Current Literature. 307 



"To be more specific, the statements that lessened summer flow, greater 

 floods, or the shoaling of channels, because of deforestation, have come 

 to the water powers of the Merrimack or to the navigation of the Hudson, 

 rest on fancy and not on fact. 



"It is my belief, based on many years' observation, that the lumbering 

 and the clearing for agriculture that have been going on in these Eastern 

 mountain regions for the past hundred years have not measurably affected 

 the flow in flood or drought of any important rivers of the White Moun- 

 tains or of the Adirondack region, and probably not of those of the South- 

 ern Appalachians. 



"I was born almost within the edge of the White Mountain forests, was 

 for ten years engineer with a water-power company on the Merrimack, 

 and have had occasion to study stream-flow conditions carefully in certain 

 parts of the Adirondacks and in the heart of the North Carolina mountains. 



"The daily flow of the Merrimack probably has been observed with pre- 

 cision for a longer period than any other large American river, and these 

 precise measurements reveal no progressive increase in intensity of flood 

 or drought and no decrease of average flow. 



"Why should they? Traverse the highways and climb the hills and 

 estimate the percentage of cleared land. You will find it surprisingly 

 small. Note the abandoned fields and pastures that have grown up to 

 woods. It takes 40 years to grow a good pine, and from 100 to 200 years 

 to grow a good stock of spruce timber, but go where the lumberman has 

 been but five or ten years ago in these Eastern mountains and see how 

 soon the scars that he left are healed. There are some small regions of 

 special sterility where the fire has followed him and made a deeper scar, 

 but the percentage of area in these is small. The sprout land is nearly 

 as efficient as timberland for stream flow. The cutting out of scattered 

 merchantable spruce, hemlock, balsam or pine, from among the large 

 hardwood growth, as I have observed it in the heart of the Adirondacks, 

 can make no very material change in the melting of the snow or in the 

 rapidity with which the rainfall reaches the river. 



"In these particular regions, Nature frowns on agriculture and there 

 can never be the broad denudation and change into bald prairie that we 

 find, for example, in the Genessee Valley, and the more of thrifty hardy 

 farmers in the mountains, the less chance that forest fires will run riot, 

 and destroy the sponge-like humus which it may have taken hundreds of 

 years to accumulate and which promotes the forest growth. I beg you 

 not to misunderstand me. There is no more ardent lover of the woods 

 than I, etc. 



"After a while, by comparing districts of similar rainfall and topography, 

 and substrata, wooded and unwooded, or before and after close cutting, 

 we could get some precise information on forest influences. 



"One frequent error has come from a failure to differentiate between 

 different conditions of climate and porous soil, and to make too specific 

 an application of what may be true on the average. The statements re- 

 garding the Merrimack and the Hudson which I have criticised as without 

 foundation in fact may very likely be true of some drainage areas in a 

 more arid region." 



The speaker then refers to the "Sinful encouragement of fires," 

 by the methods of lumbering - , and cites figures on the burning of 

 brush, 25 to 50 and 75 cents per M feet, and asks : 



"Does not the benefit to posterity warrant this tax?" We ought not 

 to be too hasty in answering, but one who has tramped over a recent 

 burn will be inclined to say, "Yes," and that the action of the lumbermen 



