250 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



State of Illinois. Millions of dollars 

 wasting every year, because the prac- 

 tical American can not see the neccs 

 sity of caring for the forested uplands 

 he already has, and the further neces- 

 sity for reforesting such uplands and 

 slopes as have already been scourged 

 and skinned with the ax and the cross- 

 cut saw. 



There are plenty of men yet active 

 in daily life who can recall the time 

 when freighting on the Wabash River 

 was a regular occupation for scores 

 of men. Strings of flatboats, and 

 heavy barges, propelled by steamers, 

 worked on the Wabash as far up as 

 Lafayette. Indiana ; and their working 

 season ran practically through the 

 year. Today, one may see, occasion- 

 ally, a little sternwheeler, pushing a 

 single barge, carrying corn or coal as 

 far up as Terre Haute — over one hun- 

 dred miles, by river, below Lafayette. 

 And it is only during high water in the 

 spring that even this is to be seen 

 These boats used to run to Cairo, 

 Louisville or Cincinnati : but they have 

 not made such trips in a good many 

 years. Because the Wabash has no 

 longer a permanent channel — the chan- 

 nel that used to be is filled up with silt 

 and sand, with logs and with gravel 

 bars, until what used to be a water- 

 way is now merely a drain, filled and 

 overflowed for miles on either side 

 during the flood periods, and reduced 

 in size to a creek through the rest of 

 the year. 



The expense of dredging and caring 

 for the channels of the Ohio, Missis- 

 sippi, Miami, Kanawha and a few 

 other ^Middle West rivers, and of 

 dredging the harbors and streams of 

 the Atlantic seaboard, is more, in a 

 single year, than the whole sum that 

 would be required to make the north- 

 ern crest of the Appalachians — the 

 White Mountains — a National Forest. 

 Government, municipal, state and pri- 

 vate expenditures for such dredging 

 amount to a sum so stupenduous that, 

 with the money so expended in five 

 years, the crest of the Appalachians, 

 from Maine to the Carolinas, could be 

 made into a National Forest. 



_ , . The question is syllogis- 



of Phases, ^^^ ' ^^ I'^ns thus : i he 

 country needs a system, 

 of waterways, in order that the strain 

 on the railroads, and the country's 

 mineral resources, may be relieved; 

 to make sure and permanent such a 

 waterways system, forested hillsides and 

 mountain crests are necessary. Forest 

 conservation and intelligent reforest- 

 ation mean an equable flow of rivers, 

 an equable distribution of surplus 

 waters, a lessening of the constant 

 strain upon the country's transpor- 

 tation facilities, a lessening of the 

 steady drain upon the coal and iron 

 mines, and a steadily increasing tim- 

 ber supply, as well as a means of pre- 

 venting soil erosion and the conse- 

 quent appalling drain upon the farm 

 fertility of the land. And the answer 

 to the whole question equals a good 

 business proposition— a sound, safe 

 and increasingly valuable investment. 

 These are a few of the things that 

 make the coming White House Con- 

 ference the most momentous conven- 

 tion that has been held in the history 

 of the country. To find correct answers 

 to the big questions that are to be dis- 

 cussed at this Conference will mean 

 more to the country— now, next year^ 

 and the years to come — than all the 

 questions of tariff, of political expedi- 

 ency, of world-relations, that could 

 be discussed in a century. Are the 

 American people practical enough to 

 see and to realize fully the importance 

 of these problems, and the importance 

 of finding solutions for them? x\re 

 the American people practical enough 

 to see the value — present and future — 

 of the investment they are called on ta 

 make? Or are they willing to go 

 ahead, checking against their capital 

 while discounting the interest on that 

 capital, until at some not distant day, 

 the nation awakes to the fact that it is 

 bankrupt, so far as natural re- 

 sources are concerned? 



The Appala- ^^alse reports regarding 



chian Bill the action by the House 



Committee on Judiciary 



on the Appalachian-White Mountain 



