THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS 



115 



one per cent, of the reserves were de- 

 vastated by fires last year, causing the 

 small loss of $76,000. Comparing with 

 this the millions of dollars worth of 

 timber consumed annually by fires in 

 private holdings, one gets an idea of 

 what conservative methods mean. It 

 is very evident, then, that as long as 

 we do not apply the principles of for- 

 estry in preserving and using our 

 woodlands, we cannot hope to stave off 

 that inevitable famine which will leave 

 desolation and misery in its wake. 



The result of this pernicious cutting 

 of our forests is only too apparent. A 

 timber famine is at our very door. 

 Floods, caused by denuding mountain- 

 sides of their forests, are causing enor- 

 mous loss of life and property. Tur- 

 bulent streams carry with them gravel 

 and silt and deposit them in harbor and 

 river channels, seriously menacing 

 navigation. Rivers rise to from fifteen 

 to twenty feet above normal height in 

 the spring, but are only chains of stag- 

 nant pools in summer. This inequal 

 flow seriously affects the factories and 

 mills along these rivers, because such 

 establishments depend upon a regular 

 flow of water. Water used for domes- 

 tic purposes becomes polluted and in- 

 sufficient. Our far-famed mountain 

 regions are being deprived of their 

 glory and grandeur ; soon their beauty 

 and recreative influences will be en- 

 tirely destroyed. Where does this de- 

 struction end? In what part of the 

 country do we not notice its results? 



Let us now, by taking a familiar ex- 

 emple, get a more definite picture of 

 the situation. Let us consider pres- 

 ent conditions in the East. The con- 

 ditions here doubtless form a more 

 striking picture than those in any other 

 part of the country. It is here that 

 the need for reform is felt the most. 

 Seven-eighths of our population live 

 here, and hence about seven-eighths of 

 the commerce and industry of the coun- 

 try is carried on here. Here, too, are 

 situated the forests which, it is hoped, 

 will some day supply the entire country 

 with certain kinds of wood. Practi- 

 cally all the wood-pulp used for the 

 manufacture of our newspapers is 



made from the wood of these forests. 

 The East has, also, the only hard-wood 

 forests in the country. Can, then, their 

 commercial value be overestimated? 

 Besides being of great value commer- 

 cially, these forests regulate the stream 

 flow of the largest rivers in the East. 

 The Merrimac, Connecticut, Hudson, 

 Delaware, Potomac, Savannah, and 

 Ohio revers are among the most im- 

 portant that rise in the Appalachian 

 mountains. Hundreds of cotton mills, 

 pulp mills, and factories of various 

 kinds are dependent upon the regular 

 flow of these rivers. 



The Merrimac alone drives mills 

 worth $100,000,000, employing 80,000 

 people upon whom another 350,000 are 

 dependent for support. In the Caro- 

 linas and Georgia, over $40,000,000 is 

 invested in cotton mills which must de- 

 pend upon the equable flow of some of 

 these rivers. In these mills over 60,- 

 000 are employed, upon whom 250,000 

 are dependent for support. If we could 

 collect similar statistics of all the East- 

 ern states we would see that we people 

 in the East — about 70,000,000 in num- 

 ber — are all dependent more or less di- 

 rectly upon the wood and water of the 

 Appalachian forest region. What hap- 

 pens when we deprive these moun- 

 tains of their forest covering is very 

 evident. Floods in the southern Appa- 

 lachians alone have in a single year 

 destroyed over $20,000,000 worth of 

 property, and have impoverished many 

 thousands of people. Last year Pitts- 

 burg experienced floods which caused 

 enormous losses of life and property. 

 Congress appropriates several million 

 dollars annually for dredging river and 

 harbor channels in the East. Instead 

 of appropriating the millions for pre- 

 serving the forests on the watersheds 

 of our Eastern rivers. Congress spends 

 them in paying for the damage done by 

 their misuse, or, in other words — mill- 

 ions for tribute, but not one cent for 

 defense. This destruction not only robs 

 us of our future wood supply, to say 

 nothing of causing destructive floods 

 and loss of life, but it deprives the 

 mountains of their value as summer re- 

 sorts, where thousands of care-worn 



