240 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



I think it will be clear from the above 

 remarks that Professor Moore's figures 

 prove nothing whatever. As a matter 

 of fact, the effect of the removal of for- 

 ests, (reasoning now deductively) is 

 unquestionably to increase the sudden- 

 ness with which the flood waters are 

 gathered into the streams. It is there- 

 fore fair to believe that such deforesta- 

 tion increases the number and sudden- 

 ness of floods, diminishing also their 

 duration. The damage done by floods 

 clearly does not depend simply upon the 

 number of days of flood. If an area is 

 partly submerged it makes compara- 

 tively little difference whether the sub- 

 mergence lasts four days or ten days, 

 the damage is not thereby increased 

 perceptibly ; but if, after one flood has 

 subsided, there comes another one after 

 an interval of a few months or a few 

 years, although both may be short, the 

 damage will be approximately doubled. 



Other points in Professor Moore's 

 paper might be criticised, but this discus- 

 sion is already too long, and they will be 

 passed over. It is much to be regretted 

 that the head of a presumably scientific 

 department of the government should, 

 while claiming to be in favor of forest 

 preservation, have produced such a 

 paper as the one under consideration, 

 the influence of which — so far as it has 

 any influence — would be to discredit 

 action which, as already stated, depends 

 for its legality upon the effect of forests 

 on the navigability of streams. Profes- 

 sor Moore's paper, in which he practi- 

 cally leaves out of account entirely the 

 question of erosion, which is the most 

 important one of all ; in which he at- 



tempts to prove that on certain streams 

 there has in recent years been no in- 

 crease in floods, but in connection with 

 which discussion he offers no figures 

 regarding the decrease or increase in 

 forested area, and on which, as has 

 been shown, his argument is in many re- 

 spects unscientific and proves nothing; 

 and in which he devotes a large amount 

 of space to the entirely unimportant 

 question of the effect of forests on rain- 

 fall, the general effect of which is to 

 lead the mind to the conclusion which 

 may have been desired, but which cer- 

 tainly has not been proved, that forests 

 are of little value as regulators of flow, 

 is much to be deplored. The matter is 

 one of national importance and simply 

 involves the question whether we shall 

 learn by the experience of other coun- 

 tries, in which deforestation of moun- 

 tain areas has resulted disastrously, or 

 whether, with the rapidly increasing de- 

 mand for wood, we are to allow our 

 mountain forests to be rapidly de- 

 stroyed. The beneficial effect of such 

 forests on the navigability of streams, 

 is, as has been shown, unanimously 

 agreed upon by foreign engineers, al- 

 though of course, no one attempts to 

 state that effect quantitatively. There 

 is, therefore, ample scientific justifica- 

 tion for the acquirement by our govern- 

 ment of forest reserves in the East. 

 The fact that there are many other rea- 

 sons why such forests should be pre- 

 served, some of which may be stronger 

 than the beneficial effect of forests on 

 navigation, is certainly no reason for 

 neglecting to take action whose legality 

 is amply justified by experience. 



