418 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



increasing in duration, in frequency and in severity. For 

 instance, we are told that in the year 1900, the losses 

 from floods was some $45,000,000. That this loss steadily 

 grew year by year, until in 1908 it was more than $237,- 

 000,000 ; and we are further told that this annual waste 

 is constantly increasing and will yet increase until care 

 of our forests and reforestation again provides our hills, 

 mountains, and water sheds with that protection which 

 was theirs by nature's provision and which alone prevents 

 floods. 



Speaking of water sheds 

 reminds us to call attenticm 

 to the unusual and inter- 

 esting topography of the 

 State of New York, the 

 water sheds of which in 

 very fact make it the Em- 

 pire State. On our north- 

 ern border from the ex- 

 treme west to the far east 

 ■our streams find the way 

 into the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence ; on our eastern 

 slope the Housatonic River 

 •empties into the Long Is- 

 land Sound ; the Hudson 

 River into New York 

 Bay ; on our southern side 

 the Delaware River into 

 Delaware Bay; the Sus- 

 quehanna River into Ches- 

 apeake Bay ; and the Alle- 

 gheny and Ohio Rivers 



into the Gulf of Mexico. All of these streams with a 

 southerly direction are subject to more and longer floods; 

 the responsibility of the State of New York is distinctly 

 far-reaching and of wide proportions. 



Another destructive feature from want of a proper 

 proportion of forests is denudation — the washing away 

 of the soil itself; the loss from denudation like the loss 

 from floods is enormous every year and these losses are 

 steadily on the increase. The authority last cited gives 

 our yearly loss from denudation as over 270,000,000 tons 

 of dissolved matter and 513,000,000 tons of suspended 

 matter. This total of 783,000,000 tons represents more 

 than 353,000.000 cubic yards of rock substance, or 610,- 

 000,000 cubic yards of surface soil. If this erosive action 

 had been concentrated upon the Isthmus of Panama at the 

 time of American occupation, it would have excavated the 

 prism for an eighty-five- foot level canal in about seventy- 

 three days. Space will not permit us to present exhaus- 

 tively many of the important arguments of this case; the 

 economic value of inland water transportation ; the im- 

 portance of the constant flow of springs and streams ; the 

 importance of our large investments for purposes of irri- 

 gation ; why in so many countries deserts replace civiliza- 

 tion ; the prevention of droughts and hurricanes ; why 

 this matter should have a prominent place in all medical 

 colleges where preventive medicine is properly taught ; the 

 proportions of forests to farm lands in various places ; 



RESOLUTION ASKING MEDICAL SOCIETIES TO 

 URGE A STUDY OF FORESTRY 



Resolved, That the Medical Society of the County of 

 Erie, State of New York, hereby makes record of its 

 conviction that to Americans the subject of forestry is a 

 matter of enormous vital significance ; that to the medical 

 profession of America the subject should appeal as to 

 no other group of our citizens; that record should be 

 made and repeated by medical societies, county, State 

 and National, urging upon those in authority the im- 

 portance of the most intelligent study of this question 

 of forestry to the end that suitable action by our govern- 

 ments, State and National, be taken in this our most 

 vital problem. And be it 



Resolved, That these resolutions be transmitted under 

 the seal of this society to the Medical Society of the 

 State of New York, with the request that the same receive 

 due consideration, and if approved that the matter be 

 brought to the attention of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation at its ne.xt meeting. 



[The above resolution was presented by the Committee 

 on Public Health to the Medical Society of the County 

 of Erie, N. Y., and passed at its last meeting.] 



each of these is a subject on which interesting paragraphs 

 or chapters could be written. 



The purely economic side of the subject alone makes 

 it a matter of transcendent importance. Add to this 

 the relation of forests to business, to the manufacturer, 

 and the arts of civilized life, and the question becomes 

 second to none in supreme and all-embracing significance. 

 And yet we believe that more intelligent consideration 

 will show that a more important relation of the forests 

 to mankind is biological rather than economic — the exist- 

 ence of human life, the 

 perfection of mankind, the 

 prevention of disease ; this 

 is the more important side 

 of our subject, the side 

 that should and does ap- 

 peal to medical men and 

 the side which medical 

 men should intelligently, 

 emphatically, and persist- 

 ently acclaim. 



This dogmatic statement 

 is based upon a considera- 

 tion of the role played by 

 forests in the production 

 of climate and the impor- 

 tance of climate — air, light, 

 humidity, and temperature, 

 the environment of man, 

 the factor of supreme im- 

 portance in man's exist- 

 ence and welfare. 



[Note. — After making 

 the above address at the meeting of the Medical Society 

 of the County of Erie, N. Y., Dr. Hopkins presented the 

 resolution accompanying this article.] 



SAVING DAMAGE TO THE FOREST 



THE system of forest fire prevention in use in Ver- 

 mont has now been given sufficient trial to dem- 

 onstrate its efficiency, and the results are most 

 encouraging. Not only has a smaller percentage of Ver- 

 mont's forest area been burned over during the past few 

 years than in adjoining States, but the expense of fire 

 fighting has been relatively less. 



The law provides that the expense of fighting forest 

 fires is borne by the town in which it occurs, but if in 

 any one year this expense exceeds 5 per cent of the grand 

 list the balance is paid by the State. In the unorganized 

 towns the State bears the whole expense, since the taxes 

 come to the State. In the year 1908, before the estab- 

 lishment of the Forestry Department, the State of Ver- 

 mont spent $9,039.32 in this way. During the seven years 

 since the establishment of the department the total cost 

 for this work has been $5,565.15, or an average of $795 

 a year. 



