STATE OWNERSHIP OF FOREST LANDS 959 



public ownership. It is a fact that both municipal water-supply cor- 

 porations and municipalities themselves have generally found that 

 actual ownership rather than regulation is necessary to prevent con- 

 tamination of water supplies used for domestic purposes. It has been 

 found that satisfactory policing of the watersheds which supply potable 

 waters can be secured only under direct ownership by the public or 

 private interest which is vitally concerned. The obvious fact has also 

 been found to be true that woodland rather than farm land or pasture 

 afifords the most effective safeguard against discoloration of water by 

 eroded soil particles and against contamination by the germs of con- 

 tagious diseases. It is interesting to note that on lands owned by 

 water-supply corporations, both public and private, intensive and very 

 interesting silvicultural measures have proven practical, because the 

 project of forest production is free of any debit for the value of the 

 land, that value being charged against the primary purpose for which 

 the land is owned, namely, water production. As with lands needed 

 for purposes of recreation, public acquisition of lands actually required 

 to protect waters used for domestic purposes is desirable. In every 

 case, however, the cause of sound democratic government demands 

 that the necessity for the purchases be accurately determined and 

 clearly understood by the body politic. 



The admission of erosion and sedimentation alone as an argument 

 for land purchase, however, apart from its bearing upon the need of 

 protecting domestic water supplies, is a different matter. Erosion in 

 itself is no evil except as it depletes the fertility of the soils eroded, and 

 since the soil is valuable only for what it will produce, consideration of 

 this aspect of the problem may be included with that of timber produc- 

 tion. Both the clogging of river beds with eroded sediments, resulting 

 in the formation of sand-bars and the destruction of fertile bottom 

 lands by the deposition of sands and gravels, cause serious losses; but 

 projects of forest acquisition and protection are not justified as reme- 

 dial measures unless they yield benefits commensurate with their cost 

 and are the most efficient means of accomplishing these benefits. Ero- 

 sion and sedimentation are intimately related to the problem of exces- 

 sively high and excessively low waters, but reservoirs and similar engi- 

 neering construction rather than forests have been found under many 

 sorts of conditions to be the effective instruments for stream control. 

 Reservoirs are also essential for increasing the amount of water which 

 flows in streams, and it is important to know that measurements have 

 not indicated that the flow of streams rising in forested areas averages 

 appreciably greater than that of streams rising on cleared lands of 



