4 AMEKICAN FORESTRY 



The natural blot of which I speak is made up of the swamp lands of the 

 United States. As a nation we require the riches that lie disguised in them. 

 As a people we can not feel that our full duty has been performed until we 

 have made these swamp lands centers of prosperity and comfort for ourselves 

 and those who shall come after. To do this we must again change the face 

 of nature and we must make that change in accordance with nature's laws. 



THE CHARACTEE OF A SWAMP 



What is a swamp? It is merely an area of land which because of 

 some adverse natural conditions, has been deprived of or denied a suitable 

 outlet for its surplus water. That water therefore accumulates in or upon 

 the ground and renders the area too wet for man's comfortable occupation. 

 It also prevents the entrance of air into the ground. Now, air, or the oxygen 

 contained in air, is as essential at the plant roots as it is at the plant leaves, 

 and so it is that in swamps we have a dense wet soil generally stagnant, on 

 which nothing of a very useful character will grow except certain kinds of 

 timber. Food crops, on which we depend for sustenance, can not grow in 

 such soil. 



In the case of naturally well drained land nature has provided suitable 

 water outlets at proper grade. In the case of the swamp she has left this 

 undone and the whole function of man in reclaiming swamp lands is to supply 

 that which nature has neglected. In supplying that need, in remedying that 

 defect, we must be governed by precisely the same laws that nature followed 

 with respect to lands that receive here complete attention. Look at any well- 

 drained river basin, you will find that the main stream and its tributaries 

 are harmoniously adjusted to each other with respect to width, depth, and 

 slope. That portion of the channel in the lower valley has a capacity sufficient 

 to safely carry off the water that may come from the entire drainage area. 

 The small creeks high up on the divide are taken into account in adjusting 

 that capacity. Where one part of a river system joins another part the 

 channel below the junction of the two streams is of the right size to carry 

 the waters of both. There is harmony and unity and an undeviating fitness 

 of all things in the basin. 



Supposing, now, it should occur that the upper part of the basin did not 

 harmonize with the lower part? Supposing, for example, that the upper part 

 were well drained and the lower part poorly drained — what would occur? 

 A proper answer to this question is furnished by the great Mississippi Valley 

 itself. Much of its upper portion is well drained, while its lower part is a 

 flat delta region. The result is a great overflowed and swampy country from 

 Cape Girardeau to the Gulf. Look at the Kankakee basin over in Indiana. 

 Just being awakened after the sleep of centuries. Look at that enormous 

 wheat area in the valley of the Red River of the North, and that vast rich 

 bottom of the Tombigbee in Mississippi and Alabama. These are the very 

 conditions that we are trying to correct by artificial drainage. Yet, in many 

 of our drainage schemes we are endeavoring to perpetuate the very procedure 

 which in nature resulted in swamp conditions. 



'4 



