ARBORICULTURE 



255 



WHY WE HAVE CLOUDBUKSTS. 

 Chicngo Intzr Ocean. 



John P. Brown, Secretary of the Inter- 

 national Arboriculture Association, set 

 forth in the Inter Ocean, recently, why 

 he felt sure that America was threatened 

 with an era of floods. 



In accounting for the cloudbursts so 

 frequent in recent years, he said: "Ex- 

 cessive rainstorms are the result of elec- 

 trical disturbances, and electrical storms 

 are caused largely by the absence of trees 

 in large bodies." 



On the same morning were published 

 accounts of terrific rainstorms in South 

 Carolina, destroying 150 lives and a vast 

 amount of property ; a cloudburst in West 

 Virginia, which destroyed two towns; 

 downpours of rain in Indiana that flooded 

 several towns, and excessively heavy 

 storms in other States. 



Every day for two weeks there has 

 been a record similar to this. It has 

 been, in truth, a season of .cloudbursts 

 and heavy and sudden rainstorms, and 

 nearly all of the storms or cloudbursts 

 have occurred in the treeless districts 

 of States like Kansas and Nebraska, or in 

 districts in South Carolina, Ohio and In- 

 diana that have been stripped of their 

 trees. 



Thirty years ago we heard of few 

 cloudbursts outside of the mountain dis- 

 tricts. The theory then was that the 

 clouds, after sweeping across the plains, 

 struck the cool mountain sides, and there 

 precipitated water in floods. Now, how- 

 ever, we have these cloudbursts occurring 

 in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, as well as 

 in the mountain States. 



In 1885 a cloudburst destroyed the 

 town of Paso de Cuarenta, Mexico, and 

 175 lives were lost. Five years later a 

 cloudburst on the Yang-tse Eiver, in 

 China, drowned 100 persons. These 

 were notable events then. Mr. Brown, 

 in his article on Sunday, contended that 

 the conditions in this country were ap- 

 proaching those that have prevailed for 

 many years in China. This may not be 

 true, but cloudbursts on the very day 

 that his article was published were as de- 

 structive of life and property as the 



cloudburst in Mexico in 1885 and the 

 cloudburst in China five years later. 



Of the recorded cloudbursts in this 

 country from 1874 to 1885, more than 

 half were in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and 

 Arizona. But the most destructive was 

 near Pittsburg, Pa., in which 134 lives 

 were lost and property to the value of 

 $500,000 was destroyed. 



In one day in 1885 over sixty storms 

 of wind and rain prevailed in territory 

 between Illinois and the Atlantic. These 

 storms destroyed 10,000 buildings, killed 

 800 persons and wounded over 2,500. In 

 nearly every case the fiercest storms were 

 in the treeless districts. 



The events of every flood year since 

 1885, crowned by the disasters of the 

 last month, give force to the contention 

 that the destruction of forests has mul- 

 tiplied cloudbursts and floods, and that 

 to bring about a change in conditions 

 we must plant trees not by the thousand, 

 but by the million. 



FORESTS AND FLOODS. 

 Birmingham, Ala,, News. 



Mr. John P. Brown, Secretary of the 

 International Society of Arboriculture, 

 contributes quite an interesting article 

 to the Chicago Inter Ocean upon forests 

 and their bearing upon flood conditions. 

 Mr. Brown has devoted forty years' study 

 to the subject which he discusses. His 

 views cannot be dismissed, therefore, as 

 would those of an empiric. The present 

 floods, he says, are the result of forest 

 denudation, and the country is entering 

 upon a long period of floods. He makes 

 the direful prediction that in half a cen- 

 tury the most fertile regions of the 

 United States will be sterile. The de- 

 cline in productiveness of China he as- 

 cribes to its lack of trees. Yet America 

 has destroyed more timber in sixty years, 

 according to Mr. Brown, than China 

 made away with in 3,000 years. Com- 

 menting on this article, the Inter Ocean 

 says: 



"Putting aside Mr. Brown's dire 

 prophecies, it must be admitted that 

 present conditions are very much as he 

 represents them in this article. Formerly 



