18 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Price will ilepend wholly upon cost of production, and the items 

 will be known and counted. The change is under way now. The 

 I'oiestor is beginiiiiiir to produce timber; but thus far he has not 

 been able to conijiete with timber that grew without costing anybody 

 anything. Tlie wild timber is still regulating lumber prices, but 

 before a great while the woodlot and the protected forest will do 

 that. Prices must gradually go up to cover the increasing cost of 

 ji reduction. 



There is no occasion to sound an alarm or predict catastrophes. 

 The change that is coming will be so gradual that everybody can 

 get used to it. No one will be taken by surprise; but nevertheless 

 the change will come, and the first effects will soon be noticed. 



There is land enough in this country to supply lumber to everyone 

 who can pay the price. Foresters and woodlot owners can grow 

 from 1.50 to 400 board feet per acre every year. That is two or 

 three times as much as Nature is in the habit of doing in her 

 haphazard way on wild land when; all sorts of trees, good, bad, and 

 indifferent, are mixed. 



When a farmer has paid taxes and other expenses for fifty years 

 on a woodlot, while it is getting ready for the saw, he will count 

 the cost when he fixes the price on sale day, and the purchaser will 

 have to ])ay it, because he can not buy timber any cheaper else- 

 where. The lumber business and all the wood-using industries of 

 this country are moving slowly and surely toward that end. 



Forest Conditions and Stream Flow 



T-Ili:; TIIIKTEEXTH .\NNUAL BEPORT of the Indiana State 

 A Hoard of Forestry recently published contains a paper by Glenn 

 *'ulbertson of Hanover College discussing the effect on stream flow 

 which may be traced to deforestation among the hills of southern 

 Indiana. Historical evidence is cited to show that jjrofound changes 

 have taken place. The original forests were unbroken in that region; 

 but lumber operations and clearing land have reduced the wooded 

 areas ninety per cent and the remaining stands have been thinned 

 and culled until at this time they contain less than one-third of 

 tlie number of trees that formerly grew there. The changes which 

 have taken place in the flow of streams and in wells and springs 

 are remarkable and are matters of common knowledge among the 

 people. In times of drought many springs and wells go dry which 

 formerly did not do so. In many instances water must be hauled 

 one or two miles to supply farm stock during rainless periods. 

 Before the hills and ravines were* bared of trees this was not 

 necessary. 



Formerly the streams rose slowly after a rain, and the flow was 

 regular and lasted until the next rain. Now the flood comes 

 with a rush and is quickly gone. It sweeps down the slopes while 

 rain is falling, and has little time to soak into the soil; conse- 

 quently, none is stored beneath the surface of the ground to feed 

 the springs and wells during succeeding spells of dry weather. 

 Speaking particularly of certain water courses under his imme- 

 diate observation, Mr. Culbertson says that within the past ten 

 years these streams have repeatedly had record making floods. 

 ' ' The average immediate run-off of such streams as obtain their 

 water supply from the hills referred to, ' ' he continues, ' ' must have 

 varied enormously with the change from the completely forested 

 condition of the past to that of the present. Then there was an 

 universal leaf mulch and a deep, porous soil filled with roots and 

 decaying vegetation. As compared to that, there is now a compact 

 sod, a shallow and very compact clay on rock surface. The average 

 annual immediate run-off from these streams today is at least fifty 

 per cent greater than that from the same region under the forested 

 conditions of the past. In many parts of the state wells are being 

 driven to greater and greater depths in the endeavor to obtain a 

 permanent water supply for mills and factories as well as for 

 farm animals." 



The changing conditions of flowing streams should be studied 

 locally, as Mr. Culbertson is doing. It can be done to better 

 advantage in that way than by attempting to include too much 

 country in the observations. The clearing of a drainage basin, 

 even if but a few miles in area, affords the means of determining 



the effects on the habits of the stream that drains the basin. If 

 it flowed steadily before the clearing and was spacmodic afterwards 

 — now flooded, now dry — it is logical to conclude that the change 

 resulted from the removal of the forest. This has been shown 

 again and again in all parts of the country where forests have 

 been removed. It is common knowledge with most of the people 

 acquainted with the history of such districts; but, unfortunately, 

 few exact records have been kept in the past showing the flow 

 of small streams. It is therefore impossible in most instances to 

 procure precise data in the form of figures. 



Every phase of the subject of the relation of stream-flow to 

 forests, where investigations have been made, shows that the stream 

 responds quickly and unmistakably to changes in forest cover. 

 Probably no competent investigator now holds any other view. 

 The complete collapse of the weak effort made a few years ago 

 by Willis Moore, the Chief of the Weather Bureau, to prove that 

 forests did not affect the flow of streams, apjjarently ended all 

 attempts of anti -conservationists to show that forests could be 

 destroyed without lessening the usefulness of the streams which 

 drain the region. 



Large rivers respond to changes in forest cover less clearly than 

 small creeks, because in large basins there are nearly always com- 

 pensating factors. Wliile some of the tributary streams are pouring 

 out sudden floods, others are running low, and one part of the 

 drainage basin offsets the other in the lower reaches of the main 

 river. Sometimes, however, as in the case of the Ohio floods last 

 winter, all of the small streams rise at once, and the results of 

 deforestation are then seen over extensive areas. 



A New Phase of Conservation 



T T HAS BEEN ADVOCATED by rabid conservationists, since that 

 •I' movement in its most idealistic phases began, that conservation 

 consists of planting little trees where big trees once grew, and tend- 

 ing them with tender care until they reached maturity and merchant- 

 able sizes at some distant period when the original investors would 

 have since passed or failed in their examinations for entrance at the 

 golden gate. The practical phases of the proposition were never 

 given due consideration by a great many of the so-called conserva- 

 tionists, and they have never taken the trouble or had the foresight 

 to see this broad question in all of its various phases. 



Conservation from a new viewpoint is shown in the state of Wis- 

 consin, where there are thousands of acres of cut-over land which, 

 if the conservationists of the more rabid sort had their way, would 

 be with great labor and expense planted to young seedlings. How- 

 ever, the more practical minds of the owners of this vast acreage 

 have realized that conservation means more than the mere planting 

 of trees or regeneration through natural channels. They have re- 

 alized that conservation is essentially a money-making proposition 

 and that the only true way to conserve is to husband the actual 

 monetary possibilities dormant in any national resource. As a con- 

 sequence, instead of entering upon a long series of planting expedi- 

 tions, they have converted their land into money in the quickest 

 possible manner by inviting immigration into the state through most 

 favorable offers. As a matter of fact, in the last few months there 

 have been sold in the state of Wisconsin something like 500,000 acres 

 of cut-over timberland, all of this territory being opened up to new 

 settlers. Surely no one will argue that this is not conservation, in- 

 asmuch as the land, although not strictly agricultural soil, can be 

 made to yield good crops by the proper application, and inasmuch 

 as this development of the country will give to it more real wealth 

 and more remimerative development for the future than would the 

 mere planting of trees. 



Of course it is not to be argued that tree planting and natural 

 seedling planting in their proper spheres are not to be commended 

 under practical conditions and can not be turned to profit, but the 

 practical demonstration of up-to-date conservation which has been 

 shown in Wisconsin is an enlightening example of what hard-headed 

 business men can accomplish if they are not tied by idealistic laws 

 forced onto the statute books by impractical idealists. 



