as a corrective for the extremes of flow in our rivers.
He cites an exceedingly elaborate investigation instituted by Napoleon
III, as a result of which the French engineers, after an exhaustive
study of the subject, united in the opinion that whatever value forests
might have locally in preventing the erosion of steep slopes they could
not be relied upon in any degree to diminish the great floods from
which France had been suffering, and that any measures which might
be taken in the line of reforestation would have no appreciable effect.
The report of these engineers quoted a very elaborate and exhaustive
work upon the floods of French rivers, going back over six hundred
Ssars, in which it was conclusively shown that former floods were
rger than those of the present time. As a result of this report it is
declared that no French project of river improvement, either for flood
prevention or as an insurance against low water in navigable rivers,
has embraced reforestation as an essential part or even any part at all.
In our own country, where river records have been kept but a com-
paratively short time, the data are of course insufficient to warrant
any very sweeping generalizations. We believe it is admitted, how-
ever, that the records of the Ohio River, which extend over a period
of forty years, show greater extremes of both high water and low
water during the first twenty years of that period than during the last
twenty years, thus bearing out in a degree at least the conclusions
reached' through a study of the extended periods of observation of
European rivers. While it can not be regarded, therefore, as full}7
established, we submit that the weight of expert testimon}^ and the
Ereponderance of evidence as deduced from actual observation is very
irgely in favor of the proposition that forests do not exercise an
appreciable influence upon the navigability of navigable rivers.
But the argument against the proposition in the bill under consid-
eration by no means rests alone upon the contention that there is no
vital connection between the forests and the maintenance of naviga-
bility in navigable streams. It is a conceded fact that at the present
time, in the southern Appalachians at least, the menace to the streams
comes from the operations of the farmer an'd not from those of the
lumberman. It is the tracts on the lower slopes of the mountains
which have been cleared for farming from which the silt is washed
into the streams and not from the upper slopes, which are covered
with trees. Now, it is not denied that if these lower slopes are prop-
erly farmed the soil will not wash appreciably, and the streams there-
fore will receive no damage. It is not denied either that if the steeper
FOEEST LANDS FOE THE PEOTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 131
slopes, which never can be farmed, are protected from fire they will
always be forested, or at least covered with a growth that will prevent
erosion.
Remembering these two undenied facts, can it be argued that it is
necessary for the Government to purchase either the upper or the
lower slopes of the mountains in order to protect the streams? The
lower slopes are more valuable for farming than for timber raising if
they can be prevented from erosion. Since they can be so prevented
by proper methods of tillage, would it not be better national economy
for the Federal Government to help teach the farmers of that region
how to till their soil in such a way as to prevent erosion and maintain
its fertility than it would be to buy out those farmers and return the
land to the wilderness? And since the upper slopes will always have a
forest cover, if protected from fire, would it not be better national
economy for the Federal Government to lend its aid to such protec-
tion at a comparatively trifling cost (it is estimated by the Forest Serv-
ice that the cost of an effective fire patrol would not exceed 2 cents per
acre per annum) than to buy the land at a very great initial expendi-
ture, with the cost of fire protection to be added as a fixed and con-
tinuing charge? Would it not be better for the States concerned to
have the lands remain in private ownership, supporting a larger popu-
lation than could possibh7 be maintained if the policy of the pending
bill is pursued, and retaining the value of the propert}7 on the tax
rolls?
The very best that can be said in support of the proposition for the
federal purchase of these lands is that as a result of such purchase the
impairment of navigable streams may possibly be diminished or
retarded. But will this vague general possibility, or probability, of
a distant and shadowy good offset the immediate and certain evil of
driving large numbers of people away from homes which in many
instances have been occupied for generations, of reducing the produc-
tivit}7 of large areas, and of taking large amounts of property from
local tax rolls?
It is cited as a special merit in the pending bill that the money to
carry it into effect is taken not from the General Treasury but from
the receipts of the existing Forest Service, the agreeable inference
therefrom being that the proposed new forests can be bought without
any real draft upon the Treasury. We are unable to see the force of
this argument. The receipts from the present national forests are not
a new source of income conjured into existence by the pending bill.
On the contrary, these receipts are a part of the national revenues
which are paid into the Federal Treasury, just as are the revenues from
customs dues or internal taxation To regard the income from the
forests as a special fund which can be diverted without any real effect
upon the Treasury balances is a palpable fiction, which if adopted
would expose the Congress to the charge of doing by indirection what
it was not willing to do directly. If we are going to enter upon this
policy, let us do it openly and boldly with a full understanding of
what it will cost and where the money is to corne from.
In its terms, the life of the measure being limited to ten years and
the expenditures under it restricted in the aggregate to $19,000,000,
this bill is extremely conservative compared with others that have been
introduced upon the same subject. It is to be noted, however, that it
is applicable to every section of the country, and that the foremost ad-
132 FOKEST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
vocates of the policy which it initiates maintain that the policy can
only be carried to a successful issue through the purchase of many
million acres of land. The last official report upon the subject recom-
mended the purchase of 5,000,000 acres in the southern Appalachians
and 600,000 acres in the White Mountains, the average estimated cost
being $3.50 an acre. But it states also (on page 32) that there are
75,000,000 acres in these mountains which "will have to be given pro-
tection before the hard-wood supply is on a safe footing and before the
watersheds of the important streams are adequately safeguarded."
While no one now advocates the purchase of this enoVmous area, yet
with the policy once entered upon and backed by the tremendous polit-
ical and industrial influences that can be brought to its support, who
can give assurance that such purchases may not be made in the future
and the cost of this policy be thereby extended from tens of millions
to hundreds of millions?
Notwithstanding the enormous expenditure which will almost in-
evitably result from the entrance upon this polic}7, it might still be
warranted if it were a demonstrated fact that the maintenance of the
forested watersheds is the only way by which the filling up of navi-
gable streams and the destructive erosion of large sections of our
country can be prevented, and that the only means by which forested
watersheds can be maintained is through federal ownership of such
watersheds. Believing, however, that this destructive erosion and
consequent silting of rivers can be prevented by the introduction of
proper methods of farming and by adequate fire protection, both of
which can be accomplished through the cooperation of state and fed-
eral agencies at comparatively little expense, we are unwilling to con-
sent to a measure which commits the Government to a policy which
we believe to be both unwise and unnecessary.
CHAS. F. SCOTT.
WM. LORIMER.
GEO. W. COOK.
JACK BEALL.
W. W. RUCKER.
VIEWS OF MB. HAWLEY.
In addition to joining in the dissent of the minority and commending
its vigorous presentation of the matter, 1 desire to add the following
observations:
This bill provides for the acquisition of lands anywhere in the
United States for the establishment of new forest reserves or national
forests. These lands are to be acquired from the present private
owners upon the recommendation of a commission, as provided in the
bill. It is stated that the purpose of such acquisitions is to preserve
and improve the navigability of navigable rivers, apparently following
the opinion of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House, as
expressed in House Report No. 1514 of this Congress. It is inferred
that if the policy proposed in the bill is carried out, under the terms
and by the means therein set forth, that in due time extremes of high
and low water in navigable rivers will be regulated, and the hindrance
to navigation due to the deposit of silt will be controlled. The vital
question at this point is, " Will this be the result?" If not, then the
theory on which the bill is based fails, and its justification also fails,
under report No. 1514, referred to above. Upon this relation between
the proposed control and navigation or stream flow the authorities
disagree, as set forth at length in the proceeding opinion of the
minority. And no agreement exists as to where the necessary lands
lie or as to what is their nature.
The bill also provides that for the same purposes the Government
may administer private forest lands adjacent to the lands in the pro-
posed new reserves, for a term of years, upon agreement with the
owners. There is little evidence to show whether few or many owners
of forest lands will so agree, and in my judgment not many will accept
the terms proposed. If they do not, the amount of land necessary to
be acquired by the National Government in order to carry out the
policy in the bill will be increased and add largely to the appropria-
tions required.
It is proposed to appropriate from the revenues of existing forest
reserves $1,000,000 for the first year, and $2,000,000 annually there-
after for a period of nine years, in all $19,000,000. In view of the
large areas it is proposed to control, this amount must be regarded
rather as an experimental appropriation than as a sum adequate to
accomplish the purposes of the bill. The report of the Secretary of
Agriculture, made in compliance with the provision in the agricultural
appropriation bill, approved March 4, 1907, which directed him to
make an investigation of this question (see S. Doc. 91, 60th Cong., 1st
sess.), on pages 30, 31, and 32, says:
AREA AND LOCATION OF LANDS NEEDING PROTECTION.
In order to determine the extent of the lands primarily available for forests in the
Southern Appalachian and White Mountain regions, a reconnaissance survey has
been made, as a result of which the accompanying maps have been prepared. Maps
I and II show for the two regions the lands to be classed as distinctly mountainous
and nonagricultural.
133
134 FOBEST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
The main centers for such mountainous and nonagricultural lands in the Southern
Appalachians are, first, the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains of North
Carolina and Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia; second, the Allegheny Moun-
tains of eastern and southern West Virginia and western Virginia, and, third, the
Cumberland Mountains of eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Alabama.
These lands include the main mountain ranges, and the roughest, wildest land of the
region. Naturally, they embrace a smaller proportion of agricultural lands than
other, parts of the region, and those which they do embrace have for the most part
been eliminated, as will be seen from the irregular boundaries on the map. Regard-
less of these eliminations they still include some small bodies of agricultural lands.
These areas, though they contain only 40 per cent of the timbered land of the
Southern Appalachians, include almost all of the virgin timber lands, because the
virgin timber which remains is mostly situated on the high mountains. Even though
these lands do produce an inferior grade of timber, their sole use must be for timber
production. There is no other crop which will hold the gravelly, stony soil in place
and keep it from clogging the channels of streams and covering the agricultural
valleys which lie below. These nonagricultural and mountainous lands, approxi-
mating 23,000,000 acres, give rise to all the important streams which have their
source in the Southern Appalachians. They are therefore the vital portions of these
mountains. Whatever work is done to protect the Southern Appalachians must
center in these areas. The proportion to which these lands fall into different States
and watersheds is shown in the following tables:
TABLE 4. — Area, by States, of nonagricultural and mountainous lands in the Southern
Appalachians.
State.
Area.
State.
Area.
Acres.
4 962 000
West Virginia
Acres.
5 797 000
Virginia
3 882 000
590 000
491,000
277,000
Georgia .. .
1 806 000
1 623 000
Total
23 310 000
North Carolina
3, 882, 000
TABLE 5. — Area, by watersheds, of nonagricultural and mountainous lands in the
Southern Appalachians.
Watershed.
Area.
Watershed.
Area.
Tennessee
Acres.
2,489,000
2 759 000
Yadkin
Acres.
428,000
20 000
Holston
682,000
Catawba
502,000
James
1, 138, 000
Broad
299.000
431 000
2 095,000
New (Kanawha)
3 2^5 000
345 000
Big Sandy
1,347,000
Little Pigeon
19,000
1 066 000
1,000
Little Tennessee
French Broad
1,307,000
623,000
Savannah
Guyandotte
860,000
660,000
Pigeon
255 000
Saluda
100,000
Little River
202,000
987 000
Kentucky
Coosa
156,000
767 000
Nolichucky
379 OOQ
117 000
Total
23, 310, 000
151 000
While the lands shown on the map are all in need of protection, they are not all
of equal inportance when all economic points of view are considered.
The lands to be classed as of first importance include the mountain ridges mainly,
but extend considerable distances down the slopes in those localities where the soil
is particularly subject to erosion and on the watersheds of streams of greatest impor-
tance for water power or navigation. The area of such lands does not exceed
5,000,000 acres.
The same class of land for the White Mountain region is shown in Map II. It
lies in both New Hampshire and Maine. Excluding the numerous bodies of water,
their area in New Hampshire is 1,457,000 acres, and in Maine 700,000 acres, mak-
FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 135
ing a total of 2,157,000 acres. The proportion in which this falls in the five water
systems included is as follows:
Acres,
Connecticut 429, 000
Merrimac 264, 000
Saco 332,000
Androscoggin 1, 002, 000
Kennebec 130, 000
Total •_ 2,157,000
There is also shown on this map an area embracing only the four main ranges of
the White Mountains. A few thousand acres of this area lie in Maine. All the rest
is in New Hampshire. This principal White Mountain area covers 668,000 acres,
and, considering all economic points of view, is the most important part of the region.
TREATMENT OF THE REGION.
The areas indicated in the preceding section, 23,310,000 acres iii the Southern
Appalachians and 2,157,000 acres in the White Mountains, do not include all the
mountainous timber lands of the Appalachians. As is discussed under the heading
"Importance of Appalachian forests for hard-wood supply," there are probably
75,000,000 acres in this mountain system more important for timber production than
for any other purpose. This area will have to be given protection before the hard-
wood supply is on a safe footing and before the watersheds of the important streams
are adequately safeguarded.
If it is a wise policy for the Government to control by purchase or
agreement with owners such large areas of land, and in addition
thereto extensive areas included in this bill, but not included in the
report of the Secretary of Agriculture, then it should be undertaken
on a scale commensurate with its proposed final extent, and for which
appropriations many times the present amount will be required.
This bill if enacted into law will inaugurate a system of new forest
reserves whose final limits will include the lands the administration of
which by the National Government may be said to conserve and regu-
late stream flow and assist in maintaining the navigability of navigable
rivers. In my opinion the proposed appropriation of $19,000,000 is
sufficient only to make a beginning and to commit the Government to
the policy. It initiates one of the most extensive and momentous
movements ever begun in this country by legislative action. It seems
to me there of necessit}* should be required prior thereto an exceed-
ingly thoroughgoing and exhaustive investigation by competent author-
ity of all the problems involved, for the information of the country
and of Congress, and if thereafter the proposed policy is considered
wise and within the powers of Congress, a measure should be prepared
that will present the matter in all its magnificence to the country and
provide adequate appropriations for executing the policy, and granting
all necessary authority therefor.
Does the present bill authorize the commission to use the power of
eminent domain to obtain from unwilling owners the lands deemed
necessary? If not, is not the omission of such authority an error?
I fear, also, that when the Government goes into the market to
purchase from private parties the lands for the new forest reserves
great difficulties will be encountered, arising out of speculations in
these lands.
The committee have held many hearings on this subject, the net
result of which discloses the lack of accurate and adequate data. For
the purpose of securing carefully collected and scientifically presented
136 FOREST LANDS FOB THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
information on all phases of the subject, I introduced a bill at the last
session, and the fact that the information called for by it is not availa-
ble^eems to justify the printing of it as an appendix.
Truly yours,
W. C. HAWLEY.
[H. R. 21877. Sixtieth Congress, first session.]
A BILL To provide for obtaining certain information relative to the White Mountain, Appalachian,
and other watersheds and forests.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of .Representatives of the United States of America
in Congress assembled, That a commission consisting of three men, whose duties are
defined below, shall be appointed as follows: One by the President of the United
States, one by the President of the Senate, and one by the Speaker of the House of
Kepresentatives.
,,, SEC. 2. That the duties of this commission shall be as follows:
r First. Personally to visit every watershed in the States named in section seven of
this act supposed to have influence in regulating the flow of waters and conservation
of water supply in the maintenance of the navigability of navigable rivers, and for
other purposes.
Second. To establish by metes and bounds the limits of such watersheds and to
actually ascertain the areas included.
Third. To ascertain how much of such areas are now forested and the kinds and
sizes of the trees and other growths thereon.
Fourth. The general nature and character of the soil of these watersheds and the
general topography of said watersheds.
Fifth. To ascertain how much of such areas are now deforested and the condition
of the deforested lands.
Sixth. To ascertain what portions of the deforested areas can be reforested, how
much can not be reforested, and the probable cost and period of time required for
reforestation of such areas.
Seventh. To ascertain whether these watersheds have a definite and demonstrable
physical connection, mediate or immediate, with the maintenance and improvement
of the navigability of navigable rivers.
Eighth. To ascertain as accurately as possible the value of the lands of each water-
shed and the price at which they can be acquired.
Ninth. To ascertain whether any of these watershed areas will be transferred to
the United States, either as a gift or to be placed under the control of the United
States, and if so, for what length of time.
Tenth. If the question implied in paragraph seven is decided affirmatively, to
ascertain whether the control of the watershed areas will be sufficient for the con-
servation and improvement of the navigability of navigable rivers, or whether the
control of areas below and other than the watershed areas will be necessary for that
purpose. If areas other than watershed areas are decided to be necessary, then such
areas shall be definitely located and measured, and their values and the prices for
which they can be bought shall be ascertained.
Eleventh. To ascertain the annual precipitation on each watershed area as nearly
as possible and for as long a period of years preceding as possible.
Twelfth. To estimate the probable annual revenues, if any, from such watershed
and other areas and the cost of administration yearly if acquired by the Government.
Thirteenth. To ascertain the miles on each river supposed to be directly or indi-
rectly benefited that are now navigable, and the number of months each such river
is navigable, the depth of water for each month, and the draft of vessels using same.
Fourteenth. To ascertain the increase or diminution of the miles of navigable
water in each such river and the depths of water therein for the longest period of
years possible.
Fifteenth. To ascertain the amount of commerce carried, by months, on each such
river for the longest period of years possible.
Sixteenth. To ascertain the effects of erosion due to the denudation of watershed
or other areas and the damage effected thereby.
Seventeenth. To ascertain what effect on high and low water in rivers the drainage
and tiling of farm land has had.
Eighteenth. To ascertain who are the present owners of the areas referred to in
this act and when they obtained such lands.
FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 137
Nineteenth. To ascertain whether large tracts have been recently acquired and
whether options have been taken on the lands, and if so, in what quantities.
Twentieth. To ascertain the amount of timber cwt on the watersheds aforesaid
yearly and the rate of such cutting for a period of years as long as possible.
Twenty-first. To ascertain the facts in the development of water power in such
areas.
SEC. 3. That the said commission shall have authority to employ expert and
unskilled labor necessary to enable them to perform the duties imposed upon them
and to fix compensation therefor.
SEC. 4. That each of said three commissioners shall be paid at the rate of five hun-
dred dollars per month and shall receive compensation for necessary personal expenses
incurred in the discharge of their duties.
SEC. 5. That there is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not
otherwise appropriated, the sum of thirty thousand dollars to provide payment for
services and expenses authorized by this act.
SEC. 6. That said commission shall report completely, finally, and in full on or
before February first, nineteen hundred and nine.
SEG. 7. That the watersheds and other areas described in this act, and which the
commission herein provided shall investigate under the provisions of this act, are those
located in the following States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Penn-
sylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.
VIEWS OF MR. HAUGEN.
Before entering upon such a gigantic scheme as is contemplated in
the proposed bill, one which in the end in all probabilities will involve
the expenditure of not millions but billions of dollars, Congress should
have detailed and accurate information in order that the matter might
be carefully, fully, and intelligently considered. It should at least
have data, or reliable estimates, as to the probable cost, the number of
acres that should be purchased for the preservation of the forests
within the watersheds of the navigable rivers not only in the White
Mountains and the Southern Appalachian Mountains, but over the
whole country. The only official information available at the present
time is that obtained under the act of Congress of March 4, 1907,
which " requires the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the water-
sheds of the Southern Appalachian and White Mountains and to
report to Congress the area and natural conditions of said watersheds,
the price at which the same can be purchased by the Government, and
the advisability of the Government purchasing and setting apart the
same as national forest reserves for the purpose of conserving and
regulating the water supply and flow of said streams in the interest
of agriculture, water power, and navigation."
In this report the Secretary recommends that the Government
acquire an area of about 6,000,000 acres at once, and states that an
area of about 75,000,000 acres will have to be given protection. The
Secretary has this to say (p. 32):
It is an enormous undertaking to bring this immense area of 75, 000,000 acres under
proper conditions of protection and use. If the Government owned the land the
problem would be a comparatively simple one under our present forest policy.
I conclude from this that it is necessary to purchase the 75,000,000
acres to begin with. As to the method of acquirement and cost of
lands the Secretary has this to say:
WHITE MOUNTAINS.
The timber lands of the White Mountains are in the main held by a few large com-
panies, nearly all of whom are cutting extensively on the spruce stands for pulp or
lumber manufacture. The plants of some of these companies represent an investment
of several hundred thousand dollars. Manifestly, in negotiating for these lands, in
so far as they bear uncut timber, the value of the plant must enter into the consid-
eration. In addition, the stumpage value of spruce ranges from $4.50 to $6 or $7 per
thousand. This would give the be&t stands a value of $75 to $125 or more per acre.
* * * •* -:f * *
The hard woods of the White Mountains, of which there is a large area, have not
the value of spruce, nor are they as yet being extensively cut. Their stumpage value
is from $2.50 to $4 per thousand, depending upon location, stand, and quality.
The cut-over lands have a value ranging from $1 to $6 or $8 per acre, depending
upon the condition of the timber growth upon them.
The question of the acquirement of timber lands by the Government has been con-
sidered with the principal owners of the region. While unwilling to dispose of their
138
FOBEST LANDS FOB THE PBOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS. 139
vi gin timber lands, except at very high prices, they are willing to consider the sale
of their cut-over lands, the lands lying too high for lumbering, and the mountain tops.
A careful study of the situation leads to the conclusion that most of the lands of
these classes can be bought at an average price of $6 per acre.
SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS.
In the Southern Appalachians the timber lands are owned by large companies to a
less extent than in the White Mountains, but even here as much as 50 per cent of
many localities is under such ownership. ^11
Timber-land owners in the Southern Appalachians are generally inclined to sell
their lands to the Government at a reasonable price, regardless of whether the lands
contain virgin timber or are cut over. Furthermore many of them are favorable to
the transfer of their lands, themselves retaining the right to cut and remove certain
kinds of timber above specified sizes.
In considering the practicability of the Government's purchasing land for national
forests in the Southern Appalachians conference has been freely had with timber-
land owners, lumbermen, real estate dealers, and title examiners. Moreover, atten-
tion has been paid to the sales which have been made during the past two years and
the prices which have been paid.
The price of virgin hard-wood land varies from $5 to $12 per acre, depending on
accessibility and kind and quality of timber. Cut-over lands are worth from $2 to $5
per acre, their value likewise depending upon their location and the condition of the
timber growth upon them.
From this report, or any other information available, who can figure
out the probable outlay of money? No data is furnished as to the
number of acres of the $75 and $125 per acre land. There is no data as
to the number of plants. All that is known is that some of these lands
are valued at from $75 to $125 per acre, and that there are plants there
representing an investment of several hundred thousand dollars, and
that the value of the plants must enter into the consideration. No
data is given as to the number of acres of hard wood, except that there
is a large area. No data is given as to the number of acres of cut-over
land, valued at from $1 to $8 per acre, except that it is believed that
most of the land of these classes can be bought at an average price of
$6 per acre.
Suppose the average price of all the 75,000,000 acres to be purchased
in this region is $20 per acre, it would mean an investment of one and
one-half billion dollars, an amount more than six times the cost of the
building of the Panama Canal, or nearly twice the amount of our
present interest-bearing debt, or four times the value of the total
annual products of the Iowa farms.
The Secretary reports that these timber lands are in the main held
by a few large companies. This means large prices. Besides, the
Government generally pays more for what it buys and will have to
pay larger prices than would have to be paid by individuals in pur-
chasing the same lands.
The Secretary reports that the principal owners of lands are unwill-
ing to dispose of their virgin timber lands, except at a very high
price; that the cut-over lands, lands lying too high for lumbering,
and the mountain tops, or, in other words, that only such lands as are
not needed or desired for this or any other purpose are offered for
sale.
Considering the Secretary's repor-t and the fact that the purchase of
the 75,000,000 acres, involving an expenditure of probably over a
billion dollars, is probably only a small part of the land necessary to
be acquired, as undoubtedly enterprising and patriotic real estate
owners in other parts of the country would be willing to unload their
140 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
lands onto the Government, especially when the price is to be very
high, and will insist that there he an equitable distribution of these
billions of dollars; and considering also the enormity of the whole
proposition, is it not the part of wisdom, common sense, and sound
business judgment first to obtain detailed, accurate, and reliable infor-
mation in order that a comprehensive, well-devised, and practical
policy may be worked out and followed?
Considering also that the proposed bill is an entering wedge to such
a gigantic proposition, I feel constrained to dissent from the views of
the majority, and believe that for the present that H. R. 21986, passed
the first session of this Congress, is the proper legislation. Its pro-
visions are clearly set forth in Report No. 1700, a copy of which is
appended.
GILBERT N. HAUGEN.
[House Report No. 1700, Sixtieth Congress, first session.]
The Committee on Agriculture, to which was referred House bill 21986, has had
the same under consideration and reports as follows:
At the beginning of the present session a number of bills were introduced and
referred to the Committee on Agriculture having for their general purpose the pur-
chase of certain tracts of land in the White Mountains and in the Southern Appala-
chain Mountains with a view to preserving the forests on said lands and conserving
the flow in the rivers having their sources therein. The committee considered its
most pressing duty to be, first, to prepare the appropriation bill for the Department
of Agriculture. Before the consideration of this bill had been completed a resolu-
tion was introduced by Representative Bartlett, of Georgia, providing that the bills
above mentioned, commonly known as the White Mountain and Appalachain Park
forest-reserve-bills, be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary with the request
that that committee render an opinion as to the constitutionality of the proposed
measures. This resolution was adopted by the House, and the bills were referred
accordingly. Pending the report of the Committee on the Judiciary the Committee
on Agriculture was of the opinion that it could not properly give consideration to
these measures.
On April 20, 1908, the Committee on the Judiciary rendered an opinion to the
effect that the United States would have no right to purchase lands for the purpose
of creating a forest reserve, but that Congress might appropriate for the purchase of
lands having a direct and substantial connection with the navigability of navigable
rivers. As a result of this decision, Representatives who had introduced the bills
which had been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary modified and reintro-
duced them, and they were again referred to the Committee on Agriculture, which
took up the consideration of them at the earliest possible date. After hearing testi-
mony and considering the bills for several days it became evident that the commit-
tee, with the information then before it, was unwilling to favorably recommend any
measure committing the United States to the policy of purchasing forest lauds. The
whole matter was therefore referred to a subcommittee, with instructions to recom-
mend to the full committee such action as it was deemed proper to take. As a result
of the deliberations of this subcommittee, the bill, H. R. 21986, was reported to the
full committee, and by its action is herewith reported to the House.
It is a matter of common knowledge that the forests in the White Mountains and
in the southern Appalachian Mountains are being rapidly destroyed, and the desira-
bility of preserving what remains of them, or at least of introducing methods of
lumbering which will prevent the destruction of immature timber and will protect
the forests from fire, is universally conceded, not only for the perpetuation of the
timber supply, but also for the conservation of the flow of water in the streams
having their source within these forests. The problem as to how this desired end
should be reached has been widely discussed and has awakened profound interest
throughout the entire country. As a result of this discussion four distinct methods
have been suggested.
First. It has been held by many that the problem was one belonging exclusively
to the States concerned. Those holding this view have argued that the Federal
Government has no constitutional authority to purchase lands for the purpose of
conserving the forests upon them, even though such preservation may conserve the
FOKEST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 141
supply of water in navigable streams. They hold that the matter is one over which
the States have exclusive jurisdiction, and that if the right exists it is the duty of the
State to assume the responsibility of meeting it.
Second. Another view is that while it is neither the right nor the duty of the Fed-
eral Government to purchase the forests it may properly cooperate with the States
or with private owners in their preservation by* furnishing expert advice and assist-
ance in their proper utilization and administration.
Third. Still another view is that when it is shown that the forests of a given water-
shed have a direct and substantial connection with the navigability of the navigable
rivers flowing from that watershed the Federal Government has the right to exercise
jurisdiction over the forests therein, although they remain in private ownership, and
prescribe the method which shall be followed iri utilizing the forests within such
watershed.
Fourth. The last, and doubtless the most generally advocated plan, proposes that
the Federal Government shall buy all the land that may be necessary to protect the
watersheds of navigable rivers and exercise over the forests growing upon them all
the rights and privileges of absolute ownership.
The bill now before the House was drawn with a view to meeting, in a measure at
least, each of these four proposed plans. The first section proposes to give the con-
sent of Congress to each of the several States of the Union which may wish to dp so
to enter into such agreement or compact, not in conflict with any law of the United
States, as it may deem desirable or necessary, with any other State or States for the
purpose of conserving the forests and the water supply of the States entering into
such agreement or compact. It has been often urged, by those \yho insist that the
Federal Government should purchase the forests under consideration, that the
problem is interstate, and in view of the constitutional inhibition against a State
entering into any agreement or compact with another the proper treatment of the
Eroblem is made impossible to the States alone. If section 1 of this bill becomes a
iw this obstacle to cooperation between and among the States will be removed.
Section 2 of the bill appropriates the sum of $100,000 to enable the Secretary of
Agriculture to cooperate with any State or group of States, when requested to do so,
by supplying expert advice on forest preservation, utilization, and administration,
and upon reforestation of denuded areas. It also authorizes the Secretary of Agri-
culture to enter into agreement with the owners of any private forest lands situated
upon the watershed of a navigable river, to administer and protect such forest land
upon such terms as the Secretary of Agriculture may prescribe. It is believed that
under the authority given in this section many thousands of acres of forest lands will
be brought as effectually within the jurisdiction of the United States for all the pur-
poses of scientific forestry as if these lands were actually owned by the Government.
Section 3 of the bill provides for the appointment of a commission to be composed
of five Members of the Senate, to be appointed by the presiding officer thereof, and
five Members of the House of Representatives, to be appointed by the Speaker.
Section 4 makes it the duty of this commission to investigate all questions tending
to show the direct and substantial connection, if any, between the preservation of
the forests within the watersheds of the navigable rivers having their sources in the
White Mountains and Southern Appalachian Mountains, and the navigability of said
rivers. And in case the commission shall determine that such direct and substantial
connection exists, it shall then be its duty to ascertain to what extent, if at all, it
may be necessary for the Government of the United States to acquire land within
the* watersheds referred to, the number of acres of such land, and the probable cost,
or whether it may be desirable, if within the power of the United States to exercise,
without purchase, such supervision over such watersheds as may be necessary to
conserve the navigability of the rivers proceeding therefrom.
Under the provisions of this section all the questions arising out of the proposal
that the Federal Government purchase the forests or that it exercise jurisdiction
over them without purchase, may be carefully studied and fully considered. It is
true that by an act of the last Congress the Secretary of Agriculture was authorized
to report and did report upon the watersheds of the Southern Appalachian and
White mountains, the purpose of the report being to present to Congress "the area
and natural conditions of said watersheds, the price at which the same can be pur-
chased by the Federal Government, and the advisability of the Government pur-
chasing and setting aside the same as national forest reserves for the purpose of con-
serving and regulating the water supply and the flow of said streams in the interest
of agriculture, water power, and navigation."
Without intending any reflection upon those who prepared this report, it may be
fairly said that it does not present such detailed and accurate information as any
careful business man would insist upon having before entering upon a policy which
142 FOREST LANDS FOE THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS.
was to involve the expenditure of many millions of dollars. It does not indicate the
extent of the navigable portions of the rivers whose navigability it is desired to pro-
tect nor the value of the forests upon them. It presents no data showing to what
extent, if at all, the volume or the steadiness of stream flow has been influenced by
the destruction of the forests. It shows in only the most general way the location,
area, and probable cost of the lands it is proposed to purchase.
While it recommends (p. 37) that the-Government acquire an area of 600,000 acres
in the White Mountains and 5,000,000 acres in the southern Appalachian Mountains,
it states also (p. 32) that an area of 75,000,000 acres will have to be given protection
"before the watersheds and important streams are adequately safeguarded," suggest-
ing the thought that while less than 7,000,000 acres are to be purchased at once,
75,000,000 acres must ultimately be acquired if the watersheds of the important
streams are to be "adequately safeguarded." Your committee is of the opinion that
if a commission of ten members of the legislative body, responsible to their constit-
uents and to the country for whatever report they inav make, is directed to investigate
the subject, the information presented in its report will be sufficiently comprehensive
and exact to enable Congress to intelligently legislate upon the subject. The commis-
sion is given authority to employ experts and such clerical assistants as may be
needed, and is required to report to the President not later than January 1, 1909.
Believing that this bill, by opening the way for the States to cooperate with one
another, puts it within their power to contribute much to the solution of this impor-
tant problem; that the provision it makes for cooperation between the United States,
the States, and private owners of forest lands must contribute greatly to the rapid
extension of scientific forestry; and that by means of the commission for which it
provides the most careful study of the whole problem with a view to future legisla-
tion is made possible, and that for these reasons the proposed legislation will be of
great public advantage, your committee respectfully reports the bill back to the House
with the recommendation that it do pass.
INDEX.
Page.
Ayers, Philip W., esq., state forester of New Hampshire 31
Butler, A. W., esq., of Rockland, Me., representing GovernorCobb of Maine. 57
Chamberlain, Hon. George E., governor of Oregon 15
Chittenden, H. M., Lieut. Col. of the Corps of Engineers U. S. Army 63, 112
Currier, Hon. Frank D. , a Representative from New Hampshire 36
Gay, Dr. George L., president of the American Medical Association 58
Goodrich, C. C., esq., general manager of the N. Y., N. H. & Hartford Gen-
eral Transportation Company 53
Guild, Hon. Curtis, jr., governor of Massachusetts 4, 22
Hale, Rev. Edward Everett, Chaplain of U. S. Senate 11
Harvey, W. S., esq., representing the National Board of Trade 43
House Report on S. 4825 119
Lee, W. S., esq., of Charlotte, N. C., hydraulic engineer 50
McFarland, J. Horace, esq., president of American Civic Association 56
Pardee, Hon. George C., ex-governor of California . . . . 32
Ruge, John G., esq., vice-president of Southern Commercial Congress 11
S. 4825 as amended by House Committee on Agriculture 60
Scott, Hon. Chas. F. , chairman of Committee on Agriculture 3
Stephens, Hon. John H. , a Representative from Texas 13
Swain, Prof. G. F., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 45, 103
Tompkins, D. A., esq., president of the Southern Appalachian Association 51
Van Hise, Dr. C. R., president of the University of Wisconsin 15, 24
Woodbury, C. J. H., esq., secretary of the National Association of Cotton
Manufacturers 57
143
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