274 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



these same forces his obedient and 

 vastly serviceable slaves. 



From the standpoint of those who 

 know, floods are superfluous. There 

 is no more need of the periodical in- 

 undation of great areas of fertile land, 

 the sweeping away of mills, factories, 

 railway tracks and residences, and the 

 destruction of lives by river overflows 

 than there was need for water pour- 

 ing, at every rain, through the roof of 

 the patient native interrogated by the 

 "Arkansas Traveler." The up-to- 

 date man mends his roof before the 

 rain comes. When, as a nation, we 

 get up to date, we will mend our river 

 systems before the floods come. 



No informed man claims that for- 

 ests alone will completely prevent all 

 floods. The forest, however, is a 

 potent factor in flood prevention. 

 Reservoir systems, well understood by 

 engineers, are other factors. Here, as 

 in the case of the roof and the pesti- 

 lence above referred to, the remedy is 

 incomparably less expensive than the 

 disease. Which shall we have? 



Disastrous Two thousand persons 

 Flood in were drowned at Han- 



China kow, China, on the night 



of April I2th, by a sudden freshet 

 which swept down on the city and 

 flowed over the dikes which protect 

 it. The inhabitants asleep in their 

 homes had but little chance of escape. 

 Hankow is a city of 800,000 inhabi- 

 tants, situated at the junction of the 

 Han with the Yang-tse-Kiang, about 

 450 miles west of Shanghai. 



The towns of Craig, Cascade, and 

 Great Falls, Montana, were menaced 

 by a flood that swept down the Mis- 

 souri River on April 15, and great 

 damage, as well as considerable loss 

 of life, occurred along the course of 

 the upper Missouri. The flood was 

 caused bk the breaking of the Great 

 Hauser Lake dam, and this, occurring 

 in the night, gave little opportunity for 

 those exposed to the flood's fury to 

 remove their household goods, their 

 live stock, or, indeed, to save more 

 than their lives. The impounded wa- 



ters had been largely augmented by 

 rains and by the rapidly melting snow 

 from the mountain sides, and the struc- 

 ture of the dam was not strong 

 enough to stand the added strain. The 

 mountain slopes surrounding the 

 Hauser Lake dam site have been prac- 

 tically denuded of forest growth, and 

 there is nothing to prevent the melting 

 snow and the excess rainfall from 

 pouring directly and rapidly into the 

 river and its tributary streams. 



At Great Falls the Boston and Mon- 

 tana smelter, one of the largest in the 

 world, was seriously damaged, while 

 the flood loss along the entire upper 

 reaches of the Missouri, from the 

 breaking of the dam, runs far into the 

 thousands of dollars. 



Peat' Bri- Word comes from the 



quettes for City of Mexico to the 

 Mexico's efifect that an American 



company has undertaken 

 the manufacture of briquettes from 

 peat. The increasing difficulty of sup- 

 plying the capital city of the Repub- 

 lic with wood from neighboring for- 

 ests whence its fuel has come since 

 the days of Cortez, has led to this 

 project of utilizing deposits of peat 

 which have long been known to exist 

 in the vicintiy. 



Eighty years ago Humboldt des- 

 cribed magnificent forests within reach 

 of the City of Mexico. To-day the 

 region supports only a second growth 

 of little value. The change has been 

 brought about by wood cutters and 

 charcoal burners who have stripped 

 the land and left it to reforest itself 

 if it could, or to relapse into waste. 

 Thus neglected, the land could not 

 grow timber to meet the demands up- 

 on it, and the woodcutters have little 

 or nothing near to cut. 



Fortunately large bogs of peat are 

 within reach. It has never been much 

 used for fuel because the Mexicans 

 never took pains to learn how to burn 

 it. The company which has under- 

 taken to manufacture the bog fuel into 

 briquettes has made large investments 

 in land and machinerv. 



