70 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



wood and of wood supplies that are furnished by the forests, the question of 

 the conservation of the forest would be justified if only as a conserver of water. 

 We do not claim, we never have claimed, that the existence of a forest 

 encourages rain fall. There is very good scientific authority for believing that 

 the existence of trees does encourage precipitation, but the question is a dis- 

 puted one among scientists; and we never have claimed that the existence of 

 a forest would make more rain fall in any one place, though it is possible that 

 it does. We do claim that after the snow or rain has fallen, the forest con- 

 serves the supply of water, thus regulating the stream flow, making it more 

 even and regular, and prevents freshets in the spring and drought in the fall. 

 The humus, the collection of leaves and soil at the foot of the trees, is abso- 

 lutely the most perfect sponge for the conservation of moisture. The branches 

 and the leaves of the trees hold the snow off the ground and it gradually 

 drops from a height to the ground instead of falling at once, melting, and 

 then rushing out to the sea. I believe there are a very few persons who dis- 

 pute this fact. None of them is in any way a specialist in forestry. Our 

 opponents claim that the forests do not conserve moisture, thereby regulating 

 the stream flow, but that dryness is quite as much a characteristic of the 

 forest as of the open plain ; in other words, that conditions are the same, as 

 far as moisture is concerned, whether there is standing a thick forest or 

 whether the soil is directly exposed to the rain and to the sun. Every forester 

 in the world stands on the other side; every scientist who is a specialist on 

 forestry stands on the other side in support of the theory that forests do 

 conserve moisture; that they do regulate stream flow, and that they do check 

 freshets in the spring and droughts in the fall. But why is it necessary for 

 us to consult scientists on a question like this? Sometimes when I see cer- 

 tain persons in the legislative branch of the national government, whom we 

 have reason to suspect are carrying out private revenge, sectional hate or. 

 selfishness in the distribution of appropriations — when I see these men quot- 

 ing specialists on other matters as authorities on forestry, I am reminded of 

 the custom of the middle ages, which was, instead of going out and looking 

 at something to find out what was the fact, to quote some musty tome 

 written by a man who had never even himself seen the conditions on which he 

 wrote. You remember Shakespeare's words which absolutely exemplify what 

 I am contending. Here are the lines : 



"Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes 



Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated 



The bird of dawning singeth all night long: 



And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad 



The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike 



No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm 



So hallow'd and so gracious is the time." 



It s'^ems too incredible that mankind, by constantly referring to venerable 

 and mouldy treatises for five or six hundred years should have absolutely 

 believed that all roosters did crow all night long on the night before Christmas, 

 that Shakespeare should have embalmed the belief in exquisite verse, yet that 

 nobody, not even Shakespeare, in all that time ever went out to the barnyard 

 to see for themselves if the roosters for one night in the year really did become 

 owls. 



Now, it is not necessary for us to study any scientist's sayso about the 

 forests as conservators of moisture, though every forest authority in the world 

 is behind that basic fact. Every man and woman of us knows as a matter of 

 personal experience that shade conserves moisture and sunlight dissipates it. 

 The first thing that I was taught as an inspector of troops in locating a camp 

 ground was that the one thing to be avoided in selecting a camp was the shade 



