FOREST PERPETUATION AND 

 WATER SUPPLIES 



f N an article in the Manufacturers' 

 * Record for January 2, on Forest 

 Perpetuation in its Relation to South- 

 ern Water Powers. Air. John H. Fin- 

 ney, associate member of the American 

 Institute of Electrical Engineers, says : 

 "A prominent Southern engineer. 

 Mr. W. S. Lee, estimates that defores- 

 tation already done has cut down •.'a<: 

 capacity of our streams not less than 

 40 per cent. This is entirely due to 

 the longer and more damaging fiooci 

 periods, which have necessitated ex- 

 cessive costs for dams sufficient!}/ 

 heavy to withstand them, besides giv- 

 ing longer drought periods, decreasing 

 enormously at such times the minimum 

 flow of the river, on which^ without 

 artificial reservoir capacity, the pov/er 

 development must be based. 



"When one considers the splend'd 

 contribution to the industrial South 

 that has been made by its power plants 

 and the economic value which they 

 mean to our mills and manufacturing 

 interests, which value grows more im- 

 portant and far-reaching each year, as 

 coal becomes scarcer and dearer, one 

 can get some idea of the importance 

 of forests to these industries, and, 

 through them, to the entire South. 



"Apart from the menace to our 

 Vv^ater powers, there exists, through 

 the same causes, a very real danger 

 to the water supply of our cities and 

 towns, from the standpoint of both 

 quantity and quality ; our streams are 

 not naturally silt-bearing, but their 

 condition and appearance now, con- 

 trasted with their condition a short ten 



Dam filled with silt, in the Tonto Basin, Arizona — Tonto Na- 

 tional Forest will prevent such occurrences in future 



See Forest Service Department in this magazine 



