520 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



about the sources of great rivers and their tributaries, the porous soil, with its 

 mosses and its accumulations of fallen leaves, acts as a vast sponge to retain 

 and slowly deliver the water that falls from the clouds in the form of rain or 

 snow. When the sheltering trees are destroyed and the ground is laid bare, 

 all the water runs off at once ; the brooks that had before flowed continuously 

 and with comparative regularity becoming roaring torrents in spring and dry 

 channels in summer, while the rivers that depend on these sources of supply 

 swell into freshets at one season, and shrink into insignificance at another. 



The recent destructive floods in the north of Italy, and notably along the 

 river Po, with all the misery they have brought, are ascribed, and no doubt 

 with truth, to the partial denudation of. the mountainous country about the 

 sources of streams. The arid and comparatively valueless condition of certain 

 parts of Spain is due to similar causes. It is for us to see, while there is yet 

 time, that similar evils do not fall upon us. That wonderful region of the 

 West, known as the Great Divide, gives birth to the Missouri, the Yellowstone, 

 the Columbia, and Colorado, and the North Fork of the Platte. The preserva- 

 tion of its sheltering forests is of vital interest to all the regions watered by 

 these rivers. The same is true in a different degree, of the sources of many 

 lesser streams within our national territory. Sometimes, as in the case of the 

 Hudson, the source of the river and its whole course, lie within the limits of 

 one State, and the local government is therefore master of the situation. If 

 New York should permit the Adirondack forests to be destroyed, she, and she 

 alone would be answerable for the consequences. But, in most cases, our great 

 rivers rise in one or more States or Territories, to flow through or by the 

 domain of others on their way to the sea. Here the State authorities are 

 powerless, and if the remedy is to be applied at all, it must be applied by the 

 federal gevernment. Momentous interests are at stake, and the welfare of 

 the whole nation demands careful csnsideration of them. 



Effect of Baring Waste Land of Timber. — Superintendent Graham of the 

 Kansas Agricultural College talks upon the same subject treated above with 

 reference to hillsides and creek bottoms: 



We have noticed that in many places in this State the owners of the river 

 and creek bluffs have allowed the timber growing upon them to be cut down, 

 thus leaving a bare, unsightly hill were once it was not only beautiful but 

 useful. 



It seems to us that such things ought not to be. It is true that there is a 

 temporary benefit derived from the wood thus obtained, but it is only temporary; 

 and when the hillsides are cleared of trees, they are generally not only utterly 

 worthless, but their naked state adds materially to the conditions necessary to 

 the spring floods in the adjacent rivers. 



Among the branches of the Rhone in France where this reckless timber cut- 

 ting has been going on from the lower to the higher levels with more or less 

 regularity for 300 years, until the hill and mountain sides were changed from 

 a forest to a bare surface, and the streams from the hills were changed to tor- 

 rents with nothing to restrain their fury, the annual damage became so great 

 that the general government was obliged to take the matter up and try to sup- 

 ply a remedy. 



Recognizing the fact that a torrent was only an aggregation of drops of water, 

 and that the surest way to prevent damage from torrents was to arrest them at 

 their sources, the government adopted the very sensible plan of impeding the 



