208 



lowed liy .serious drouths, such :is the one of this year, freiiueutly liuishing 

 the destruction of much tluit the tiood may have left. In southern and 

 southeastern Indiana Culbertsou^ states that "less than 10 per cent, of the 

 original forest areas are still left intact,"' and the original forests that do 

 remain have In most instances "not more than oO per cent, of their former 

 number of tree.s." Other parts of the state that were forested are about 

 in the same condition, ("ulbcrtson' also (Umws attention to "the gradual 

 low^eriiig of the ground water level in all porticns of the State" and the 

 re.sults of such a disastrous state of .-iffairs. C'ulbertson'" also points out 

 for the soutJiern iiart of Indiana which lie studied tliat many "streams 

 that thirty years ago furnished aliundant power for mills during ten 

 months of tlie twelve now are even without flowing water for almost half 

 the time." The same state of affairs exists in most of the other deforested 

 parts of Indiana. It is not at all difiicult for one to recall springs and 

 streams that ran vigorously the entire year but which now are either 

 inactive or else run only during the wet season. 



Erosion is .generally oi;e of the most conspicuous .-(ud damaging results 

 of a flood in a deforested region. In lorciun •ountries which have been 

 deforested for a long time, as foi- cxamiile China, great damage has been 

 done. The same tiling I have seen in Italy, a jiart of whose once forested 

 surface is badly cut up by the rush of unchecked floods. Hut in this 

 country, especially in the southern part of Indiana, erosion is very evident 

 and bottom lands that were not ei-oded have been d;nnaged or rendered 

 useless by debris and stones carried down from deforested hills. 



A statement from a United States bureau" shows som(> of the results 

 of erosi(>n. "According to the latest deternunafions (begiiunng with the 

 classic nieasiu'ements of the Mississippi by llumphi'cys and Abbott) the 

 rivers of the mainland United States are annually i)ouring into the seas 

 fully 1,000.(>(MI.(I()(» tons of sediment. This sediment is (•.•uried p.irtly in 

 solution but t;hlefly in suspension, in the ."."..(MHi.obo.POO.OOO cubic feet or 

 more of river water drained from the United States and is additional to 

 the coarser detritus pushed or rolled along the sides of the swifter streams. 

 The volume of matex'ial thus lost to the land is increa.sing with settlement 

 md cultivati(m ; it is almost wholly washed from the surface and is the 



" CulborL;-on, Glenn. Deforctation and lis l^ffects .AriionK (lie Hills of Southern Indiana. Ninth 

 Annual Report of the State Roartl of Forestry, lOOit, p. 6!. 

 ' I. C, p. 65. 

 "■I.e., p. 74. 

 . " Yearbook of the Department of Auriculture, 1907. p. S2. 



