i66 



ARBORICULTURE 



plants were under water. Farms for 

 hundreds of miles along the river were 

 flooded; houses swept away, stock 

 drowned, and vast quantities of feed and 

 produce were ruined. Bridges were 

 torn from their foundations and borne 

 away on the tide. Streams which are 

 but rivulets had their banks overflowed 

 by the back-waters a score of miles from 

 the big river. Steamboats were barred 

 from navigation, for they could not go 

 under any of the bridges, nor reach 

 shore at many landing places. Business 

 was paralyzed, and yet the water contin- 

 ued to rise. 



Lawrcnceburg, which had a strong, 

 high levee about the city, and was sup- 

 posed to be safe, was flooded by the tre- 

 mendous overflow coming in from the 

 Miami and White Water, as their waters 

 flowed in, overtopping the Ohio. 



The several levels of the land along 

 the rivers rise in terraces, fields quarter 

 of a mile wide occupying each terrace. 

 One after the other of these fields were 

 submerged, until cellars upon the third 

 terrace were filled with water. Crops 

 were washed away, and homes had to be 

 vacated. 



Rails from fences, lumber from the 

 yards, logs, bridges, barges torn from 

 their moorings and frame houses were 

 constantly floating by, attracting the at- 

 tention of the wreckers who reap a rich 

 harvest at every rise in the river. From 

 some farmhouse the bank had caved 

 away, carrying with it a brick cemented 

 cistern, and this also floated for miles 

 down the stream until filling with water, 

 it sank. 



A few towns along the Ohio are built 

 upon high bluft's, Rising Sun being one 

 of these; the highest floods cannot reach 

 any but a small area in the lower district, 

 but most of the towns and cities are less 

 favorably situated and these sufifered 

 severely. 



The Cumberland and Tennessee from 

 far separated sources brought their 

 waters, the former from the Cumberland 

 mountains in Tennessee, the latter l)ring- 

 ing the drainage even from Virginia, 

 North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and 

 Mississippi, twice crossing the state of 

 Tennessee, and both rivers pouring their 



floods into the Uhio within a few miles 

 of each other. 



The Wabash and White rivers covered 

 the land between them, forming a vast 

 sheet of water underneath which lay 

 hundreds of fine farms. 



With all the unwelcome pouring of 

 many rivers emptying into the already 

 swollen Mississippi, that river widened 

 its banks and flooded out over Arkansas, 

 forming a river forty utiles zcide. 

 Through the forests and over the fields 

 the steamboats plied on errands of 

 mercy, as a general outpouring of 

 money and provisions from thousands 

 of generous-hearted citizens sent con- 

 tributions in vast quantities to those in 

 distress, for thousands were homeless, 

 having lost everything by tlie breaking 

 of the levees and continued rise of the 

 waters. 



At Memphis the water stood at 37.1 

 feet, while in 1903 it has reached 40 feet, 

 by far the highest ever known, and im- 

 mense damage is being done in Arkansas 

 and elsewhere. 



At New Orleans, in 1897, there was a 

 stage of 17.9 feet, while at this writing, 

 1903, it is 19.6 feet, and still rising. 



Tlic lower Mississippi Valley, from 

 the junction with the Ohio to the delta, 

 is a low, alluvial plain of varying width, 

 the hills approaching the river in but few 

 ]jlaces. At Columbus, Ky., Memphis, 

 Tenn., Vicksburg and Natchez, Miss., 

 and Baton Rouge, La., are high lands for 

 a very short distance. Except these the 

 broad low lands have been formed from 

 the sediment eroded from mountain, val- 

 ley and plain many hundreds of miles 

 away. 



Upon each recurring season of high 

 water the river has spread over the low 

 lands, depositing a layer of mud near the 

 banks, thus raising the river and its em- 

 bankment higher and higher each year, 

 until now, during full tide, the surface 

 is many feet above that of the land. 



In order to prevent this annual over- 

 flow and enable the planters to occupy 

 the rich lands bordering the river, em- 

 bankments or levees have been con- 

 structed at great expense along both sides 

 of the Mississippi and also along all 

 streams througliout these low lands. 



