THE INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON CLIMATE AND FLOODS 219 



ment as to the nature of the report. 

 Let us examine it in some detail. 



On the opening page he says, "It 

 has frequently been stated that forests 

 control the flow of streams, both in 

 high-water stages and in low-water 

 stages, '■' * *." This statement may 

 be technically correct but is certainly 

 misleading since it is not generally con- 

 tended to-day that forests control but 

 only that they strongly inflncnce in a 

 beneficial way the high and low water 

 flow. If they controlled the flow pre- 

 sumably floods would be unknown. 



Page 4 is misleading inasmuch as 

 nobody proposes either to reforest or 

 to keep forested lands that would sub- 

 serve a higher usefulness as agricultu- 

 ral lands than they would as forest 

 lands. The lands it is proposed to 

 keep in forest are either those too 

 rough to be of any agricultural value 

 or those too steep to be cleared because 

 of the danger of rapid erosion and ruin 

 and the consequent destruction of lower 

 lying lands and other property in the 

 same drainage basin as well as to the 

 streams themselves and navigation in- 

 terests from silting and increased de- 

 struction due to floods. Lands so steep 

 that under present careless methods of 

 agriculture they are properly classed as 

 forest lands may by improved cultural 

 methods gradually come to be agricul- 

 tural lands and so provide in the future 

 for the time when population presses 

 upon subsistence, but at present in the 

 Southern Appalachians the people 

 would be better ofif if they cultivated 

 less land rather than more land. Pro- 

 fessor Moore's phrase "the pleading of 

 the poor man's children for bread and 

 meat" used in the same connection on 

 page 4 as an argument for further de- 

 forestation does not apply to conditions 

 in the Appalachians and so is not pa- 

 thetic, however well it may sound. 



Nor would "homes and a well-fed 

 people take the place of wild animals 

 and the wilderness" as Professor Moore 

 would lead one to suppose but rather 

 a desolate waste would soon result, 

 rain-scarred on the slopes and flood- 

 swept in the valleys. Such destructive 



processes are actively at work to-day 

 in these mountains and would only be 

 made worse by adopting his proposals 

 for further deforestation. 



Near the bottom of page 4 the state- 

 ment "It is found that in sonic limited 

 areas where the forest is cleared away, 

 the soil, owing to its nature and slope, 

 will not admit of successful cultiva- 

 tion," — (italics the present writer's) — 

 is misleading. The writer would like 

 to know how Professor Moore found 

 that such areas are so limited. Per- 

 sonal examination shows that at least 

 two-thirds and perhaps three-fourths of 

 the southern mountain area will not ad- 

 mit of successful cultivation under 

 ])resent methods of agriculture and 

 probably half of it could not be safel\- 

 cultivated under any improved methods 

 of farming likely to be introduced for 

 years to come. The phrase "some 

 limited areas" is therefore misleading 

 in that it unduly minimises the extent of 

 the non-agricultural area and tends to 

 iDelittle the problem that demands solu- 

 tion. It would seem to be merely the 

 jiiersonal opinion of its author and is not 

 supported b}' the facts in the case. 



On the top of page 5 it is admitted 

 that such areas would be fit places for 

 national control if it can be demon- 

 strated that conditions there materially 

 afifect the navigability of streams. An 

 examination of the Tennessee made by 

 the zvriter does show that intich material 

 eroded from the steep mountain slopes 

 is accumulating in the navigable reaches 

 of that river and is injuriously affecting 

 navigation. This material tends to fill 

 the deeper pools, to lodge on the shal- 

 lozc bars, to obliterate dredged channels, 

 and to aid in the grozvth of islands, the 

 displacement of the channel, and the 

 undercutting and caving of the banks. 



Pages 5 to 15 discuss the effects 

 of forests on climate particularly with 

 regard to their influence on rainfall and 

 on temperature. So far as the writer 

 knows no one is claiming that there has 

 been any such serious change in the 

 rainfall or in the temperature in either 

 the Northern or the Southern Appa- 

 lachians as a result of deforestation, as 



