292 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



parison of stream flow of eight principal rivers heading in the Appa- 

 lachians shows that floods are increasing in frequency and duration, al- 

 though the precipitation, as the records show, has remained normal. 

 These rivers are only indicative of what is believed to be a common 

 evil. While the extent of distifrbance of water shed conditions has not 

 been carefully studied, it is well known that lumbering has progressed 

 rapidly over vast areas at the sources of these rivers. But the chief 

 disturbance is not so much attributed to the removal of the timber as 

 to the unfortunate burning over of the most of the lumbered areas. An 

 area more or less cleared of timber would normally recover the character 

 of the forest mat, after two or three years, but repeated fires consume 

 the sponge-like forest floor, expose mineral soil, which becomes less 

 friable, more impervious to moisture and subject to erosion. 



While a forest cover can not absorb ordinarily more than a fraction 

 of an inch of precipitation, floods can not be avoided even with forested 

 water sheds. But the retention for a period of even this relatively 

 small part of the precipitation during a heavy storm ameliorates to 

 some extent the intensity of the flood, and removes enormous volumes 

 of water from the "peak of the load." 



Forest fires, therefoi>e, contribute to some extent, perhaps gi'eat, to 

 the enormous losses by floods and low water to navigation, to agricul- 

 ture, and to business in general. It is even asserted by some that the 

 power industry in the South, capitalized at $20,000,000, is imperiled by 

 altering stream conditions. That the irrigation interests in the West 

 have been injured by the denudation by fires of the mountain sides is a 

 •common belief of the ranchmen. 



The foresters have entered the item that forest fires that do not 

 kill trees outright inflict injuries M^hich retard their growth, permit de- 

 cay fungi to become established, encourage destructive timber beetles, 

 and cause open forests of limby trees with impaired commercial value 

 in place of areas fully stocked producing to their capacity. We find 

 that millions of acres of timber lands, on which great sumjs in taxes 

 were annually paid into the treasuries of states, have now reverted, as 

 worthless because of fires, to these commonwealths. 



Some esthetic person has entered the criticism that we Americans 

 have despoiled our landscapes by forest fires to the extent that we are 

 now compelled to go to Europe to enjoy the beauty of the forests. He 

 urges us, for the highest development of our people, to conserve the 

 natural beauties of this "Land of the Pilgrim's Pride," of which we 

 sing; to protect her "rocks and rills," her "woods and templed hills," 

 her "mountain heights" where "freedom rings." And another person of 

 practical bent has followed this with the statement that attractive scen- 

 ery is worth millions of dollars annually to any state; that the esthetic 

 value of Switzerland is worth on an average of $10,000 per square mile 

 yearly and that we are ruining much of ours, for the time being at least, 

 because of fires. 



There are pages more of the debit column and not a single entry on 

 the credit side, but we will close the book; it is doleful reading. 



