436 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



FOREST AS AFFECTING THE RAINFALL. 



CHAS. CHRISTADORO, MINNESOTA. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : There is one thing 

 that I would suggest to this association. I would like to see 

 some one deputize, I don't know whom to suggest, to write an 

 exhaustive paper on the question of the influence upon the flow- 

 age and supply of our rivers and headwaters in connection with 

 the growing, or the reforestation, of pine timber generally. The 

 question is, will a river flow, as it has always flown, just as much 

 water — whether there is just as great a reservoir of waters at the 

 headwaters of that river whether the timber is allowed to stand 

 or whether it is cut out. I have talked with various people and 

 had them tell me it made no difference, or very little difference, 

 with the headwaters of a river whether timber grew there or 

 whether it was cut off, that it made no difference whatever upon 

 the storage capacity of the headwaters of that river. I have 

 taken exception to that statement as strongly as I could, but I 

 would like to see that subject treated by some one who would 

 be considered an authority. I would not care to start in on it 

 now, because I might perhaps hold you here for a considerable 

 time. There are many reasons I could detail why that is a most 

 vital and important question affecting 30,000,000 people in the 

 Mississippi Valley. It is a matter that sometimes, it seems to 

 me, is entirely lost sight of. It is a fact today that four governors, 

 Governor La Follette, of Wisconsin; Gov. Yates, of Illinois; Gov. 

 Cummins, of Iowa ; and Gov. Van Sant, of Minnesota, have got- 

 ten their heads together and asked for an appropriation to deepen 

 the channel of the Mississippi river, with the Panama canal loom- 

 ing up in the distance. We have four feet at mean low depth, 

 and we want six, and if we get six and the Panama canal is fin- 

 ished it will mean a great deal for the Mississippi river and the 

 Mississippi Valley. While we are approaching congress and ask- 

 ing for $25,000,000 or $50,000,000 appropriation in the harbor 

 bill, they are cutting out millions of acres of timber at the head- 

 waters of the river, with the exception of five per cent that is 

 left, and every man in the Mississippi Valley is interested in 

 that proposition. Yet I don't think anybody is paying any atten- 

 tion to it. Now if you can show me any sense in cutting out the 

 timber at the headwaters of the river, and affecting the flow of 

 the river unquestionably, on one hand, and on the other ap- 

 pealing to congress for $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 to deepen that 

 river, I want to know where the logic or common sense is in con- 

 nection with that. There is a remedy for it, and it is an historic 

 one ; one man cannot do it, but I think it is a matter of such great 

 interest as to set the people to thinking who are interested in the 

 future of the Mississippi river, and thinking very hard too. I 

 thank you. (Applause.) 



