IGO FOREST INFLUENCES. 



balk and brush dam of the careful overseer, were attacked by raindrops and rain- 

 born rivulets and gullied and channeled in all directions; each streamlet reached a 

 hundred arms into the hills, each arm grasped with a hundred lingers a hundred 

 shreds of soil, and as each shred was torn away the slope was steepened and the 

 theft of the next storm made easier. 



So, storm by storm and year by year, the old fields were invaded by gullies, gorges, 

 ravines, an<l galches, ever increasing in width and depth until whole hillsides were 

 carved away, until the soil of a thousand years' growtli melted into the streams, 

 until the fair acres of ante-bellum days were converted by hundreds into bad 

 lauds, desolate aud dreary as those of the Dakotas. Over nnich of the iipland the 

 traveler is never out of sight of glaring sand wastes where once were fruitful fields; 

 his way lies sometimes iri, sometimes between gullies and gorges— the ''gulfs" of the 

 blacks whose superstition they arouse, sometimes shadowed by foliage, but oftener 

 exposed to the glare of the sun reflected from barren sands. H<3re the road winds 

 through a gorge so steep that the sunlight scarcely enters, there it traverses a narrow 

 crest of earth between chasms scores of feet deep in which he might be plimged by a 

 sino-le misstep. When the shower comes ho may see the roadway rendered impass- 

 able, even obliterated, withina few minutes; always sees the falling waters accumu- 

 late as viscid mud torrents of brown or red, while the myriad miniature pinnacles 

 and defiles before him are transformed by the beating raindrops and rushing rills 

 so completely that when the sun shines again he may not recognize the nearer 

 landscape. 



This destruction is not^ confined to a single field nor to a single region, but 

 extends over much of the upland. While the actual acreage of soil thus destroyed 

 has not been measured, the traveler through the region on horseback daily sees 

 thousands or tens of thousands of formerly fertile acres now barren sands; and it 

 is probably within the truth to estimate that 10 per cent of upland Mississippi has 

 been so far converted into bad lands as to be practically mined for agriculture 

 Tinder existing commercial conditions, and that the annual loss in real estate 

 exceeds the revenues from all sources. And all this havoc has-been wrought within 

 a quarter century. The processes, too, are cumulative; each year's rate of 

 destruction is higher than the last. 



The transformation of the fertile hills into sand wastes is not the sole injury. 

 The sandy soil is carried into the valleys to bury the fields, invade the roadways, 

 and convert the formerly rich bottom lands into treacherous ciuicksands when wet, 

 blistering deserts when dry ; hundreds of thousands of acres have thus been de- 

 stroyed since the gullying of the hills began a quarter century ago. Moreover, in 

 much of the upland the loss is not alone that of the soil. i. e., the humus represent- 

 ing the constructive product of water- work and plant- work for thousands of years; 

 the mantle of brown loam, most excellent of soil stuffs, is cut through and carried 

 awav by corrosion and sapping, leaving in its stead the inferior soil stuff of the La- 

 fayette formation. In such cases the destruction is irremediable 1»y human craft — 

 the fine loam once removed can never be restored. The area from which this loam 

 is already gone is appalling, and the rate of loss is increasing in a geometric propor- 

 tion. 



The formation of detritiis and deposit in the river beds may also 

 become the cause of dangerous floods in the hirger streams for the 

 amount of rock material and soil which the rivers carry is one of the 

 most potent factors in their water flow. 



Since this detritus is deposited wherever the velocity of the water 

 sinks below that necessary to carry it, forming sand banks and rubbish 

 heaps which obstruct and change the direction of the run, it plays 

 quite an important part in shaping the bed of the river, besides in- 



