DIVISION OF FORESTRY. 163 



the purpose of preserving intact the headwaters of mountain streams 

 and regulating their flow than for the timber on it. 



Inquiry into the experiences of settlers on the eastern slope of the 

 Colorado mountain range, where the supply of water for irrigation 

 ditches is a necessity for agricultural pursuits, and where, therefore, 

 special attention is paid to water-flow, reveals the fact, that many 

 mountain streams which used to have a constant, more or less even 

 flow, have at times given place to dry beds, while at other seasons 

 precipitating a torrential mass of water into the plain below. In 

 Greeley and its surroundings the deficiency of water in the irrigation 

 ditches has become alarmingly serious, and the cattle interest all along 

 the mountain ranges begins to experience the inconvenience of dimin- 

 ished watering facilities, going hand in nand with the destruction by 

 fire and ax of the forest cover on the adjacent mountains. From relia- 

 ble sources of information we hear of similar complaints in Southern 

 California. 



The safety of water-reservoirs, which by engineers are considered 

 the ultimate requirement for the development of the agricultural 

 possibilities of these regions, whatever we may think' of the practica- 

 bility of such storage systems, will be subserved by securing a more 

 gradual and less destructive discharge of atmospheric precipitations 

 into the reservoirs, a result naturally produced by the spongy forest 

 cover. Nor should it be overlooked that the water slowly draining 

 through moss and vegetable mold carries with it for the use of agri- 

 cultural crops no meali amount of fertilizing matter. 



In regard to the relation of forest destruction to water-flow and 

 agricultural deterioration we might again cite the often-repeated ex- 

 perience of older nations in Asia and Europe; but as the conditions 

 in our country differ in important particulars from those prevailing 

 elsewhere, exception to inferences drawn from that source might rea- 

 sonably be taken. 



While — thanks to our more favorable conditions of configuration 

 and our less closely worked soil — we are by no means anywhere near 

 such conditions of devastation as those experienced by Southern 

 France, Switzerland, and the Tyrol, where, to preserve the agricultu- 

 ral lands below from devastation by water, many million dollars have 

 been expended, and are still expended yearly, for the costly building 

 of dams and for difficult reforestation, yet such conditions are merely 

 dependent upon time and continued negligence; and we had better de- 

 cide now whether the policy of unconcern shall be abandoned, and 

 whether by simple protection and preservation of the existing forest 

 cover great loss and the expenditure of millions in the future shall be 

 saved to the nation. That such important interests may safely be 

 intrusted to the care of the private individual, whose life is short and 

 whose cgncern is for to-day, nobody can reasonably assert. That 

 such use of the forest can be secured only if kept in the hands of the 

 whole nation (^. e., the General Government or the individual State 

 governments) lies in the nature of things, as the State alone will be 

 found capable of managing a large property for other purposes than 

 to realize its direct money value. The objection of expense raised 

 against such measures as have been proposed for the preservation and 

 protection of Government timber lands is frivolous in view of the mag- 

 nitude of the interests at stake, and the practicability of organizing a 

 service to prevent spoliation of these forests and to manage them as 

 shelter forests in the interest of the regions in which they are situated, 

 may be made apparent by a sketch of such an organization in detail. 



